Mechanical Marvels. While medieval Europeans professed the desire to emulate Rome (or rather their idealized vision of it), their worldview had changed to such a degree that in striving to achieve their goal, they inadvertently took another, more impressive, course and created a world that in many ways surpassed their model. Not only did they harness animals, wind, and water, and build monumental structures in entirely new forms, but they also created objects that surpassed those of the Romans in their intricacy and subtlety. It has been said that Rome marshaled great masses to provide great forces to create great constructions —for instance, the Coliseum or the Pantheon. Medieval Europeans took a different route: they marshaled mechanical ingenuity to do more with less labor. By the end of the Middle Ages, Europe was filled with mechanical marvels that ancient...