Gear Lift Platform

The Gear Lift Platform was a contraption built by Leonardo da Vinci to assist Nazario in his production of The Shepherd of Love, to lift him (the King) up from below the stage. However, Nazario and Donnola instead used the device to break through the wall of the vaults beneath the Medici Palace so that they could steal the Medici Sapphire.

Design
To build the device, Leonardo attached a platform to some gears and a crank handle, magnifying the force by proportionally diminishing the distance through which the magnified force can act. Leo described it as a "simple gear ratio" with one gear being twice the size as the other and, thus, one gear revolves twice as much as the other and the movement goes to the vertical axis. (Diabolical Acts)