The best-known book of Croatian polymath Faust Vrančić, Machinae novae Fausti Verantii Siceni (“New Contraptions by Faust Vrančić from Šibenik”), is one of the masterworks of Renaissance technics. It contains the descriptions and drawings of 56 different structures and devices from various technical fields.

His most famous invention is the Homo volans (“Flying Man”) - a parachute structure consisting of a piece of cloth stretched across a rectangular wooden frame. Another one of his inventions, the iron suspension (chain) bridge, was not actually built until the late 19th century, while his single-chain-stayed bridge is considered to be the forerunner of today’s cable car. In many ways, Vrančić was a man before his time, which is why his ideas only came to life in the subsequent decades and centuries.

As a polyglot, he wrote a multi-language dictionary under the title Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum, Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmaticae et Ungaricae (“Dictionary of the Five Noblest European Languages, These Being Latin, Italian, German, Dalmatian and Hungarian”). It was the first Croatian printed dictionary, published in Venice in 1595. In his honour, the city of Šibenik holds the annual event Days of Faust Vrančić, and the “Faust Vrančić” Award for Technical Culture is named after him.