The creation of mechanical watches was of great importance for the history of technology. It's not so much that people have at their disposal a convenient device for measuring time. The influence of this invention was incomparably broader. The watch was the first automatic device, created for practical purposes and widely distributed. For three centuries they remained the most complex technical device and, like a magnet, attracted the creative thought of mechanics. There was no other such field of technology where so much ingenuity, knowledge and wit would be applied, as in the creation and improvement of the clockwork mechanism. Therefore, it will not be a big exaggeration to say that the XIV-XVII centuries in the history of technology passed under the sign of hours ....