Leonardo da Vinci is a scientist in what sciences. Summary: Biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Early creativity and scientific activity

COURSE WORK

in the discipline "Culturology"

Subject: Leonardo Da Vinci

1. The life path of Leonardo da Vinci

2.2.1 "La Gioconda"

2.2.2 "Last Supper"

Literature

Appendix

Introduction

The Renaissance was rich in outstanding personalities. But Leonardo, who was born in the town of Vinci near Florence on April 15, 1452, stands out even against the general background of other famous people of the Renaissance.

This supergenius of the beginning of the Italian Renaissance is so strange that it causes scientists not just amazement, but almost awe, mixed with confusion. Even a general overview of its capabilities shocks researchers: well, a person, even if he has at least seven spans in his forehead, cannot immediately be a brilliant engineer, artist, sculptor, inventor, mechanic, chemist, philologist, scientist, seer, one of the best in his time singer, swimmer, musical instrument maker, cantata, equestrian, swordsman, architect, fashion designer, etc. His external data are also striking: Leonardo is tall, slender and so beautiful in face that he was called an "angel", while being superhumanly strong (with his right hand - being left-handed! - he could crush a horseshoe).

About Leonardo da Vinci wrote repeatedly. But the theme of his life and work, both as a scientist and a person of art, is still relevant today. The purpose of this work is to tell in detail about Leonardo da Vinci. This goal is realized by solving the following tasks:

review the biography of Leonardo da Vinci;

analyze the main periods of his work;

describe his most famous works;

talk about his activities as a scientist and inventor;

give examples of Leonardo da Vinci's predictions.

The structure of the work is as follows. The work consists of three chapters or five paragraphs, introduction, conclusion, bibliography and illustrations in the appendix.

The first chapter is devoted to the biography of the great Florentine.

The second chapter discusses the main periods of his work - early, mature and late. It tells in detail about such masterpieces of Leonardo as "La Gioconda (Mona Lisa)" and "The Last Supper".

The third chapter fully describes the scientific activities of Leonardo da Vinci. Particular attention is paid to the work of da Vinci in the field of mechanics, as well as his aircraft.

In conclusion, conclusions are drawn on the topic of the work.

1. The life path of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519. The father of the future genius, Piero da Vinci, a wealthy notary and landowner, was the most famous person in Florence, but his mother Katerina was a simple peasant girl, a fleeting whim of an influential lord. There were no children in the official family of Pierrot, so from the age of 4-5 the boy was brought up with his father and stepmother, while his own mother, as was customary, was hastened to give out with a dowry to a peasant. The handsome boy, who at the same time was distinguished by his extraordinary mind and affable character, immediately became a common darling and favorite in his father's house. This was partly facilitated by the fact that Leonardo's first two stepmothers were childless. Piero's third wife, Margherita, entered the home of Leonardo's father when her famous stepson was already 24 years old. From his third wife, Senor Piero had nine sons and two daughters, but none of them shone "neither intellect nor sword."

Possessing broad knowledge and mastering the basics of science, Leonardo da Vinci would have achieved great advantages if he had not been so changeable and inconstant. In fact, he took up the study of many subjects, but, having begun, then abandoned them. So, in mathematics, in the few months that he studied it, he made such progress that, constantly putting forward all sorts of doubts and difficulties before the teacher with whom he studied, he more than once puzzled him. He also spent some efforts on the knowledge of musical science, but soon decided to learn only how to play the lyre. As a man endowed by nature with a sublime and charming spirit, he sang divinely, improvising to her accompaniment. Yet, in spite of his various occupations, he never gave up drawing and modeling, as the things that attracted his imagination more than any other.

In 1466, at the age of 14, Leonardo da Vinci entered the studio of Verrocchio as an apprentice. It happened in this way: Ser Piero, Leonardo's father, one fine day selected several of his drawings, took them to Andrea Verrocchio, who was his great friend, and urged him to say whether Leonardo would achieve any success by taking up drawing. Struck by the huge inclinations that he saw in the drawings of the novice Leonardo, Andrea supported Ser Piero in his decision to devote him to this matter and immediately agreed with him that Leonardo enter his workshop, which Leonardo did more than willingly and began to practice not only in one area, but in all those where the drawing enters. At this time, he also distinguished himself in sculpture, sculpting several heads of laughing women from clay, and in architecture, drawing many plans and other types of different buildings. He was also the first who, while still a youth, discussed the question of how to divert the Arno River through a canal connecting Pisa with Florence. He also made drawings of mills, fullers, and other machines that could be set in motion by the power of water.

In the painting by Verrocchio: "The Baptism of the Lord", one of the angels is painted by Leonardo da Vinci; according to the legend transmitted by Vasari, the old master, seeing himself surpassed by the work of a student, allegedly abandoned painting. Be that as it may, but around 1472, Leonardo, who was then twenty years old, left the workshop of Verrocchio and began to work independently.

Leonardo da Vinci was handsome, well-built, possessed of great physical strength, was well-versed in the arts of chivalry, horseback riding, dancing, fencing, etc. Leonardo's contemporaries note that he was so pleasant in communication that he attracted the souls of people. He was very fond of animals - especially horses. Passing through the places where the birds were traded, he took them out of the cage with his own hands and, having paid the seller the price he demanded, set them free, restoring their lost freedom.

There are many legends and legends about Leonardo da Vinci. It is said that once, when Ser Piero of Vinci was on his estate, one of his peasants, who carved with his own hands a round shield from a fig tree he had cut down on his master's land, simply asked him to have this shield painted for him in Florence, to which he very willingly agreed, since this peasant was a very experienced birder and knew the places where fish were caught, and Ser Piero widely used his services in hunting and fishing. And so, having transported the shield to Florence, but without telling Leonardo where it came from, Ser Piero asked him to write something on it. But Leonardo, when one fine day this shield fell into his hands and when he saw that the shield was crooked, poorly worked and clumsy, he straightened it on fire and, giving it to the turner, made it smooth and even from warped and clumsy, and then, having gone over and processed it in his own way, he began to think about what to write on it that should frighten everyone who stumbles upon it, producing the same impression that Medusa's head had once produced. And for this purpose, Leonardo let into one of the rooms, into which no one except him entered, various lizards, crickets, snakes, butterflies, grasshoppers, bats and other strange species of similar creatures, from a variety of which, combining them in in different ways, he created a very disgusting and terrible monster, which poisoned with its breath and ignited the air. He depicted him crawling out of a dark cleft of the rock and emitting poison from his open mouth, flame from his eyes and smoke from his nostrils, and so unusually that it actually seemed to be something monstrous and frightening. And he worked on it for so long that in the room from dead animals there was a cruel and unbearable stench, which, however, Leonardo did not notice because of the great love he had for art. Having finished this work, about which neither the peasant nor the father asked any more, Leonardo told the latter that he could, when he wanted, send for a shield, since he, for his part, had done his job. And when one morning Ser Piero entered his room behind a shield and knocked on the door, Leonardo opened it, but asked him to wait and, returning to the room, put the shield on the lectern and in the light, but adjusted the window so that it gave a muffled lighting. Ser Piero, who did not even think about it, shuddered at the first glance from surprise, not believing that this was the same shield, and even more so that the image he saw was a painting, and when he stepped back, Leonardo, supporting him, said: "This is The work serves the purpose for which it was made. So take it and give it away, for such is the effect that is expected from works of art. "This thing seemed to Ser Piero more than wonderful, and he honored Leonardo's bold words with the greatest praise. And then, slowly buying from the shopkeeper another shield on which was written he gave his heart, pierced by an arrow, to a peasant who remained grateful to him for this for life. Later, in Florence, Ser Piero secretly sold a shield painted by Leonardo to some merchants for a hundred ducats, and soon this shield fell into the hands of a Milanese to the duke, to whom the same merchants resold it for three hundred ducats.

Around 1480, Leonardo was called to Milan to the court of Duke Ludovico Sforza, as a musician and improviser. He was, however, instructed to establish an academy of arts in Milan. For teaching at this academy, Leonardo da Vinci compiled treatises on painting, on light, on shadows, on movement, on theory and practice, on the movements of the human body, on the proportions of the human body.

As an architect, Leonardo built buildings, especially in Milan, and composed many architectural projects and drawings, specially studied anatomy, mathematics, perspective, mechanics; he abandoned extensive projects, such as the project of connecting Florence and Pisa by means of a canal; extremely bold was his plan to raise the ancient baptistery of S. Giovanni in Florence in order to raise the foundation under it and thus give this building a more magnificent appearance. For the sake of studying the expressions of feelings and passions in man. He visited the most populous places where human activity was in full swing, and entered into the album everything that came across to him; he accompanied the criminals to the place of execution, imprinting in his memory the expression of torment and extreme despair; he invited peasants to his house, to whom he told the most amusing things, wanting to study their comic expression on their faces. With such realism, Leonardo was at the same time endowed in the highest degree with a deep subjective feeling, tender, partly sentimental daydreaming. In some of his works one or the other element predominates, but in the main, best, works, both elements are balanced by beautiful harmony, so that, thanks to a brilliant idea and a sense of beauty, they occupy that high step, which undoubtedly secures one of the first places for him. among the great masters of modern art.

Leonardo started a lot, but never finished anything, because it seemed to him that in those things that he had conceived, the hand was not capable of achieving artistic perfection, since in his plan he created various difficulties for himself, so subtle and amazing that they even the most skilful hands could under no circumstances have expressed.

Of the undertakings performed by da Vinci on behalf of Ludovico Sforza, the colossal equestrian statue in memory of Francesca Sforza, cast in bronze, is especially remarkable. The first model of this monument was accidentally broken. Leonardo da Vinci sculpted another, but the statue was not cast due to lack of money. When the French captured Milan in 1499, the model served as a target for the Gascon archers. In Milan, Leonardo also created the famous "Last Supper".

After the expulsion of Lodovico Sforza from Milan by the French in 1499, Leonardo left for Venice, visiting Mantua on the way, where he participated in the construction of defensive structures, and then returned to Florence; it is reported that he was so absorbed in mathematics that he did not want to think about picking up a brush. For twelve years, Leonardo constantly moved from city to city, working for the famous Cesare Borgia in Romagna, designing defenses (never built) for Piombino. In Florence he entered into a rivalry with Michelangelo; this rivalry culminated in the enormous battle compositions that the two artists painted for Palazzo della Signoria (also Palazzo Vecchio). Then Leonardo conceived a second equestrian monument, which, like the first, was never created. All these years, he continued to fill his notebooks with a variety of ideas on subjects as diverse as the theory and practice of painting, anatomy, mathematics, and the flight of birds. But in 1513, as in 1499, his patrons were expelled from Milan.

Leonardo went to Rome, where he spent three years under the auspices of the Medici. Depressed and distressed by the lack of material for anatomical research, Leonardo fiddled with experiments and ideas that led nowhere.

The French, first Louis XII and then Francis I, admired the works of the Italian Renaissance, especially Leonardo's Last Supper. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1516, Francis I, well aware of the various talents of Leonardo, invited him to the court, which was then located in the castle of Amboise in the Loire Valley. Although Leonardo worked on hydraulic projects and plans for a new royal palace, it is clear from the writings of the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini that his main occupation was the honorary position of court sage and adviser. On May 2, 1519, Leonardo dies in the arms of King Francis I, asking for forgiveness from God and people that he "did not do everything for art that he could do." Thus, we examined a brief biography of the great Italian Renaissance painter - Leonard da Vinci. The next chapter will explore the work of Leonard da Vinci as a painter.

2. Creativity of Leonardo da Vinci

2.1 The main periods in the painting of Leonardo da Vinci

The work of the great Italian painter can be divided into early, mature and late periods.

The first dated work (1473, Uffizi) is a small sketch of the river valley seen from the gorge; on one side is a castle, on the other - a wooded hillside. This sketch, made with quick strokes of the pen, testifies to the artist's constant interest in atmospheric phenomena, about which he later wrote extensively in his notes. The landscape depicted from a high vantage point overlooking the floodplain was a common device for Florentine art of the 1460s (although it always served only as a backdrop for paintings). A silver pencil drawing of an ancient warrior in profile (mid-1470s, British Museum) shows Leonardo's full maturity as a draftsman; it skillfully combines weak, flaccid and tense, elastic lines and attention to surfaces gradually modeled by light and shadow, creating a lively, quivering image.

The undated painting The Annunciation (mid-1470s, Uffizi) was only attributed to Leonardo in the 19th century; perhaps it would be more correct to consider it as the result of a collaboration between Leonardo and Verrocchio. There are several weak points in it, for example, a too sharp perspective reduction of the building on the left or a poorly developed scale ratio of the figure of the Mother of God and the music stand. Otherwise, however, especially in the subtle and soft modeling, as well as in the interpretation of a foggy landscape with a mountain looming in the background, the picture belongs to the hand of Leonardo; this can be inferred from a study of his later work. The question of whether the compositional idea belongs to him remains open. Muted in comparison with the works of his contemporaries, the colors anticipate the color of the artist's later works.

Verrocchio's Baptism (Uffizi) is also undated, although it could presumably be placed in the first half of the 1470s. As already noted in the first chapter, Giorgio Vasari, one of the first biographers of Leonardo, claims that he painted the figure of the left of two angels, turned in profile. The angel's head is delicately modeled with light and shadow, with a soft and careful rendering of the surface texture, different from the more linear treatment of the angel on the right. It seems that Leonardo's involvement in this painting extended to the foggy river landscape and some parts of the figure of Christ, which are painted in oils, although tempera is used in other parts of the picture. Such a difference in technique suggests that Leonardo most likely completed a painting that Verrocchio did not finish; it is unlikely that the artists worked on it at the same time.

Portrait of Ginevra dei Benci (circa 1478, Washington, National Gallery) is possibly Leonardo's first self-painted painting. The board has been cut about 20 cm from the bottom, so that the crossed arms of the young woman have disappeared (this is known from a comparison with surviving imitations of this painting). In this portrait, Leonardo does not seek to penetrate the inner world of the model, however, as a demonstration of the excellent command of soft, almost monochrome black and white modeling, this picture is unparalleled. Behind you can see the branches of juniper (in Italian - ginevra) and a landscape shrouded in a damp haze.

The Portrait of Ginevra dei Benci and the Benois Madonna (St. Petersburg, Hermitage), which was preceded by a series of tiny sketches of the Madonna and Child, are probably the last paintings completed in Florence. The unfinished St. Jerome, very similar in style to the Adoration of the Magi, can also be dated to about 1480. These paintings are contemporaneous with the first surviving sketches of military mechanisms. Educated as an artist, but striving to be a military engineer, Leonardo abandoned work on the Adoration of the Magi and rushed to Milan in search of new tasks and a new life, where the mature period of his work began.

Despite the fact that Leonardo went to Milan in the hope of a career as an engineer, the first commission he received in 1483 was to make part of the altarpiece for the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception - Madonna in the Grotto (Louvre; attribution to Leonardo of a later version from the London National Gallery is disputed). The kneeling Mary looks at the Christ Child and the little John the Baptist, while the angel pointing at John looks at the viewer. The figures are arranged in a triangle, in the foreground. It seems that the figures are separated from the viewer by a light haze, the so-called sfumato (vague and fuzzy contours, soft shadow), which now becomes a characteristic feature of Leonardo's painting. . Behind them, in the semi-darkness of the cave, stalactites and stalagmites and slowly flowing waters shrouded in mist are visible. The landscape seems fantastic, but Leonardo's statement that painting is a science should be remembered. As can be seen from the drawings, simultaneous with the picture, he was based on careful observations of geological phenomena. This also applies to the depiction of plants: one can not only identify them with a certain species, but also see that Leonardo knew about the property of plants to turn towards the sun.

In the mid-1480s, Leonardo painted "Lady with an Ermine" (Krakow Museum), which may be a portrait of Lodovico Sforza's favorite, Cecilia Gallerani. The contours of the figure of a woman with an animal are outlined by curves of lines that are repeated throughout the composition, and this, combined with muted colors and delicate skin tones, creates the impression of perfect grace and beauty. The beauty of the Lady with the Ermine contrasts strikingly with the grotesque sketches of freaks in which Leonardo explored the extreme degrees of anomalies in the structure of the face.

In Milan, Leonardo began making recordings; around 1490 he focused on two disciplines: architecture and anatomy. He made sketches of several variants of the design of the central-domed temple (an equal-ended cross, the central part of which is covered by a dome) - a type of architectural structure that Alberti had previously recommended for the reason that it reflects one of the ancient types of temples and is based on the most perfect form - a circle. Leonardo drew a plan and perspective views of the entire structure, in which the distribution of masses and the configuration of the internal space are outlined. Around this time, he obtained a skull and made a cross section, opening the sinuses of the skull for the first time. The notes around the drawings indicate that he was primarily interested in the nature and structure of the brain. Of course, these drawings were intended for purely research purposes, but they are striking in their beauty and similarity with the sketches of architectural projects in that they both depict partitions separating parts of the interior space.

The mature period of Leonardo da Vinci belongs to two great paintings "La Gioconda (Mona Lisa)" and "The Last Supper".

Mona Lisa was created at a time when Leonardo was so absorbed in the study of the structure of the female body, anatomy and the problems associated with childbearing that it is almost impossible to separate his artistic and scientific interests. During these years, he sketched a human embryo in the uterus and created the last of several versions of Leda's painting based on the ancient myth of the birth of Castor and Pollux from the union of the mortal girl Leda and Zeus, who took the form of a swan. Leonardo was engaged in comparative anatomy and was interested in analogies between all organic forms.

Of all the sciences, Leonardo was most interested in anatomy and military affairs.

The most important of Leonardo's public commissions was also related to the war. In 1503, perhaps at the urging of Niccolò Machiavelli, he was commissioned to paint a fresco about 6 by 15 meters depicting the Battle of Anghiari for the Great Council Hall in the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. In addition to this fresco, the Battle of Kashin, commissioned by Michelangelo, was to be depicted; both plots are the heroic victories of Florence. This commission allowed the two artists to continue the tense rivalry that began in 1501. Neither of the frescoes was completed, since both artists soon left Florence, Leonardo again for Milan, and Michelangelo for Rome; preparatory cardboards have not been preserved. In the center of Leonardo's composition (known from his sketches and copies from the central part apparently completed by that time) was an episode with a battle for the banner, where horsemen fiercely fight with swords, and fallen soldiers lie under the feet of their horses. Judging by other sketches, the composition should have consisted of three parts, with the battle for the banner in the center. Since there is no clear evidence, Leonardo's surviving paintings and fragments of his notes suggest that the battle was depicted against a flat landscape with a mountain range on the horizon.

The late period of Leonardo da Vinci's work includes, first of all, several sketches on the plot of the "Madonna and Child" and St. Anna; the idea first arose in Florence. Perhaps around 1505 a cardboard was created (London, National Gallery), and in 1508 or a little later - a picture now in the Louvre. The Madonna sits on the lap of St. Anna and stretches out his hands to the Christ Child holding a lamb; free, rounded shapes of figures, outlined by smooth lines, form a single composition.

John the Baptist (Louvre) depicts a man with a gentle smiling face that emerges from the semi-darkness of the background; he addresses the viewer with a prophecy about the coming of Christ.

The later series of drawings of the Flood (Windsor, Royal Library) depict cataclysms, the power of tons of water, hurricane winds, rocks and trees turning into chips in a whirlwind of a storm. The notes contain many passages about the Flood, some of them poetic, others dispassionately descriptive, others exploratory in the sense that they deal with issues such as the whirlwind of water in a whirlpool, its power and trajectory.

For Leonardo, art and research were complementary aspects of the constant desire to observe and record the appearance and internal structure of the world. It can definitely be argued that he was the first among scientists whose studies were supplemented by art.

About seven thousand pages of surviving manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci contain his thoughts on various issues of art, science and technology. From these notes, a "Treatise on Painting" was later compiled. In particular, it outlines the doctrine of perspective, both linear and aerial. Leonardo writes: "... take a mirror, reflect a living object in it and compare the reflected object with your picture ... it is you who will see that a picture executed on a plane shows objects in such a way that they seem to be convex, and a mirror on a plane makes the same; the picture is only a surface, and the mirror is the same; the picture is intangible, since what appears to be round and separating cannot be grasped by hands, so it is in the mirror; the mirror and the picture show images of objects, surrounded by shadow and light, both of which seem very far beyond the surface.There is still another perspective, which I call aerial, because, due to the change in air, one can recognize different distances to different buildings, bounded from below by one single (straight) line. Make the first building... your own color, make the one that is more distant more... blue, the one you want it to be just as far back, make it that much more blue..."

Unfortunately, many observations concerning the influence of transparent and translucent media on the perceived color could not yet find a proper physical and mathematical explanation from Leonardo. However, the first experimental attempts made by the scientist to determine the intensity of light depending on the distance, the study of the laws of binocular vision, seeing in them a condition for the perception of relief, are valuable.

The "Treatise on Painting" also provides information on proportions. In the Renaissance, the mathematical concept - the golden ratio was elevated to the rank of the main aesthetic principle. Leonardo da Vinci called it Sectio aurea, from which the term "golden section" originated. According to the artistic canons of Leonardo, the golden ratio corresponds not only to the division of the body into two unequal parts by the waist line (at the same time, the ratio of the larger part to the smaller is equal to the ratio of the whole to the larger part, this ratio is approximately equal to 1.618). The height of the face (to the roots of the hair) refers to the vertical distance between the arches of the eyebrows and the bottom of the chin, as the distance between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin is related to the distance between the corners of the lips and the bottom of the chin, this distance is equal to the golden ratio. Developing the rules for depicting the human figure, Leonardo da Vinci tried to restore the so-called "square of the ancients" based on the literary information of antiquity. He made a drawing in which it is shown that the span of a person's arms extended to the side is approximately equal to his height, as a result of which the figure of a person fits into a square and a circle.

2.2 The greatest works - "La Gioconda" and "The Last Supper"

2.2.1 "La Gioconda"

In Milan, Leonardo da Vinci began work on his famous painting "La Gioconda (Mona Lisa)". The prehistory of "La Gioconda" is as follows.

Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo commissioned the great artist to paint a portrait of his third wife, 24-year-old Mona Lisa. The painting, 97x53 cm in size, was completed in 1503 and immediately became famous. The great artist wrote it for four years (he generally created his works for a long time). Evidence of this may be the use of various solvents during the writing period. So, the face of Mona Lisa, unlike the hands, is covered with a network of cracks. Francesco del Giocondo, for unknown reasons, did not buy this painting, and Leonardo did not part with it until the end of his life. The last years of his life, as noted above, the great artist, at the invitation of the King of France, Francis I, spent in Paris. After his death on May 2, 1519, the king himself bought this painting.

Creating his masterpiece, the artist used a secret known to many portrait painters: the vertical axis of the canvas passes through the pupil of the left eye, which should make the viewer feel excited. The portrait (it is in the Louvre) is a further development of the type that appeared earlier in Leonardo: the model is depicted from the waist, in a slight turn, the face is turned towards the viewer, the folded arms limit the composition from below. The soulful hands of Mona Lisa are as beautiful as the slight smile on her face and the primeval rocky landscape in the misty distance.

Gioconda is known as the image of a mysterious, even fatal woman, but this interpretation belongs to the 19th century.

The picture gives rise to various speculations. So in 1986, the American artist and researcher Lillian Schwartz compared the image of the Mona Lisa with Leonardo's self-portrait. Using an inverted image of a self-portrait, she brought the paintings to the same scale with the help of a computer so that the distance between the pupils became the same. It is believed that at the same time she received a striking resemblance, although this version seems to be quite controversial.

There is an opinion that the artist encrypted something in his painting and in particular in the famous smile of Mona Lisa. A barely noticeable movement of the lips and eyes fit into the correct circle, which is not in the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, or Botticelli - other geniuses of the Renaissance. The background of "Madonnas" is just a dark wall, respectively, with one and two window slits. Everything is clear in these pictures: a mother lovingly looks at her child.

It is likely that for Leonardo this painting was the most difficult and successful exercise in the use of sfumato, and the background of the painting is the result of his research in the field of geology. Regardless of whether the subject was secular or religious, the landscape, exposing the "bones of the earth", is constantly found in the work of Leonardo. The secrets of Nature, which constantly tormented the great Leonardo da Vinci, the artist embodied in the gaze of Mona Lisa, all-penetrating, directed as if from the depths of a dark cave. In confirmation of this - the words of Leonardo himself: "Submitting to my greedy attraction, wanting to see a great variety of various and strange forms produced by skillful nature, wandering among the dark rocks, I approached the entrance to a large cave. For a moment I stopped in front of it, amazed ... I leaned forward to see what was happening there, in the depths, but the great darkness interfered with me. Thus I remained for some time. Suddenly two feelings arose in me: fear and desire; fear of a terrible and dark cave, a desire to see if there was something something wonderful in its depths.

2.2.2 "Last Supper"

Leonardo's reflections on space, linear perspective and the expression of various emotions in painting resulted in the creation of the fresco "The Last Supper", painted in an experimental technique on the far end wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan in 1495-1497.

In connection with The Last Supper, Vasari cites a funny episode in his biography of Leonardo, which perfectly characterizes the artist’s manner of work and his sharp tongue. Dissatisfied with the slowness of Leonardo, the prior of the monastery insistently demanded that he finish his work as soon as possible. “It seemed strange to him to see that Leonardo was immersed in thought for the whole half of the day. He wanted the artist not to let go of his brushes, like they do not stop working in the garden. Without limiting himself to this, he complained to the duke and so began to pester him, that he was forced to send for Leonardo and in a delicate form ask him to take up the work, making it clear in every possible way that he was doing all this at the insistence of the prior. Having started a conversation with the duke on general artistic topics, Leonardo then pointed out to him that he was close to finishing the painting and that he had only two heads left to paint - Christ and the traitor Judas. “He would like to look for this last head, but in the end, if he does not find anything better, he is ready to use the head of this very prior, so obsessive and immodest. This remark amused the duke greatly, who told him that he was a thousand times right. Somehow the poor embarrassed prior continued to rush the work in the garden and left Leonardo alone, who finished the head of Judas, which turned out to be the true embodiment of betrayal and inhumanity.

Leonardo prepared carefully and for a long time for the Milanese painting. He completed many sketches in which he studied the postures and gestures of individual figures. The Last Supper attracted him not with its dogmatic content, but with the opportunity to unfold a great human drama in front of the viewer, show various characters, reveal the spiritual world of a person and accurately and clearly describe his experiences. He took the "Last Supper" as a scene of betrayal and set himself the goal of introducing into this traditional image that dramatic beginning, thanks to which it would acquire a completely new emotional sound.

Thinking over the concept of The Last Supper, Leonardo not only made sketches, but also wrote down his thoughts about the actions of individual participants in this scene: looks at his companion, the other shows the palms of his hands, raises his shoulders to his ears and expresses surprise with his mouth ... "The record does not indicate the names of the apostles, but Leonardo, apparently, clearly imagined the actions of each of them and the place that each was called take in the overall composition. Specifying poses and gestures in the drawings, he was looking for such forms of expression that would involve all the figures in a single whirlpool of passions. He wanted to capture living people in the images of the apostles, each of whom responds to the event in his own way.

The Last Supper is Leonardo's most mature and complete work. In this painting, the master avoids everything that could obscure the main course of the action depicted by him, he achieves a rare convincing compositional solution. In the center, he places the figure of Christ, highlighting it with the opening of the door. He deliberately moves the apostles away from Christ in order to further emphasize his place in the composition. Finally, for the same purpose, he makes all perspective lines converge at a point directly above the head of Christ. Leonardo divides his students into four symmetrical groups, full of life and movement. He makes the table small, and the refectory - strict and simple. This gives him the opportunity to focus the viewer's attention on figures that have tremendous plastic power. In all these techniques, the deep purposefulness of the creative plan is reflected, in which everything is weighed and taken into account.

The main task that Leonardo set himself in The Last Supper was the realistic transmission of the most complex mental reactions to the words of Christ: "One of you will betray me." Giving complete human characters and temperaments in the images of the apostles, Leonardo makes each of them react in his own way to the words spoken by Christ. It was this subtle psychological differentiation, based on a variety of faces and gestures, that struck Leonardo's contemporaries most of all, especially when comparing his paintings with earlier Florentine images on the same subject by Tadeo Gaddi, Andrea del Castagno, Cosimo Rosselli and Domenico Ghirlandaio. In all these masters, the apostles sit quietly, like extras, at the table, remaining completely indifferent to everything that happens. Not having strong enough means in their arsenal to characterize Judas psychologically, Leonardo's predecessors singled him out from the general group of apostles and placed him in the form of a completely isolated figure in front of the table. Thus, Judas was artificially opposed to the entire assembly as an outcast and a villain. Leonardo boldly breaks this tradition. His artistic language is rich enough not to resort to such purely external effects. He unites Judas in one group with all the other apostles, but gives him such features that allow an attentive viewer to immediately identify him among the twelve disciples of Christ.

Leonardo treats each of his students individually. Like a stone thrown into the water, creating circles that spread out more and more on the surface, the words of Christ, falling in the midst of dead silence, cause the greatest movement in the assembly, a moment before being in a state of complete rest. Especially impulsively respond to the words of Christ those three apostles who sit on his left hand. They form an inseparable group imbued with a single will and a single movement. Young Philip jumped up from his seat, turning to Christ with a puzzled question, Jacob the elder spread his hands in indignation and leaned back a little, Thomas raised his hand up, as if trying to realize what was happening. The group on the other side of Christ is imbued with a completely different spirit. Separated from the central figure by a significant interval, she is distinguished by an incomparably greater restraint of gestures. Presented in a sharp turn, Judas convulsively squeezes a purse with pieces of silver and looks at Christ with fear; his shadowy, ugly, rough profile contrasts with the brightly lit, beautiful face of John, who limply lowered his head on his shoulder and calmly folded his hands on the table. Between Judas and John wedged the head of Peter; leaning towards John and leaning his left hand on his shoulder, he whispers something in his ear, while his right hand decisively grabbed the sword with which he wants to protect his teacher. Three other apostles sitting near Peter are turned in profile. Looking closely at Christ, they seem to be asking him about the culprit of the betrayal. At the opposite end of the table is the last group of three figures. Matthew, stretching out his arms towards Christ, indignantly turns to the elderly Thaddeus, as if wanting to get an explanation from him of everything that is happening. However, the bewildered gesture of the latter clearly shows that he remains in the dark.

It is far from accidental that Leonardo depicted both extreme figures sitting at the edges of the table in a clean profile. They close on both sides the movement coming from the center, performing here the same role that belonged in the "Adoration of the Magi" to the figures of an old man and a young man, placed at the very edges of the picture. But if the psychological means of expression in Leonardo did not rise above the traditional level in this work of the early Florentine era, then in The Last Supper they reach such perfection and depth, equal to which it would be in vain to look for in all Italian art of the 15th century. And this was well understood by the contemporaries of the master, who perceived Leonardo's "Last Supper" as a new word in art.

The method of painting with oil paints turned out to be very short-lived. Two years later, Leonardo was horrified to see his work changed so much. And ten years later, together with his students, he tries to make the first restoration work. A total of eight restorations have been made over the course of 300 years. In connection with these attempts, new layers of paint were repeatedly applied to the painting, which significantly distorted the original. In addition, by the beginning of the 20th century, the legs of Jesus Christ were completely erased, since the constantly opening door of the dining room was in contact with just this place. The door was cut through by the monks to enter the dining room, but since this was done in the 1600s, it is a historical hole and there is no way to wall it up.

Milan is justifiably proud of this masterpiece, which is the only Renaissance work of its magnitude. To no avail, two French kings dreamed of transporting the mural along with the wall to Paris. Napoleon also did not remain indifferent to this idea. But to the great joy of the Milanese and all of Italy, this unique work of the great genius remained in its place. During World War II, when British aircraft bombarded Milan, the roof and three walls of the famous building were completely demolished. And only the one on which Leonardo made his painting remained standing. It was a real miracle!

For a long time, the brilliant work was under restoration. For the reconstruction of the work, the latest technologies were used, which made it possible to gradually remove layer by layer. In this way, age-old hardened dust, mold and all sorts of other foreign materials were removed. And let's face it, from the original, 1/3 or even half of the original colors were lost within 500 years. But the general appearance of the painting has changed a lot. She seemed to come to life, playing with cheerful, lively colors, which the great master endowed her with. And, finally, in the spring of May 26, 1999, after a restoration that lasted 21 years, the work of Leonardo da Vinci was re-opened for public viewing. On this occasion, a big celebration was held in the city, and a concert was held in the church.

To protect this delicate work from damage, a constant temperature and humidity are maintained in the building through special filtering devices. Entrance is limited to 25 people, every 15 minutes.

Thus, in this chapter we examined Leonardo da Vinci as a creator - painter, sculptor, architect. In the next chapter he will be considered as a scientist and inventor.

3. Leonardo da Vinci - scientist and inventor

3.1 Contribution of Leonardo da Vinci to science

Da Vinci made the greatest contribution to the field of mechanics. Peru belongs to Leonardo Da Vinci research on the fall of a body on an inclined plane, on the centers of gravity of the pyramids, on the impact of bodies, on the movement of sand on sounding plates; about the laws of friction. Leonardo also wrote works on hydraulics.

Some historians whose research dates back to the Renaissance have expressed the opinion that although Leonardo da Vinci was talented in many areas, he nevertheless did not make a significant contribution to such an exact science as theoretical mechanics. However, a careful analysis of his recently discovered manuscripts, and in particular the drawings in them, convinces the opposite. The work of Leonardo da Vinci on the study of the action of various types of weapons, in particular the crossbow, apparently, was one of the reasons for his interest in mechanics. The subjects of his interest in this area, in modern terms, were the laws of addition of velocities and addition of forces, the concept of a neutral plane and the position of the center of gravity during the movement of a body.

The contribution of Leonardo da Vinci to theoretical mechanics can be appreciated to a greater extent by a closer study of his drawings, and not the texts of the manuscripts and the mathematical calculations contained in them.

Let's start with an example that reflects Leonardo da Vinci's persistent attempts to solve the problems associated with improving the design of weapons (never completely solved), which aroused his interest in the laws of the addition of velocities and the addition of forces. Despite the rapid development of gunpowder weapons during the life of Leonardo da Vinci, the bow, crossbow and spear still continued to be common weapons. Leonardo da Vinci paid special attention to such ancient weapons as the crossbow. It often happens that the design of a particular system reaches perfection only after descendants become interested in it, and the process of improving this system can lead to fundamental scientific results.

Fruitful experimental work to improve crossbows was carried out earlier, before Leonardo da Vinci. For example, shortened arrows began to be used in the crossbow, which had about 2 times better aerodynamic characteristics than conventional archery arrows. In addition, the study of the basic principles underlying crossbow shooting was initiated.

In an effort not to be limited to traditional constructive solutions, Leonardo da Vinci considered such a crossbow design that would allow shooting only with an arrowhead, leaving its shaft motionless. Apparently, he understood that by reducing the mass of the projectile, it is possible to increase its initial speed.

In some of his crossbow designs, he proposed the use of several arcs, acting either simultaneously or sequentially. In the latter case, the largest and most massive arc would actuate a smaller and lighter arc, and that, in turn, would be even smaller, and so on. An arrow shot would be fired on the last arc. Obviously, Leonardo da Vinci considered this process from the point of view of the addition of velocities. For example, he notes that the range of fire from a crossbow will be maximum if you shoot at a gallop from a galloping horse and lean forward at the moment of the shot. In reality, this would not lead to a significant increase in the speed of the arrow. However, the ideas of Leonardo da Vinci were directly related to the heated debate about whether an infinite increase in speed is possible. Later, scientists began to lean towards the conclusion that this process has no limit. This point of view existed until Einstein put forward his postulate, from which it followed that no body can move at a speed exceeding the speed of light. However, at speeds much lower than the speed of light, the law of addition of speeds (based on Galileo's principle of relativity) remains valid.

The law of addition of forces, or the parallelogram of forces, was discovered after Leonardo da Vinci. This law is considered in that branch of mechanics that allows you to answer the question of what happens when two or more forces interact at different angles.

In the manufacture of a crossbow, it is important to achieve symmetry in the forces that occur in each wing. Otherwise, the arrow may move when fired to the side of its groove, and thereby the accuracy of shooting will be impaired. Usually crossbowmen, preparing their weapons for shooting, checked whether the bending of the wings of its arc was the same. Today, all bows and crossbows are tested in this way. The weapon is hung on the wall so that its bowstring is horizontal, and the arc with its convex part is turned upwards. Various weights are suspended from the middle of the bowstring. Each weight causes a certain bending of the arc, which allows you to check the symmetry of the action of the wings. The easiest way to do this is to observe whether the center of the bowstring falls vertically or moves away from it when the load is increased.

This method may have led Leonardo da Vinci to use diagrams (found in the "Madrid Manuscripts"), in which the displacement of the ends of the arc (taking into account the position of the center of the bowstring) is presented depending on the size of the suspended load. He realized that the force needed to make the arc begin to bend is small at first and increases with increasing mixing of the ends of the arc. (This phenomenon is based on the law formulated much later by Robert Hooke: the absolute amount of mixing due to deformation of the body is proportional to the applied force).

Leonardo da Vinci called the relationship between the displacement of the ends of the crossbow arc and the value of the load suspended from the bowstring "pyramidal", since, just as opposite faces in a pyramid diverge as they move away from the intersection point, this dependence becomes more and more noticeable as the ends of the arc move. Noting the change in the position of the bowstring depending on the size of the load, he, however, noticed non-linearities. One of them was that, although the displacement of the ends of the arc linearly depended on the magnitude of the load, there was no linear relationship between the mixing of the bowstring and the magnitude of the load. Based on this observation, Leonardo da Vinci apparently tried to find an explanation for the fact that in some crossbows the bowstring, released after applying a certain amount of force to it, moves at first faster than when approaching its original position.

Such non-linearity may have been observed when using crossbows with poorly made arcs. It is likely that Leonardo da Vinci's conclusions are based on faulty reasoning and not on calculations, although he did sometimes resort to calculations. However, this task aroused in him a deep interest in the analysis of the design of the crossbow. Is it true that an arrow, which has rapidly gained speed at the beginning of the shot, begins to move faster than the bowstring and will break away from it before the bowstring returns to its original position?

Not having a clear understanding of such concepts as inertia, force and acceleration, Leonardo da Vinci, of course, could not find a definitive answer to this question. On the pages of his manuscript there are arguments of the opposite nature: in some of them he is inclined to answer this question in the affirmative, in others - in the negative. Leonardo da Vinci's interest in this problem led him to further attempts to improve the design of the crossbow. This suggests that he intuitively guessed the existence of a law, later called the "law of addition of forces."

Leonardo da Vinci did not limit himself to the problem of the speed of the arrow and the action of tension forces in the crossbow. For example, he was also interested in whether the range of an arrow would double if the weight of the bow of a crossbow was doubled. If you measure the total weight of all arrows, located one after the other back to back and forming a continuous line, the length of which is equal to the maximum flight range, will this weight be equal to the force with which the bowstring acts on the arrow? Sometimes Leonardo da Vinci did look deeply, for example, in search of an answer to the question, does the vibration of the bowstring immediately after the shot indicate the loss of energy in the arc?

As a result, in the "Madrid Manuscript", regarding the relationship between the force on the arc and the displacement of the bowstring, Leonardo da Vinci states: "The force that forces the bowstring of a crossbow to move increases as the angle at the center of the bowstring decreases." The fact that this statement is not found anywhere else in his notes may mean that such a conclusion was made by him definitively. Undoubtedly, he used it in repeated attempts to improve the design of a crossbow with the so-called block arcs.

Block arcs, in which the string is passed through the blocks, are known to modern archers. These arcs allow you to achieve a high speed of the arrow. The laws underlying their operation are now well known. Leonardo da Vinci did not have such a complete understanding of the action of block arches, but he invented crossbows in which the bowstring was passed through blocks. In his crossbows, the blocks usually had a rigid mount: they did not move with the ends of the arc, as in modern crossbows and bows. Therefore, the arc in the design of Leonardo da Vinci's crossbow did not have the same effect as in modern block arcs. One way or another, Leonardo da Vinci obviously intended to make an arc, the design of which would solve the problem of "bowstring - angle", i.e. an increase in the force acting on the arrow would be achieved by reducing the angle in the center of the bowstring. In addition, he tried to reduce the energy loss when firing a crossbow.

In the basic design of the Leonardo da Vinci crossbow, a very flexible arc was fixed on the bed. In some figures, it can be seen that at the maximum tension of the bowstring, the arc was bent almost into a circle. From the ends of the arc, the string on each side was passed through a pair of blocks, reinforced in front of the frame next to the guide groove for the arrow, and then went to the trigger.

Leonardo da Vinci, apparently, did not give an explanation of his design anywhere, however, its scheme is repeatedly found in his drawings along with the image of a crossbow (also with a strongly curved arc), in which a stretched bowstring going from the ends of the arc to the trigger has V -shaped form.

It seems most likely that Leonardo da Vinci sought to minimize the angle in the center of the bowstring so that the arrow would get more acceleration when fired. It is possible that he also used blocks so that the angle between the bowstring and the wings of the crossbow remained close to 90 ° as long as possible. An intuitive understanding of the law of the addition of forces helped him radically change the time-tested design of the crossbow based on the quantitative relationship between the energy "stored" in the arc of the crossbow and the speed of the arrow. Undoubtedly, he had an idea of ​​the mechanical efficiency of his design and tried to further improve it.

The block arc of Leonardo da Vinci was apparently impractical, since the sharp tension of the bowstring led to its significant bending. Only compound arcs made in a special way could withstand such a significant deformation.

Compound arcs were used during the life of Leonardo da Vinci and, perhaps, they aroused his interest in the problem, the attempts to solve which led him to the idea of ​​what is called the neutral plane. The study of this problem was also associated with a deeper study of the behavior of materials under the action of mechanical stress.

In a typical composite bow used in the era of Leonardo da Vinci, the outer and inner sides of the crossbow wings were made of different materials. The inner side, which was under compression, was usually made of horn, and the outer, which worked in tension, was made of tendons. Each of these materials is stronger than wood. Between the outer and inner sides of the arc, a layer of wood was used, strong enough to give rigidity to the wings. The wings of such an arc could be bent more than 180°. Leonardo da Vinci had some idea of ​​how such an arc was made, and the problem of choosing materials that could withstand high tension and compression may have led him to a deep understanding of how stresses arise in a particular structure.

In two small drawings (discovered in the "Madrid Manuscript"), he depicted a flat spring in two states - deformed and undeformed. In the center of the deformed spring, he drew two parallel lines, symmetrical about the central point. When the spring is bent, these lines diverge from the convex side and converge - from the concave side.

These drawings are accompanied by a caption in which Leonardo da Vinci notes that when the spring is bent, the convex part becomes thicker, and the concave part becomes thinner. "Such a modification is pyramidal and therefore will never change at the center of the spring." In other words, the distance between initially parallel lines will increase at the top as it decreases at the bottom. The central part of the spring serves as a kind of balance between the two sides and is a zone where the stress is zero, i.e. neutral plane. Leonardo da Vinci also understood that both tension and compression increase in proportion to the distance to the neutral zone.

From the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci it can be seen that the idea of ​​​​a neutral plane arose in him while studying the action of a crossbow. An example is his drawing of a giant stone-shooting catapult. The bending of the arc of this weapon was carried out using a screw gate; the stone flew out of a pocket located in the center of a double bowstring. Both the collar and the pocket for the stone are drawn (on an enlarged scale) the same as in the drawings of the crossbow. However, Leonardo da Vinci apparently understood that increasing the size of the arc would lead to complex problems. Based on Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of the neutral zone, he knew that (for a given bending angle) the stresses in the arc increase in proportion to its thickness. So that the stresses did not reach a critical value, he changed the design of the giant arc. Its front (frontal) part, which was under tension, according to his ideas, should be made of a single log, and its rear part (rear), working in compression, from separate blocks fixed behind the front part. The shape of these blocks was such that they could come into contact with each other only at the maximum bending of the arc. This construction, as well as others, shows that Leonardo da Vinci believed that the forces of tension and compression should be considered separately from each other. In the manuscript of the "Treatise on the Flight of Birds" and his other writings, Leonardo da Vinci notes that the stability of a bird's flight is achieved only when its center of gravity is ahead of the center of resistance (the point at which pressure is equal in front and behind). This functional principle, used by Leonardo da Vinci in the theory of bird flight, is still of great importance in the theory of aircraft and rocket flight.

3.2 Inventions of Leonardo da Vinci

The inventions and discoveries made by da Vinci cover all areas of knowledge (there are more than 50 of them), completely anticipating the main directions of development of modern civilization. Let's talk about just a few of them. In 1499, Leonardo designed a wooden mechanical lion to meet the French king Louis XII in Milan, which, after taking a few steps, plowed open its chest and showed the insides "filled with lilies." The scientist is the inventor of the spacesuit, submarine, steamer, flippers. He has a manuscript that shows the possibility of diving to great depths without a space suit due to the use of a special gas mixture (the secret of which he deliberately destroyed). To invent it, it was necessary to have a good understanding of the biochemical processes of the human body, which were completely unknown at that time! It was he who first proposed installing batteries of firearms on armored ships (he gave the idea of ​​​​an armadillo!), He invented a helicopter, a bicycle, a glider, a parachute, a tank, a machine gun, poison gases, a smoke screen for troops, a magnifying glass (100 years before Galileo!). Da Vinci invented textile machines, looms, needle-making machines, powerful cranes, systems for draining marshes through pipes, and arched bridges. He creates blueprints for gates, levers and propellers designed to lift enormous weights, mechanisms that did not exist in his time. It is amazing that Leonardo describes these machines and mechanisms in detail, although they could not be made at that time due to the fact that they did not know ball bearings at that time (but Leonardo himself knew this - the corresponding drawing was preserved).

Leonardo da Vinci owns the invention of a dynamometer, an odometer, some blacksmith tools, a double-air lamp.

In astronomy, the most significant are the advanced cosmological ideas of Leonardo da Vinci: the principle of the physical homogeneity of the universe, the denial of the central position of the Earth in space, for the first time he correctly explained the ashy color of the moon.

A separate line in this series of inventions are aircraft.

In front of the entrance to Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino International Airport, there is a huge bronze statue. It depicts a great scientist with a model of a rotary-wing machine - a prototype of a helicopter. But this is not the only invention in aviation that Leonardo gave to the world. On the margins of the previously mentioned "Treatise on the Flight of Birds" from the collection of scientific works of da Vinci "Madrid Code" there is a strange author's drawing, which only relatively recently attracted the close attention of researchers. It turned out that this is a draft drawing of another "flying machine", which Leonardo dreamed about 500 years ago. Moreover, as experts were convinced, this is the only device of all the devices conceived by the genius of the Renaissance, which was really capable of lifting a person into the air. "Feather" - this is how Leonardo called his apparatus.

The famous Italian athlete and traveler Angelo D "Arrigo, a 42-year-old free-flying champion, with an experienced eye saw in Leonardo da Vinci's drawing a real prototype of a modern hang glider and decided not only to recreate, but also to test it. Angelo himself has been studying the life and routes of migratory birds, often accompanies them on a sports hang glider, turning into their companion, into the likeness of a "bird-man", that is, it puts into practice the cherished dream of Leonardo and many generations of naturalists.

Last year, for example, he made a 4,000-kilometer flight with Siberian cranes, and next spring he is going to fly a hang glider over Everest, following the route of the Tibetan eagles. It took D'Arrigo two years of hard work to, together with professional engineers and technicians, translate the "artificial wings" into material, first at a scale of 1: 5, and then in full size, thus reproducing Leonardo's plan. An elegant structure was built, consisting of thin, ultra-light and strong aluminum tubes and sail-shaped synthetic fabric "dacron", the result is a trapezoid-shaped design, very reminiscent of the open wings, invented by the American space agency NASA in the 60s for the smooth return from orbit of the Gemini descent capsules Angelo first checked all the calculations on a computer flight "simulator" and on a bench, and then he himself tested the new device in the wind tunnel of the FIAT aircraft workshops in Orbassano (15 km from Turin, Piedmont region). Leonardo smoothly lifted off the floor and hovered in the air for two hours with his pilot-passenger. about proved the correctness of the teacher, "the pilot admits in shock. So, the ingenious intuition of the great Florentine did not deceive him. Who knows, if the maestro had lighter materials (and not just wood and homespun canvas), humanity could celebrate this year not the centenary of aeronautics, but its five hundredth anniversary. And it is not known how civilization would develop on Earth if "homo sapiens" could see their small and fragile cradle from a bird's eye view five thousand years earlier.

From now on, the working model "Feather" will take pride of place in the section of the history of aircraft of the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, near the monastery and temple of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo da Vinci's fresco "The Last Supper" is kept.

In the sky over Surrey (Great Britain), prototypes of a modern hang glider, assembled exactly according to the drawings of a brilliant painter, scientist and engineer of the Renaissance, were successfully tested.

Test flights from the hills of Surrey were carried out by two-time world champion hang glider Judy Liden. She managed to raise da Vinci's "proto-glider" to a maximum height of 10 m and stay in the air for 17 seconds. This was enough to prove that the apparatus actually worked. The flights were carried out as part of an experimental television project. The device was recreated according to drawings familiar to the whole world by 42-year-old mechanic from Bedfordshire Steve Roberts. A medieval hang glider resembles a bird skeleton from above. It is made from Italian poplar, cane, animal sinew and linen treated with a glaze derived from beetle secretions. The aircraft itself was far from perfect. “It was almost impossible to control it. I flew where the wind was blowing, and I could not do anything about it. Probably, the tester of the first car in history felt the same way,” said Judy.

When creating the second hang glider, built for Channel 4, several designs of the great Leonardo were used: the steering wheel and trapezoid, which Leonardo invented later, were added to the drawing of 1487. “My first reaction was surprise. His beauty just struck me,” says Judy Liden. The hang glider flew a distance of 30 meters at a height of 15 meters.

Before Liden flew on a hang glider, he was placed on a test bench at the University of Liverpool. "The main problem is stability," said Professor Gareth Padfield.

According to Air Force science producer Michael Mosley, the reason why a hang glider can't fly flawlessly is Leonardo's unwillingness to have his inventions used for military purposes. "Creating the machines that he designed, and discovering the errors, we felt: they were made for a reason. Our hypothesis is that Leonardo - a pacifist who had to work for the military leaders of that era - deliberately introduced erroneous information into his projects." As evidence, a note made on the back of a drawing of a respirator for scuba diving can be cited: "Knowing how the human heart works, they can learn how to kill people under water."

3.3 Predictions by Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci practiced special psychotechnical exercises, dating back to the esoteric practices of the Pythagoreans and ... modern neurolinguistics, in order to sharpen his perception of the world, improve memory and develop imagination. He seemed to know the evolutionary keys to the secrets of the human psyche, which is still far from being realized in modern man. So, one of the secrets of Leonardo da Vinci was a special sleep formula: he slept for 15 minutes every 4 hours, thus reducing his daily sleep from 8 to 1.5 hours. Thanks to this, the genius immediately saved 75 percent of his sleep time, which actually lengthened his life time from 70 to 100 years! In the esoteric tradition, similar techniques have been known since time immemorial, but they have always been considered so secret that, like other psychics and mnemonics, they have never been made public.

And he was also an excellent magician (contemporaries spoke more frankly - a magician). Leonardo could call a multicolored flame from a boiling liquid by pouring wine into it; easily turns white wine into red; with one blow he breaks a cane, the ends of which are placed on two glasses, without breaking either of them; puts a little of his saliva on the end of the pen - and the inscription on the paper turns black. The miracles that Leonardo shows are so impressive to his contemporaries that he is seriously suspected of serving "black magic". In addition, there are always strange, dubious moral personalities near the genius, like Tomaso Giovanni Masini, known under the pseudonym Zoroaster de Peretola, a good mechanic, jeweler and at the same time an adherent of the secret sciences.

Leonardo kept a very strange diary, referring to himself in it as "you", giving orders and orders to himself as a servant or slave: "command me to show you ...", "you must show in your essay ...", "order make two travel bags ... "It seems that two personalities lived in da Vinci: one - known to everyone, friendly, not devoid of some human weaknesses, and the other - incredibly strange, secretive, unknown to anyone, who commanded him and controlled his actions.

Da Vinci had the ability to foresee the future, which, apparently, even surpassed the prophetic gift of Nostradamus. His famous "Prophecies" (originally a series of notes made in Milan in 1494) paint terrifying pictures of the future, many of which have either already been our past or are now our present. "People will talk to each other from the most distant countries and answer each other" - we are certainly talking about the telephone. "People will walk and not move, they will talk to those who are not, they will hear those who do not speak" - television, tape recording, sound reproduction. "People ... will instantly scatter in different parts of the world without moving from their place" - TV image transmission.

"You will see yourself falling from great heights without any harm to you" - obviously skydiving. "Countless lives will be destroyed, and countless holes will be made in the earth" - here, most likely, the seer is talking about craters from air bombs and shells that really killed countless lives. Leonardo even foresees travel into space: "And many terrestrial and aquatic animals will rise between the stars ..." - the launch of living beings into space. "Many will be those from whom their little children will be taken away, who will be skinned and quartered in the cruelest way!" - transparent reference to children whose body parts are used in the organ bank.

Thus, the personality of Leonardo da Vinci is unique and multifaceted. He was not only a man of art, but also a man of science.

Conclusion

Most people know Leonardo da Vinci as the creator of immortal artistic masterpieces. But for Leonardo, art and research were complementary aspects of the constant desire to observe and fix the appearance and internal structure of the world. It can definitely be argued that he was the first among scientists whose studies were supplemented by art.

Leonardo worked very hard. Now it seems to us that everything was easy for him. But no, his fate was filled with eternal doubts and routine. He worked all his life and did not imagine a different state. Rest for him was a change of occupation and a four-hour sleep. He worked always and everywhere. “If everything seems easy, this unmistakably proves that the worker is very little skilled and that the work is beyond his understanding,” Leonardo repeatedly repeated to his students.

If you take a look at the vast expanse of areas of science and human knowledge that Leonardo's thought touched, it becomes clear that not a huge number of discoveries, and not even the fact that many of them were years ahead of their time, made him immortal. The main thing in his work remains that his genius in science is the birth of an era of experience.

Leonardo da Vinci is the brightest representative of the new natural science based on experiment. "Simple and pure experience is the true teacher," the scientist wrote. He studies not only the machines existing in his time, but also refers to the mechanics of the ancients. Persistently, carefully examines the individual parts of the machines, carefully measures and records everything in search of the best form, both details and the whole. He is convinced that the scientists of antiquity were just approaching the understanding of the basic laws of mechanics. He sharply criticizes the scholastic sciences, contrasting them with a harmonious combination of experiment and theory: “I know well that some proud people, because I am not well-read, will seem as if they have the right to blame me, referring to the fact that I am a person without a book education. Stupid people I could answer them like this, saying: "You, who have adorned yourself with other people's works, you do not want to recognize my rights to my own" ... They do not know that my objects, more than from other people's words, are drawn from experience, which was the mentor of those who wrote well; so I take him as my mentor and in all cases I will refer to him. As a practical scientist, Leonardo da Vinci enriched almost all branches of knowledge with deep observations and insightful conjectures.

This is the biggest mystery. As you know, answering it, some modern researchers consider Leonardo a message from alien civilizations, others - a time traveler from a distant future, others - a resident of a parallel, more developed world than ours. It seems that the last assumption is the most plausible: da Vinci knew too well worldly affairs and the future that awaits humanity, with which he himself was little concerned ...

Literature

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5. Gukovsky M.A., Leonardo da Vinci, L. - M., 1967.

6. Zubov V.P., Leonardo da Vinci, M. - L., 1961.

8. Lazarev V.N. Leonardo da Vinci. L. - M., 1952.

9. Foley W. Werner S. The contribution of Leonardo da Vinci to theoretical mechanics. // Science and life. 1986-#11.

10. The mechanical investigations of Leonardo da Vinci, Berk. - Los Ang., 1963.

11. Heydenreich L. H., Leonardo architetto. Firenze, 1963.

Appendix

Leonardo da Vinci - self-portrait

Last Supper

Gioconda (Mona Lisa)

lady with ermine

Baby in the womb - anatomical drawing

Leonardo da Vinci - Anatomical drawings:

Human heart - anatomical drawing

Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519. He was only sixty-seven years old. His fame as a famous artist by this time had already spread throughout Europe. However, there is one side of his life, which was not known to the public at that time. Few people knew how much Leonardo da Vinci was interested in anatomy. His scientific research in this direction was practically unknown to anyone.

Even in the immediate environment of Leonardo da Vinci, anatomy at that time did not meet with due interest and understanding. This situation continued until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was at this time that the discoveries of Leonardo da Vinci in anatomy were carefully studied. Only after scientists conducted a thorough analysis of his scientific works, looked through thousands and thousands of pages of records of the great Renaissance artist, it became clear that his scientific activity was no less important than art.

Unknown pages of the life of Leonardo da Vinci

Anatomy, optics, geology, botany, hydrodynamics, etc. - all these sciences occupied a lot of space in his life, second only to painting. This talented artist had a reputation as an archetypal renaissance man, an artist who occasionally dabbled in science.

However, for Leonardo da Vinci himself, anatomy, like the rest of his scientific activity, was no less important than painting. For the past ten years, he has not started painting new pictures at all. From 1508 to 1513, the artist devoted himself mainly to science, only from time to time returning to canvases begun in previous years.

More than other sciences

Of all the scientific research at this time, Leonardo da Vinci was especially interested in anatomy. For several years, he actively worked with corpses, carefully opening them for a more accurate understanding of the human physical structure.

Leonardo da Vinci, who had an outstanding artistic talent and expressive writing style in the field of anatomy, was able to create one of the most perfect studies of his time. He even prepared the work for publication, but did not have time to put his intention into practice. If his book had been published, then the study of the physical structure of man could have taken a step forward, Leonardo da Vinci's contribution to the development of anatomy was so great. Unfortunately, after his death, all the notes and sketches created by this great man, which remained among his personal documents, were hidden from the world for a long four hundred years.

versatility

Until now, many of the talents of this man, infinitely gifted, remain a mystery to us. In his youth, while living in Florence, he worked as an apprentice to one of the most famous Italian artists - Leonardo was patronized by the Medici family. Near the place of his work was another art workshop - maestro Antonio del Pollaiolo, the author of the engraving "Battle of the Naked". Pollaiolo became one of the first painters of the Renaissance, who, while studying in the anatomical theater, closely studied the human muscular system. The chroniclers believe that it was his canvases that became the first lessons for the young Leonardo da Vinci.

A new approach to the physical structure of man

Anatomy was perceived by Renaissance artists as an aid in order to have a correct idea of ​​the body. That is why they paid great attention only to the muscular system. However, unlike Leonardo da Vinci, they studied anatomy briefly, since they were practically not interested in the structure of human internal organs. It is known that Pollaiolo personally produced, however, he also dealt more with muscle anatomy, and therefore the chest, skull and abdominal cavity were not affected by him.

initial interest

If at the very beginning of his scientific activity Leonardo da Vinci did the same as Pollaiolo, then in subsequent years he gradually began to consider the physical structure of a person not only as an appendix to his favorite painting or sculpture.

In general, it is the general anatomy that covers the whole life of this great artist. Historians attribute his first manuscript to 1484, and the last to 1515. Probably, even in Florence, Leonardo, who first visited the anatomical theater, began to do autopsies. The first he produced at the Santa Maria Nova hospital. Here, many other Florentine artists, such as Michelangelo, also studied the muscular structure of a person.

For them, the main practical guide was the scientific work of Mondino de Lucci, who lived long before Leonardo da Vinci - "Anatomy". A person was opened according to his method by many generations, not only of pathologists, but also of artists, and in the hot climate of Italy, this process was carried out for several days.

It was believed that on the first day it was necessary to open the stomach, then the chest, on the third day the heart, and on the fourth day the limbs. The study of the head began with the dissection of the scalp, followed by the opening of the skull, after which the brain was examined, and then the base of the skull. During this period of his life, Leonardo created his first schematic anatomical sketches of cross sections of the legs. Realizing the complexity of conducting an autopsy, Leonardo considered his observations the basis for studying the structure of the human body.

Recordings of a "mad" genius

Since almost all the works of Leonardo are diaries, the entries in them were kept in a peculiar way. They are a kind of dialogue that the author had with an imaginary interlocutor and where he defends his opinion, while citing fairly strong evidence. In addition, his manuscripts contain Leonardo's instructions to himself, as well as reasoning that can be directly linked to philosophy.

He was interested in the heart, musculoskeletal system, skeleton and muscles. Leonardo was the first to correctly and surprisingly accurately draw the forms and, most importantly, the proportions of all the components of the human skeletal system. All previous images of the skeleton, as a rule, were conditional, schematic or very primitive.

Only based on my own experience

Leonardo attached great importance to experience, since he learned almost everything on his own. He, reading books, then tested his theory in practice. This brilliant creator believed that everything should be created "on the basis of experience." In all aspects considered by Leonardo da Vinci - a scientist, anatomy is paramount. At the same time, almost everywhere in his notes, the search for the only correct answer can be traced. Leonardo, who believed that the truth can be found, guided only by logic or scientific observations, categorically did not recognize "speculative" theories. Therefore, he put such a fundamental science as mathematics as the basis of all his research, including knowledge of the human structure.

Mistakes and misconceptions

Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting of human anatomy is said to be incredibly accurate, with one exception, the female reproductive system. But this is understandable, since in the Renaissance it was problematic to conduct an autopsy of female corpses.

Although this Italian artist studied anatomy only to improve his paintings of human bodies, he succeeded in drawing more attention to this discipline.

A genius in everything, Leonardo tried to understand how the human mechanism "works". According to scientists, he looked at the people around him exactly the way a mechanic sees a car. The fact is that, depicting human nature in his painting or sculpture, the artist wanted to be as believable as possible, because this would allow him to be not only very realistic, but in general - a special, memorable creator.

Anatomy in sketches

This Florentine artist not only sketched human body parts or muscle groups, but also showed them in his sketches in section. Moreover, each drawing was accompanied by notes necessary for understanding. And be sure Leonardo mirrored them, because he mastered this method to perfection. It is the latter that adds complexity to study, making it difficult for scientists to painstakingly study the scientific legacy of da Vinci. Today, four centuries later, all his notes and sketches have been carefully digitized and presented to the public. Looking at them, we can definitely say that the merits of Leonardo da Vinci in anatomy are enormous, since it was he who managed to thoroughly study the human body in his time.

At the same time, the artist and scientist did not devote as many sketches and notes to any organ, with the exception of only the eyes, as to the heart. At the same time, he refuted the Galenian idea that veins originate from this organ. In addition, Leonardo da Vinci was an opponent of the theory of two ventricles, quite rightly believing that the valves divide the heart into sections. It must be said that the Master had no idea about the circulatory system when he did the research.

Significance of the contribution

This Florentine genius is considered the founder of a science called dynamic anatomy. After Galen, for thirteen centuries there was almost no new research on the structure of the human body, and therefore his work was considered dogma. The first anatomical observations of da Vinci are close in character to the works of Avicenna, while the last ones are those of Vesalius.

Making preparations with his own hands, the great Master introduced everything new into the study of internal organs. It was he who invented the glass model for studying heart valves. The artist was the first to cut the bones of the skeleton up and down, thereby determining its proportions. The contribution of Leonardo da Vinci to anatomy cannot be overestimated. It was he who became the author of the first images of human organs in a variety of angles. He called his drawings dimonstrazioni.

Achievements

Leonardo was the first in the history of the science of anatomy to suggest that the human sacrum does not consist of three, but of five vertebrae, he managed to correctly describe its angle of inclination of the sacrum. He was also the first to consider such anatomical features of our body as the inclination or bending of the ribs, which are very important for understanding the mechanism of breathing, as well as the inclination of the pelvis.

It was Leonardo who managed to correctly calculate that there are twenty-five bones in our foot, while he was not afraid to go into confrontation with the works of Avicenna and Galen, who believed that there were twenty-six of them. The artist was the first to be able to correctly draw the articular surfaces. In addition, Leonardo managed to describe a number of anatomical features of the human skeleton associated with our upright posture: for example, the oblique position of the femur in relation to the vertical.

His anatomical manuscripts, which are statements, have been available to scientists for many centuries. And although today science confirms some of them and refutes others, such as, for example, his absurd theory of blood, nevertheless, despite certain errors in research, it is difficult to overestimate the contribution of Leonardo da Vinci to anatomy as a science.

Harmony of life

Thanks to Leonardo da Vinci, anatomy and medicine today have stepped far forward. However, he had a completely negative attitude towards doctors. Being an outstanding person, this artist and scientist, like no one else, saw the inability and ignorance of the then doctors.

Today, all of his sketches are the property of the British Royal Collection - the British Royal Collection. Modern anatomy, revolving around new imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging or the study of the human structure at the microscopic level, has certainly come a long way. Such areas of heights were not available to Leonardo, but the Florentine artist still managed to achieve what scientists came to only a few decades later.

For example, his sketches of human embryos are almost identical to what ultrasound shows today, and da Vinci's images of the shoulder look almost identical to their modern 3D renderings.

Much of what Leonardo did truly reflected the essence of things in a way that was proven many decades after it was presented by the great Florentine Renaissance painter.

Leonardo da Vinci was born in the town of Vinci (or near it), located west of Florence, on April 15, 1452. He was the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary and a peasant girl, was brought up in his father's house and, being the son of an educated person, received a thorough primary education.

1467 - at the age of 15, Leonardo went as an apprentice to one of the leading masters of the Early Renaissance in Florence, Andrea del Verrocchio; 1472 - joined the guild of artists, studied the basics of drawing and other necessary disciplines; 1476 - so he worked in the workshop of Verrocchio, apparently in collaboration with the master himself.

By 1480, Leonardo already had large orders, but after 2 years he moved to Milan. In a letter to the ruler of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, he presented himself as an engineer, military expert and artist. The years he spent in Milan were filled with various pursuits. Leonardo da Vinci painted several paintings and the famous fresco "The Last Supper" and began to diligently and seriously keep his notes. The Leonardo whom we recognize from his notes is a design architect (creator of innovative plans that were never carried out), an anatomist, a hydraulician, an inventor of mechanisms, a designer of scenery for court performances, a writer of riddles, puzzles and fables for the entertainment of the court, musician and art theorist.

1499 - after the expulsion of Lodovico Sforza from Milan by the French, Leonardo leaves for Venice, visits Mantua along the way, where he participates in the construction of defensive structures, then returns to Florence. In those days, he was so fascinated by mathematics that he did not want to think about picking up a brush. For 12 years, Leonardo constantly moved from city to city, working for the famous in Romagna, designing defensive structures (never built) for Piombino.

In Florence he enters into a rivalry with Michelangelo; this rivalry culminated in the huge battle compositions that the two artists painted for the Palazzo della Signoria (also Palazzo Vecchio). Then Leonardo conceived a second equestrian monument, which, like the first, was never created. Throughout all these years, he continues to fill out his notebooks. They reflect his ideas relating to a variety of subjects. This is the theory and practice of painting, anatomy, mathematics and even the flight of birds. 1513 - as in 1499, his patrons are expelled from Milan ...

Leonardo leaves for Rome, where he spends 3 years under the auspices of the Medici. Depressed and distressed by the lack of material for anatomical research, he engages in experiments that lead nowhere.

The kings of France, first Louis XII, then Francis I, admired the works of the Italian Renaissance, especially Leonardo's The Last Supper. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that in 1516, Francis I, well aware of the versatile talents of Leonardo, invites him to the court, which was then located in the Amboise castle in the Loire Valley. As the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini wrote, despite the fact that the Florentine worked on hydraulic projects and plans for a new royal palace, his main occupation was the honorary position of court sage and adviser.

Fascinated by the idea of ​​creating an aircraft, the Florentine initially developed the simplest apparatus (Dedalus and Icarus) based on wings. His new idea is an airplane with full control. But it was not possible to bring the idea to life due to the lack of a motor. Also, the famous idea of ​​​​the scientist is a device with vertical takeoff and landing.

Studying the laws of fluids and hydraulics in general, Leonardo made a great contribution to the theory of locks, sewer ports, testing ideas in practice.

Famous paintings by Leonardo - "La Gioconda", "Last Supper", "Madonna with an Ermine", and many others. Leonardo was demanding and precise in everything he did. Even before painting, he insisted on a complete study of the object before starting.

Leonardo's manuscripts are priceless. They were fully published only in the XIX-XX centuries. In his notes, Leonardo da Vinci noted not just reflections, but supplemented them with drawings, drawings, and descriptions.

Leonardo da Vinci was talented in many areas, he made a significant contribution to the history of architecture, art, and physics.

Leonardo da Vinci died in Amboise on May 2, 1519; his paintings by this time were usually distributed to private collections, and the notes lay in various collections, almost in complete oblivion, for several more centuries.

Secrets of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci encrypted a lot so that his ideas would be revealed gradually, as humanity could “ripen” to them. He wrote with his left hand and in very small letters, from right to left, so that the text looked as if in a mirror image. He spoke in riddles, made metaphorical prophecies, and liked to compose puzzles. Leonardo da Vinci did not sign his works, but they have identification marks. For example, if you take a closer look at the paintings, you can find a symbolic bird taking off. Apparently, there are a lot of such signs, therefore one or another of his hidden “brainchildren” is unexpectedly found on famous canvases, after centuries. So, for example, it was with the Benois Madonna, which for a long time, as a home icon, itinerant actors carried with them.

Leonard discovered the scattering principle (or sfumato). The objects on his canvases have no clear boundaries: everything, as in life, is blurry, penetrates one into another, which means it breathes, lives, awakens fantasy. To master this principle, he advised to practice: look at the stains on the walls that appear from dampness, ashes, clouds or dirt. He deliberately smoked the room where he worked in order to look for images in clubs.

Thanks to the sfumato effect, a flickering smile of the Gioconda appeared: depending on the focus of the gaze, it seems to the viewer that the Gioconda smiles either gently, or, as it were, ominously. The second miracle of the "Mona Lisa" is that she is "alive". Over the centuries, her smile changes, the corners of her lips rise higher. In the same way, the Master mixed the knowledge of various sciences, because his inventions find more and more applications over time. From the treatise on light and shadow come the beginnings of the sciences of penetrating power, oscillatory motion, and the propagation of waves. All of his 120 books have been distributed around the world and are gradually being revealed to mankind.

Leonardo da Vinci preferred the method of analogy to all others. Approximation of analogy is an advantage over the accuracy of a syllogism, when a third inevitably follows from two conclusions. But the more bizarre the analogy, the further the conclusions from it extend. Take, for example, the famous illustration of da Vinci, which proves the proportionality of the human body. A human figure with outstretched arms and spread legs fits into a circle, and with closed legs and raised arms - into a square. This "mill" gave impetus to various conclusions. Leonardo was the only one who created designs for churches in which the altar is placed in the middle (symbolizing the human navel), and the worshipers are evenly around. This church plan in the form of an octahedron served as another invention of genius - a ball bearing.

The Florentine liked to use contraposto, which creates the illusion of movement. Everyone who saw his sculpture of a giant horse in Corte Vecchio involuntarily changed their gait to a more relaxed one.

Leonardo was never in a hurry to finish a work, because unfinishedness is an essential quality of life. Finish means kill! The slowness of the Florentine was the talk of the town, he could make two or three strokes and retire for many days from the city, for example, to improve the valleys of Lombardy or was engaged in the creation of an apparatus for walking on water. Almost every one of his significant works is "work in progress". The master had a special composition, with the help of which he seemed to specially make “windows of incompleteness” on the finished painting. Apparently, in this way he left a place where life itself could intervene and correct something ...

He masterfully played the lyre. When the case of Leonardo was heard in the court of Milan, he appeared there precisely as a musician, and not as an artist or inventor.

There is a version that Leonardo da Vinci was a homosexual. When the artist was studying in Verrocchio's workshop, he was accused of harassing a boy who posed for him. The court acquitted him.

According to one version, Gioconda smiles from the realization of her secret for all pregnancy.

According to another, Mona Lisa is entertained by musicians and clowns while she posed for the artist.

There is another assumption, according to which, "Mona Lisa" is a self-portrait of Leonardo.

Leonardo da Vinci, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Experts doubt that Leonardo's famous sanguine self-portrait (traditionally dated 1512-1515), showing him in his old age, is such. It is believed that this is probably only a study of the head of the apostle for the "Last Supper". Doubts that this is a self-portrait of the artist began to be expressed since the 19th century, the last of which was recently expressed by one of the largest experts on Leonardo da Vinci, Professor Pietro Marani.

Scientists at the University of Amsterdam and American researchers, having studied the mysterious smile of Mona Lisa using a new computer program, unraveled its composition: according to them, it contains 83 percent happiness, 9 percent neglect, 6 percent fear and 2 percent anger.

Leonardo loved water: he developed instructions for scuba diving, he invented and described a device for scuba diving, a breathing apparatus for scuba diving. All the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci formed the basis of modern underwater equipment.

Leonardo was the first painter to dissect corpses in order to understand the location and structure of muscles.

Observations of the Moon in the phase of the growing crescent led the researcher to one of the important scientific discoveries - Leonardo da Vinci established that sunlight is reflected from our planet and returns to the moon in the form of secondary illumination.

The Florentine was ambidexterous - he was equally good with his right and left hands. He suffered from dyslexia (impaired reading ability) - this ailment, called "word blindness", is associated with reduced brain activity in a certain area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe left hemisphere. A well-known fact, Leonardo wrote in a mirror way.

Relatively recently, the Louvre spent 5.5 million dollars to outweigh the most famous masterpiece of the artist "La Gioconda" from the general room to a specially equipped room for it. Two-thirds of the State Hall, which occupies a total area of ​​840 sq. m. The huge room was rebuilt as a gallery, on the far wall of which now hangs the famous creation of the great Leonardo. The reconstruction, which was carried out according to the project of the Peruvian architect Lorenzo Piqueras, lasted about 4 years. The decision to move the Mona Lisa to a separate room was made by the administration of the Louvre due to the fact that in the same place, surrounded by other paintings by Italian masters, this masterpiece was lost, and the public was forced to queue to see the famous painting.

2003, August - the canvas of the great Leonardo worth $ 50 million "Madonna with a Spindle" was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. The masterpiece was stolen from the home of one of Scotland's wealthiest landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch.

It is believed that Leonardo was a vegetarian (Andrea Corsali, in a letter to Giuliano di Lorenzo Medici, compares him with a Hindu who did not eat meat). The phrase often attributed to Leonardo “If a person strives for freedom, why does he keep birds and animals in cages? .. man is truly the king of animals, because he cruelly exterminates them. We live by killing others. We are walking graveyards! Even at an early age I refused meat” is taken from the English translation of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s novel “The Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci".

Leonardo da Vinci designed the submarine, the propeller, the tank, the loom, the ball bearing, and the flying machines.

While building canals, Leonardo made an observation that later entered geology under his name as a theoretical principle for recognizing the time of formation of the earth's layers. He came to the conclusion that our planet is much older than indicated in the Bible.

Among da Vinci's hobbies were even cooking and serving art. In Milan for thirteen years he was the manager of court feasts. He invented several culinary devices that facilitate the work of cooks. The original dish "from Leonardo" - thinly sliced ​​stew, with vegetables laid on top - was very popular at court feasts.

In the books of Terry Pratchett there is a character whose name is Leonard, the prototype of which was Leonardo da Vinci. Pratchett's Leonard writes from right to left, invents various machines, engages in alchemy, paints pictures (the most famous is the portrait of Mona Ogg)

A considerable number of Leonardo's manuscripts were first published by the curator of the Ambrosian Library, Carlo Amoretti.

Italian scientists have made a statement about the sensational discovery. According to them, discovered an early self-portrait of Leonardo. The discovery belongs to the journalist Piero Angela.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the village of Anchiato near the city of Vinci (hence the prefix to his surname). The boy's father and mother were not married, so Leonardo spent his first years with his mother. Soon his father, who served as a notary, took him to his family.

In 1466, da Vinci became an apprentice in the studio of the artist Verrocchio in Florence, where Perugino, Agnolo di Polo, Lorenzo di Credi also studied, Botticelli worked, Ghirlandaio and others visited. At this time, Leonardo became interested in drawing, sculpture and modeling, studied metallurgy, chemistry , drawing, mastered work with plaster, leather, metal. In 1473, da Vinci qualified as a master at the Guild of Saint Luke.

Early creativity and scientific activity

At the beginning of his career, Leonardo devoted almost all his time to working on paintings. In 1472 - 1477 the artist created the paintings "The Baptism of Christ", "Annunciation", "Madonna with a Vase". In the late 1970s he completed Madonna with a Flower (Madonna Benois). In 1481, the first major work in the work of Leonardo da Vinci, The Adoration of the Magi, was created.

In 1482 Leonardo moved to Milan. Since 1487, da Vinci has been developing a flying machine, which was based on bird flight. Leonardo first created the simplest apparatus based on wings, and then developed the mechanism of an airplane with full control. However, it was not possible to bring the idea to life, since the researcher did not have a motor. In addition, Leonardo studied anatomy and architecture, discovered botany as an independent discipline.

Mature period of creativity

In 1490, da Vinci creates the painting “Lady with an Ermine”, as well as the famous drawing “Vitruvian Man”, which is sometimes called “canonical proportions”. In 1495 - 1498, Leonardo worked on one of his most important works - the fresco "The Last Supper" in Milan in the monastery of Santa Maria del Grazie.

In 1502, da Vinci entered the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer and architect. In 1503 the artist creates the painting "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda"). Since 1506, Leonardo has served under King Louis XII of France.

Last years

In 1512, the artist, under the auspices of Pope Leo X, moved to Rome.

From 1513 to 1516, Leonardo da Vinci lived in the Belvedere, working on the painting "John the Baptist". In 1516, Leonardo, at the invitation of the French king, settled in the Clos-Luce castle. Two years before his death, the artist's right hand went numb, it was difficult for him to move independently. Leonardo da Vinci spent the last years of his brief biography in bed.

The great artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519 in the Clos Luce castle near the city of Amboise in France.

Other biography options

• Leonardo was demanding and precise in all his affairs. Even being fond of painting, he insisted on a complete study of the object before starting the drawing.
• Leonardo da Vinci made a huge contribution to engineering and hydraulics, the scientist invented a bicycle, a wheel lock, a searchlight, a catapult, etc.
• Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts are priceless. They were fully published only in the 19th and 20th centuries. In his notes, Leonardo noted not just reflections, but supplemented them with drawings, drawings, and descriptions.
• The life of Leonardo da Vinci, whose biography was full of incredible events, was described by many famous authors - D. Merezhkovsky, V. Zubov, M. Landrus, R. Giacobbo, A. Gastev and others. Many of the books about the artist were created for children.
• see all

Leonardo da Vinci may have been the greatest inventor in history, but the technology was so weak in his time that all sketches of genius remained on paper at best. Da Vinci drew sketches and diagrams of his devices and kept notes. But either he did not have the desire to translate them into reality, or he did not have enough funds. As a result, during the life of da Vinci, almost none of his inventions saw the light of day. Yes, and they learned about the works of the brilliant inventor only after his death, since he never submitted his notes for public discussion.

And it's incredibly sad, because da Vinci's design skills were way ahead of their time. If they were embodied in real inventions, who knows, maybe the revolution in the world of technology would have happened much earlier. On the other hand, many of da Vinci's sketches could not have been realized with the tools of the 15th and 16th century. But in the 21st century, many engineers took to the implementation of da Vinci's projects with pleasure and found out that they really work. And they would have worked if da Vinci had been a little bolder and even a little more inventive.

Let's look at da Vinci's inventions through the eyes of the layman of the twenty-first century.

Not impressed? Well, a bearing may not be the coolest thing an inventor can afford, but a lot of modern technology works with bearings. Ball bearings allow drive shafts to rotate, push goods through a store or factory, and are the backbone of almost any moving mechanism. Smooth balls placed between two moving surfaces virtually eliminate friction. For the first time, the idea, as many believe, was born back in the time of the Roman Empire, but historians believe that it was in da Vinci's notebooks that the first sketches of the bearing appeared. Many of the devices invented by the genius would not work without bearings. But as is the case with many of the inventor's other concepts, the bearing had to be reinvented by someone else.

, with which the body falls depends on two factors: the force of gravity, which pulls down, and the resistance of the atmosphere in which it falls. In the absence of an atmosphere, a falling body will simply accelerate to tremendous speed until it hits the surface, but the air slows down the fall until the body reaches the so-called terminal speed. Different objects have different speed limits. For a person falling in the Earth's atmosphere - a skydiver, for example - this speed is approximately 193.1 km / h. Slow, right? So be it, but this is enough for a person who has fallen from an airplane to turn into a cake after hitting the surface of the earth. Only a parachute can save him.

Da Vinci, fascinated by the idea of ​​a flying man, conceived his parachute as a means to drift through the air. Its pyramidal structure was draped with cloth. As da Vinci wrote in his notes, such a device would allow a person to “fall from any height without any injury or damage.” Naturalists of the twenty-first century, who realized the plan of da Vinci, recognized that it works exactly as he predicted.

Da Vinci was inspired by birds. He watched them, drew them and thought about creating his own aircraft. One result of this hobby was the ornithopter, a device devised by da Vinci that could theoretically lift a person into the air like a bird. While a da Vinci parachute would have allowed a man to jump off a cliff and stay alive, an ornithopter would have allowed him to hover in the air above the earth.

On paper, an ornithopter looks more like a bird (or bat) than modern aircraft. Its wings will start to work after the pilot turns the handle. This invention demonstrates a deep understanding of da Vinci's aerodynamics. Modern attempts to reproduce the ornithopter have shown that it could indeed fly - if it was lifted into the air. It would be more difficult to build an aircraft that uses weak human muscles.

The parachute and the ornithopter were only two of the flying machines described by da Vinci in his notebooks. Others included both a glider and a helicopter-like aircraft, which we may discuss later.

The da Vinci machine gun or "33-barrel organ" was not a machine gun in the modern sense. He could not fire bullets quickly from one barrel. But on the other hand, it could fire volleys at short intervals, and if it had been built, it would have effectively mowed down the advancing infantry.

The mechanism of this machine gun is simple. Da Vinci suggested assembling 11 muskets on a rectangular board, and then folding three such boards into a triangle. By placing a shaft in the middle, it would be possible to rotate this whole thing so that one set of 11 guns fires while the other two cool down and reload. After that, the whole mechanism turned over and gave another volley.

And although da Vinci constantly noted in his notebooks that he hated war and cursed killing machines, he needed money, and he could easily convince wealthy patrons that such machines would help them defeat their enemies. Perhaps it's for the best that none of the killing machines da Vinci conceived were ever built.

While living in Venice in the late 15th century, da Vinci developed the idea to repel invading ships. It was enough to send men to the bottom of the harbor in diving suits, and there they would simply open the bottoms of the ships like tin cans. Perhaps this idea does not impress you, since at present its implementation seems to be quite simple. But in da Vinci's time, this was unheard of. Da Vinci divers could breathe with the help of an underwater air bell, put on masks with glass holes through which one could see underwater. In another version of the concept, divers could breathe using wine bottles filled with air. In both cases, the men would carry bottles with them to urinate in, so they could stay underwater for a very long time. Da Vinci's plan was not only feasible - it was practical!

These diving suits were actually created, but the invaders against whom they were supposed to be used were successfully defeated by the Venetian fleet before underwater sabotage was needed.

armored tank

Working for the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, da Vinci proposed what could be the pinnacle of his creation in the field of military vehicles: an armored tank. Assisted by eight strong men, the armored tank looked like a turtle that bristled with 36 guns from all sides. It was equipped with a system of gears that made up a sequence. Eight people were protected from battle by an outer shell, so they could deliver such a “hedgehog” on foot right into the thick of the battle without being wounded. Shooting in all directions, weapons from an armored tank could be fatal to an opponent's detachment.

The scheme of the armored tank in da Vinci's notes contains a funny flaw: the wheels for moving forward were spinning in the opposite direction from the rear wheels. Built in this way, the tank could not move. Da Vinci was too smart to make such an unfortunate mistake, so historians have given several reasons why the inventor made such a mistake deliberately. Perhaps he really did not want this machine to be built. Another option is that he was afraid that the scheme would fall into the clutches of enemies, so he made a mistake to make sure that no one but him could build a tank.

self-propelled cart

working model.

Da Vinci's self-propelled cart is put forward as the first automobile in history. Moreover, since it did not have a driver, it can also be considered as the first robotic transport in history.

The drawings made by da Vinci do not fully reveal the internal mechanism, so modern engineers have had to guess what made the cart go forward. The best guess was a spring mechanism like the one used in watches. The springs were hidden in drum-shaped cases and could be wound by hand. And while the spring unwinds, the trolley rides forward like a clockwork toy. The steering wheel could be programmed with a series of blocks in the gear chain, although the fact that the bogie could only turn to the right would have severely limited its usefulness.

Leonardo apparently regarded his cart as something of a toy, but there is no doubt that if it were built, more useful improvements would soon follow.

Cities of the future

Leonardo da Vinci Bridge.

When Leonardo lived in Milan around 1400, the black plague was rampant in Europe. Cities suffered far more than the countryside, and da Vinci suggested that there was something special about cities that made them vulnerable to disease. This idea is surprisingly close to the present, given that the theory of microbial disease was developed only at the beginning of the 20th century. Da Vinci set out to develop his own plan: a city, originally designed and built from scratch, that would be sanitary and habitable.

The result was an urban planning triumph that was never built. Da Vinci's "ideal city" was divided into several levels, each of which had minimal unsanitary conditions, and a network of canals contributed to the rapid removal of waste. Water was supposed to provide buildings through a hydraulic system, which served as the prototype of the modern one. The resources needed to create such a city were beyond the means available to da Vinci, and he could not find a patron willing to put his money on the construction of such a city.

Air propeller

The da Vinci propeller is probably the coolest project ever found in his notebooks. It would work on the principle of a modern helicopter. The flying machine looked like a huge pinwheel. The "blades" of the helicopter were made of linen. If spun fast enough, they could create thrust, the aerodynamic phenomenon that allows airplanes and helicopters to fly. The air would create pressure under each of the blades, thereby lifting the flying machine into the sky.

The idea, anyway, was this. Could such a propeller fly? Hardly. But it would be cool.

robot knight

Leonardo da Vinci carefully studied human anatomy.

If da Vinci's self-propelled cart was the first working design for robotic transportation, the robot knight could be the first humanoid robot, C-3PO of the 15th century. Da Vinci carefully studied the anatomy of the human body and spent hours dismembering corpses to figure out how it works. He realized that muscles move bones. After that, he decided that the same principle could form the basis of the machine. Unlike most of da Vinci's inventions, Leonardo does appear to have built a robotic knight, but it was used primarily for party entertainment by the genius's lavish patron, Lodovico Sforza. Of course, that robot was much different from .

The da Vinci robot has not survived, and no one knows exactly what it was capable of. But apparently, he walked, sat and even worked with his jaws. In his work, a system of pulleys and gears was used. In 2002, robotics expert Mark Rosheim took da Vinci's workbooks to build a working model of a 15th century robot. As a result, Rosheim borrowed some ideas to create planetary reconnaissance robots that .

As you can see, after half a century of space research, Leonardo da Vinci's projects finally went into outer space.