Physics 1010-011

Leonardo Da Vinci

Created By Cole Jacobsen

Hibo Artan

Justin Bentley

Summer Butler

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AbstractWhile technically Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519, more

commonly known as Leonardo da Vinci) has had no direct influence on modern science, he

metaphorically and literally painted his world in a different hue and set the fast pace for

intellectual momentum that we continue today in the Technology Age.

Perspective plays a dominant role in any artist’s life. How they view the world that

everyone else also sees, is somehow special. An artist will see a can of soup on a table that

hundreds of thousands will pass by before one Warhol notices its beauty and passes it along to

the world for billions to enjoy in its new light. Da Vinci’s greatest contribution to the scientific

world was probably the simple matter of an artistic way of thinking outside the box and

challenging what was perceived as simple fact. This questioning outlook was not intended to be

difficult but inquisitive – finding what was correct and what needed work, in order to better the

vast knowledge of the world we are immersed in.

With such a wide array of topics we could cover, the focus of this paper is on the history

of the man himself, a review of his paintings and other artwork, a look into his notebooks and

scientific method, and a review of his inventions with their technological advances that continue

today.

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1. Biography.

Leonardo da Vinci was a world known polymath born in a farmhouse on April 15, 1452,

in Vinci, Italy. Da Vinci’s interests included sculpting, painting, inventing, architecture, science,

music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, botany, geology, writing, history, and

cartography. He is considered one of the greatest minds of his time and people are still using his

scientific methods today.

Da Vinci was a young apprentice in Andrea Verrochio’s bottega, while he was there it is

assumed that because of the environment, he participated in homosexual behavior. He was

surrounded by “pretty boys” who were also poor and could not afford whores so homosexual

behavior was almost a necessity rather than a choice. When da Vinci was 19 years old, he was

arrested by the church’s vice squad for sodomy. As Leonardo got older, people began to believe

that he visited female and male prostitutes. In his later years of life, da Vinci appeared to have an

asexual perspective. He was known to frequently have beautiful young men around as

apprentices. He became almost disgusted with the act of sex and the sex organs themselves. The

only quality that remained attractive was the faces of people. This was a sad transition because

the once outgoing, joyful man around town, later became quiet, reclusive and solitary.

There is not a lot of recorded information from da Vinci’s childhood, but the most

interesting thing we do know is that when he was about 15 years old his father was able to get

him an apprenticeship with Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading artist of Florence at the time.

Verrocchio was a great leader to da Vinci and it is fair to say that a lot of Leonardo’s artistic

style can be attributed to the great artist. Upon the completion of his apprenticeship, Leonardo

had the opportunity to stay and work in Verrocchio’s shop. His first known painting was in

Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ. Leonardo was trusted with the role of painting one of the angels

as well as adding the final touches to texturize the flesh of Christ.

Around the time 1478, Leonardo decided to become an independent master and set up his

own studio. Within the first 5 years of his independence, he was commissioned by a major

church to construct an altarpiece, The Adoration of the Magi. Unfortunately, like many of da

Vinci’s other pieces of artwork, the Magi altarpiece was never finished. Leonardo found himself

leaving Florence in 1482 to accept a position with the court artist to the Duke of Milan. In 1499,

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the Duke of Milan was overthrown by the French invasion and Leonardo was commissioned to

go work on military projects in Mantua. In late 1502, Leonardo served a term as a military

engineer for Cesare Borgia. Da Vinci completed more projects from his few years in Florence

than he had finished in any other time of his life. Leonardo left Milan in 1506 and headed once

again to Milan. He was called by the French governor to work on an equestrian statue project. At

this point in time, Leonardo started to put less focus on his painting and more focus on the

sciences and the anatomy of living organisms. While earlier painters and artists attempted to

create a vision of the anatomy of human beings, da Vinci took this science to a new level

producing some of the most accurate anatomical drawings that are still used today. Leonardo’s

interests did not seem to follow a single pattern. He studied all aspects of life and science. He

had a special passion firearms, the action of water, plant growth, geology, and military

equipment.

In his last years, Leonardo settled down in Rome where he continued to study sciences

and fill his notebooks with his research. He was later invited to meet with the French King where

he was given the title of the first painter, architect, and mechanic to the King. Leonardo died in

May of 1519, and even after his death, his research has continued to live on and benefit society

today. Leonardo’s artwork had great impact on the young artists of the late 1400’s such as

Michelangelo and Raphael, Filippino Lippi and Andera del Sarto, who have made a great impact

on the world with their artwork.

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2. Paintings and Artwork.

Leonardo took up art training when he was

only 14 years old, under the guidance of Andrea di

Cione, who was popularly called as Verrocchio.

Several other artists were trained by this master.

Leonardo worked closely with Verrocchio

on the painting The Baptism of Christ, which

depicted an angel holding the robe of Jesus (Figure

A). The young artist's work was quite superior, that

it greatly impressed Verrocchio. The painting

showed that it employed a new technique of using

oil paint. This proved to show Leonardo's ingenuity

and his skills that were rather ahead of his time. He is

broadly thought to be one of the best painters ever and maybe the most differently skilled

individual ever to have lived. Even though he was such a great artist, only fifteen or so DaVinci

paintings survive, many of his paintings have been

lost during the world war times.

Leonardo is quite famous for his painting of

The Mona Lisa (Figure B). The painting's focal point

was the Mona Lisa's rather elusive smile, as well as

the mysterious quality of the woman as depicted in

her eyes and corners of the mouth. There was also

quite a shadowy feature in this painting. This painting

is painted as oil on wood and is owned by the

Government of France.

The last supper (Figure C) is Leonardo's

visual interpretation of an event chronicled in all four

of the Gospels books in the Christian New Testament.

It is a mural painting. The painting was made using

(Figure A “The Baptism of Christ” 1472-1475)

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experimental pigments directly on the dry plaster wall and unlike frescos, where the pigments are

mixed with the wet plaster, Even before it was

finished there were problems with the paint flaking

from the wall and Leonardo had to repair it. It’s on the

back wall of the dining hall at the Dominican convent of Sta Maria delle Grazie in Italy.

(Figure C “The Last Supper” 1495-1498)

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This drawing (Figure D), perceived as a self-portrait, was done in 1512 using red chalk,

when Leonardo da Vinci was 50 and living in France. It is now held in the magnificent collection

of the Biblioteca Reale, Turin.

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt,

and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” -Leonardo da Vinci

3. Unpublished but influential.

If you completed one note in your journal a day for nearly 36 years you would have a

library of personal work the same size as da Vinci – who had approximately 13,000 pages of

notes and drawings. His topics ranged from art and natural philosophy, to more mundane

subjects such as grocery lists and debts owed.

Though da Vinci’s works are now world-renowned, it is a little known fact that he

actually never published a single scientific work.1 Interestingly, da Vinci prepared much of his

work with a form and order that would facilitate publication. It is not known why they were not

published within his lifetime. When da Vinci died, his estate and savings passed to his brothers,

but his life’s work became the custody of his companion Francesco Melzi, and aristocratic artist.

Grief-stricken, Melzi did not leave Leonardo’s final resting place for several months. When he

finally moved onward to his ancestral home near Milan, his cart and horses were laden with a

priceless treasure of countless papers, wooden and metal models, and various paintings.

With the aid of two full-time scribes, Melzi began collating da Vinci’s work, but the task

of organizing such a large library into any feasible system would be quite difficult for anyone.

The greatest accomplishment of this project is the incomplete work of Leonardo’s “Treatise on

Painting,” which unfortunately ended up altered and diluted in the Vatican library.

When Melzi eventually died, his son, Orazio Melzi, inherited his effects. Having no

interest in da Vinci and not recognizing the wealth of work he now had in his possession, Orazio

tucked the collections away into an attic. A tutor of Orazio, Lelio Gavardi, persuaded him to part

with 13 volumes of notebooks, which he attempted to sell to a Grand Duke. The Duke died

before the sale was completed, so Gavardi attempted the sale elsewhere. Fortunately the next

(Figure D “Self Portrait” 1512)

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man whom he approached for the sale persuaded him to return the works to the Melzi family, but

Orazio was still uninterested in the works.

From this point word seeped out that Orazio was in possession of a da Vinci’s works, so

he began to be hounded by treasure-hunters and scholars seeking a portion of the well of

Leonardo’s knowledge. Many of these callers left with at least a few pages, often ripped out of a

random notebook.

Thus began the dispersion of Leonardo’s work. In the current age, a scientific advance

can be public shortly after being verified, but during and after da Vinci’s time an advance or

discovery needed to be published, printed, and circulated before being considered for popular

opinion. About two hundred years followed this dispersing into private ownership of da Vinci’s

works where his advances were inadvertently ignored by their owner’s lack of knowledge in the

paper’s field of expertise.

The sculptor Pompeo Leoni was able to acquire much of da Vinci’s work, and he formed

them into a single large volume (402 sheets, with more than 1700 drawings) which was called

the Codex Atlanticus. Atlanticus and another sizable collection of Leonardo’s work passed

hands a few more times until they ended up at the Ambrosian Library in Milan, Italy. In 1796,

Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy and began the transfer of various works of art to France,

including Codex Atlanticus. At the library of the Institute of France in Paris, the volumes were

carefully examined and referenced into proper works, each being assigned a capital letter for

each section.

All the knowledge we have gained from his eccentric, artistic and logical views have

been gained from his personal notebooks. Loose-leafed papers of varying sizes and organized

manuscripts have been collected over more recent times and grouped into Codices to be

displayed in art museums and libraries across the globe. Two notable collections are the Codices

Atlanticus and Leicester. The twelve-volume Codex Atlanticus is currently displayed in the

Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan; the Codex Leicester (sometimes referred to as Codex Hammer,

from a prior owner) is currently the only privately owned set of da Vinci’s work, its owner Bill

Gates of Microsoft-fame puts it on display once a year in various cities around the world.

Beyond these works, there are still other collections floating around the world, some private

some public.

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4. Scientific process and critical thinking.

Sciences during the Renaissance was mostly Aristotelian (Syllogistic: all dogs are

animals, all animals have 4 legs, therefore all dogs have 4 legs) and Ptolemaic (Geocentrism:

Earth-central universe), and outside forms of thinking were often quelled by the churches’

dominating hand over the people. Knowledge was often based off of theoretical bases, or

assumed to be fact by descriptions in major religious scripts.

Being primarily a painter, da Vinci’s approach was observational – he did not theorize or

experiment, he studied what was right in front of him and recorded what simply was there so he

could reproduce it accurately in his paintings and other works. A simple example of this simple

observational style of research and use can be seen in his writing style. While many people

suspect da Vinci’s “mirror-writing” to be a form of code or other device, it appears to simply be

the result of our hero being left-handed. When writing in the typical left-to-right format, ink

would smudge in a left-hand writer, and da Vinci seemingly found a simple solution to the

problem.

Throughout his life’s work, a prominent and reoccurring topic is water and

hydrodynamics. “Water is the driver of nature… Water, which is the vital humour of the

terrestrial machine, moves by its own natural heat.”2 His writings were not merely not merely

notes and drawings, but were laid out in a diagnostic and most scientific manner. Taken from

the Codex Leicester:

Book 1, of the nature of water. Book 2, of the sea. Book 3, of subterranean rivers.

...

Leonardo didn’t just have vague unfounded theories that he noted in his journeys, his

highly logical mind organized his works as he observed and pondered them. To further this

point, da Vinci didn’t stop by just organizing his work into topics, but subtopics:

1. The Nature of Water.a. Types of water.

i. Sea. ii. Subterranean rivers.

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iii. Rivers. ...

While we may see this as a simple matter of formatting, it was actually an uncommon

practice. Leonardo was not only plotting his chapters of work, but planning them out into

subsections in a categorical classification system. He was writing in elements that have mostly

only been used in modern scientific methods. He soundly observed his topic, classified and

detailed his subject, and discussed his matter with potential interferences and theoretical

arguments that would support the observations.

Touching on observation, da Vinci said, ”Experiment never deceives: it is only our

judgment which deceives, promising from it things that are not in its power.” 3 He continued on

to say, “Before making this case a general rule, test it by experiment two or three times and see if

experiment produces the same effect.” 4 And finally, he summed the scientific process in a

respectable way by stating, “The Experiment should be made many times so that no accident

may occur to hinder or falsify this proof, for the experiment may be false whether it deceived the

investigator or no.” 5

Leonardo da Vinci truly inspired us to create and follow a standardized scientific method:

Clearly dictate your question, collect all available data, experiment and analyze your results, and

finally clearly communicate your results.

“Seeing that I cannot choose a particularly useful or pleasant subject,

since the men born before me have taken for themselves all the useful and necessary themes,

I shall do the same as the poor man who arrives last at the fair,

and being unable to choose what he wants,

has to be content with what others have already seen and rejected because of its small worth.

I will load my humble bags with this scorned and disdained merchandise,

rejected by many buyers, and go to distribute it not in the great cities,

but in poor villages, receiving the price for what I have to offer.”

- Codex Atlanticus

Just to name a few, da Vinci is credited to influencing subjects such as painting,

sculpting, architecture, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology,

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astronomy, botany, writing, history, cartography, paleontology, ichnology, plate tectonics, tensile

strengths, robotics, hydrodynamics, and optics.

Leonardo’s prowess with the basic scientific method may be partially because of his wide

array of topics. The rationale he applied to one topic could be used time and time again in other

subjects. Instead of learning talents in one field, he learned fundamentals and applied the basic

concepts in various other fields – much as we attempt in our own physics classes today.

5. Inventions and technological advances.

The Diving suit was one of the designs Leonardo da Vinci designed in the year of 1500

in Venice. This garment was designed to protect someone who was going into an underwater

environment.

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Anemometer is a device used for measuring wind speed commonly used as a weather

instrument. This invention was not invented by da Vinci but he had made variations to it during

the times of 1483-1486.

Another invention worked on by da Vinci was the armored car, the armored car was built

to use in combat against enemies during the time of 1487.

6. Conclusion.

Leonardo da Vinci had many inventions and projects he worked on, although they all

were not all successful we use enhanced variations of his designs today. For instance the

parachute, ornithopter, and the fighting vehicle. These are all things that are still used. Leonardo

projects, whether it was paintings and artwork to inventions his ideas had a major influence on

what is fully utilized in modern technology. This has paved the way for ideas that can and have

been improved.

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Bibliography and Sources:

1) Intro: (Group)

2) Life and upbringing: (Justin)

"Leonardo Da Vinci Biography." - Life, Family, Childhood, Parents, History, Wife, Young, Son, Information, Born, House. Web. 04 Mar. 2016.

Maxwell, Robin. "Was Leonardo Da Vinci Gay?" Robin Maxwell - Author and Screenwriter. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

3) Paintings and Art: (Hibo) www.LeonardoDaVinci.net.

4) Sketches and diaries: (Jacoby)

1 Fritjof Capra (2007). The Science of Leonardo. Pp.5-6. U.S.: Doubleday.ISBN: 978-0-385-51390-6.

2 Leonardo da Vinci. Manuscript F, 87 v.3 Leonardo da Vinci. Codex Atlanticus, 154 v.4 Leonardo da Vinci. Manuscript A, 47 v.5 Leonardo da Vinci. Codex Leicester, 3 v.

5) Inventions and technological advances: (Summer) www.da-Vinci inventions.Com

6) Conclusions: (Group)