Guido of Arezzo
In the 12th century, a development in teaching and learning music in a more efficient manner had arisen. Guido of Arezzo's alleged development of the Guidonian hand, more than a hundred years after his death, allowed for musicians to label a specific joint or fingertip with the gamut (also referred to as the hexachord in the modern era). Using specific joints of the hand and fingertips transformed the way one would learn and memorize solmization syllables. Not only did the Guidonian hand become a standard use in preparing music in the 12th century, its popularity grew more widespread well into the 17th and 18th century. The knowledge and use of the Guidonian hand would allow a musician to simply transpose, identify intervals, and aid in use of notation and the creation of new music. Musicians were able to sing and memorize longer sections of music and counterpoint during performances and the amount of time spent diminished dramatically.
Paolo Guidotti
His flying apparatus was contrived with whalebone and down feathers, and the episode is described as thus:But his most extraordinary whim was that of flying. He contrived wings of whalebone in the most ingenious manner, which he covered with down, and giving them sufficient folds by means of springs, joined them under his arms; and having made a number of trials in private, determined at length to make a public exhibition. He ascended from one of the eminencies of Lucca, and was carried for about a quarter of a mile; but his wings not being able to support him any longer, he fell through a roof into a chamber, and broke his thigh. Giambatista Dante, of Perugia, had also the same whim, and the same fate. Oliver of Malmesbury, an English Benedictine, and good mechanic, in 1060, Bacville, a Jesuit of Padua, a Theatine of Paris, and a number of others, have all been thus desirous of soaring into the regions of air, and have all been equally successful. This, however, cannot be properly termed flying, but only an easier and slower method of falling. A flight can only be applied to the feat of the Padre Andrea Grimaldi of Civitavecchia, who returned from the East Indies with a wonderful machine of his own invention, in the form of an eagle; seated across which he was borne from Calais to London, 1751, making seven leagues an hour, directing his flight either higher or lower, as he pleased. This fact is most seriously recorded in the "Modern History." It is possible that posterity may consider this invention much to our honour. .
Francesco Milizia goes on to conclude that had Guidotti not attached himself to so many things, "he might have been a good artist...he was, it may be supposed, singular in his thoughts and reasoning."