What is "taccola"

Mariano di Jacopo (1382 – c. 1453), called Taccola (" jackdaw"), was an Italian polymath, administrator, artist and engineer of the early Renaissance. Taccola is known for his technological treatises De ingeneis and De machinis, which feature annotated drawings of a wide array of innovative machines and devices. Taccola’s work was widely studied and copied by later Renaissance engineers and artists, among them Francesco di Giorgio, and possibly Leonardo da Vinci.