Museo Galileo
italiano
Virtual Museum
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Contrate wheel
Contrate wheel

Verge-escapement wheel with saw-teeth set at right angles to its plane. Meshes with the verge pallets. Commonly described as a Catherine wheel in the seventeenth century, a reference to the medieval iconography of the martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, in which the instrument of torture is often depicted with two toothed wheels, similar to those of the ancient twin-wheel escapement.