With the exception of scales, the production and trade of instruments originated from a wide range of other activities, including watch making, turning, engraving and fusion. A small group of professionals of such trades dedicated to the creation of instruments, thus developing a specialised production. This was a slow process and the association between the fabrication of instruments, watch making, and precision mechanics in general, continued well beyond the 18th century. The fabrication of equipment was characterised not only by different techniques and their knowledge, but also constituted an integral part of its core matter. In spite of this, there was a clear tendency towards specialisation.
Towards the end of the 16th century there was a decline in the number of artisans who produced instruments as well as watches or machines for construction, compared to the beginning of the century. This evolution has to be attributed to the expansion of activities and probably reflects a more extensive specialisation of functions in applied mathematics.
Florid trade requires stable demand
During the Renaissance, throughout Europe one of the cornerstones of the successful fabrication of instruments was the ability to satisfy growth in demand, through the production of semi-standardised instruments, while at the same time the use of skills required to innovate and develop specific tools for special orders. Although we have some information on quantities or batches produced, for example those regarding Georg Hartmann's astrolabe factory in Nuremberg, it is probable that in the 16th century, laboratories smaller than those ones of Hartmann, of Christoph Schissler the Elder, Hans Christoph Schissler the Younger or Walter Arsenius, were characterised by limited supplies; instruments were probably only fabricated upon order.
Scientific nature and ornamental value
During the Renaissance, aesthetics played an important part in determining the size and the models of high quality scientific instruments, which can be divided into two categories: those proposing new solutions, designed by a scientist and constructed in collaboration with an artisan, and those ones of great effect, designed to be presented to a prince or an important member of society, and which had to be executed to the highest degrees of perfection, conferred with an ornamental value similar to goldsmithery. Tobias Volkmer or Erasmus Habermel, who worked for the courts of Brunswick and Prague, probably received a greater number of requests compared to artisans occupied in day to day trading business, however all those who constructed high quality instruments could expect to come into contact with members of high society.
