Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical clock with separate mechanisms for hours and minutes.
Leonardo’s clock studies included gears, weights, escapement ideas, and arrangements intended to improve the separation of timekeeping functions. One notable design used distinct trains for the hour and minute indications, an approach that could make the displays more independent and easier to regulate.
Renaissance clocks were usually mechanical devices powered by falling weights or springs. They were different from water clocks, sundials, and hourglasses, which measure time through flowing water, the Sun’s position, or falling sand. Leonardo did not invent mechanical clocks, but he investigated ways to refine their mechanisms.
His clock drawings are valuable because they show how he analyzed complex systems through detailed gear diagrams. As with many Leonardo inventions, the surviving plans do not prove that every proposed mechanism was constructed or worked exactly as drawn.