Our ship is an elaborately crafted model made of gilded copper and iron, which stands about one metre (40 inches) high. … Its intricate inner workings did once create noise, smoke and movement. … This fantastical mechanical galleon is one of the grandest executive toys of the European Renaissance, and it sums up not just shipbuilding in Europe but Europe itself between 1450 and 1650. … In the course of those 200 years Europe’s view of the world and its place in it was completely transformed.

Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 1…, loc. 1171