The main goal of the project is to investigate the diverse ways the unity of a machine was being conceptualized around 1600. This date is of course not accidentally chosen, as it is situated at the beginning of the so-called scientific revolution. The motivation behind this project is to come to a much more precise understanding of this much debated rethinking of the ideals for a science of nature. The general idea of a machine not only provided an important metaphor, but its particular conceptualizations were also an important source for some of the most important conceptual and methodological innovations.