Inventor - Leonardo da Vinci

Born:  April 15, 1452 in Florence, Tuscany Italy

Died: May 2, 1519, age 67, in France

Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519

Parents:

His 25-year old father was Piero da Vinci (1426-1504) a notary who went on to become an attorny, and 17-year old peasant girl named Caterina Buti del Vacca (1434-1494) who were never married to each other; both married other people one year after Leonardo was born. 

Piero da Vinci took custody of the child immediately after birth and placed him in his father's household. It's been recorded by Emanuel Repetti, the local historian, that Leonardo was born in Anchiano, a country hamlet where an illegitimate child's birth offered some privacy. About a year before Leonardo's birth, Piero was engaged to Albiera Amadori and they married one year later. She died in 1464 and Piero married three more times. 

A much younger Leonardo da Vinci

His mother Caterina later married a local artist named Antonio di Piero Buti del Vacca. Leonardo was raised in the home of his paternal grandfather, Antonio da Vinci. All tolled, there were as many as 16 half-siblings from all the marriages, about eleven lived past infancy, but were much younger than Leonardo so he had very little contact with them. The last child was born when Leonardo was 46 years old.

When his father died in 1504, Leonardo barely noted his passing and cut off his siblings because they caused a lot of trouble in disputes over their inheritances.

Young Adulthood

Around the mid-1460's, da Vinci's grandfather's household moved to Florence where Leonardo became a study boy for Andrea del Verrocchio the leading painter in Florence at the time. His master was the great sculpture Donatello of whom Leonard became an apprentice at age 17 for seven years.  He was exposed to famous painters such as Botticelli, Peruginio, and Ghirlandaio, where he learned drafting, plaster casting, mechanics, woodworking, metallurgy, chemistry, drawing, painting, modeling and sculpting.

Some of da Vinci's Inventions

Leonardo Da Vinci was a famous painter and sculptor who did not attend formal school. He was taught by family servants how to read and write, and some basic mathematics, but for most of his middle years, he was self taught. His time outdoors was where he began to observe the natural world, the properties of water, and how birds of prey caught their food.

One of da Vinci's notebooks

His notebooks had thousands of pages of illustrations, verse, and anatomical drawings which showed he had quite an understanding of the human body. He sharpened his skill by dissecting corpses of animals and humans in order to learn how the body works. Most of his drawings were done starting around the 1480s and his drawings of the body were hailed as the first of its kind.

In 1517, Leonardo da Vinci suffered paralysis of his right hand so he wrote in reverse. The writing could only be read by holding it up to a mirror.  When he died, he left over 6,000 pages of journals filled with his ideas, inventions and grocery lists.  Rumors abounded that he wrote in reverse to protect the work from being stolen, while others believed it was to protect against smudges because writing from left to right would have smudged his writing and ruined the journals. Although his paralysis was well documented, it is entirely likely that he did it also to protect his work from being stolen.

Many people feel that the "Mona Lisa" was da Vinci's greatest masterpiece, certainly the most famous of his works. His sculpting work also brought him notoriety. In the late 1400s, da Vinci was commissioned to create a 20 foot sculpture of the Duke of Milan's father riding on horseback.  One hopes they didn't want the sculpture in a hurry because it took him 17 years to do the sketches and build a model of the sculpture.  In 1499, Milan was invaded by the French army and the sculpture was destroyed.

Leonardo da Vinci as an accomplished inventor., showed his expertise lay in understanding how things worked which he accomplished with little effort.  He invented the parachute, several types of winged flying devices (airplanes, etc.), scuba gear, the water wheel, the anemometer (which measured the speed of wind), and a giant crossbow.

The parachute idea was first credited to Sebastien Lenormand in 1783, but it was actually discovered several hundred years earlier when da Vinci's drawings were examined, that he was first to conceive of the idea.

The first commercial helicopter was not built until the mid-1940s, but da Vinci's sketches contains those of modern day flying machines including a helicopter.

When cannons took too long to load, he built 33-barreled guns that could be loaded and fired at the same time. He also invented the triple barrel cannon which was used on the battlefield.

His invention of the armoured car was before the modern tank and it was loaded with a large number of weapons and able to move in any direction.

Although da Vinci has been given the credit for inventing the modern day clock, what he actually did was design a more accurate clock.

He had many ideas and even though they needed the assistance of amny pulleys, weights, gears, and tools, da Vinci's self-propelled cart was impressive because it could move without being pushed.

He invented the revolving bridge which was key for soldiers fighting the war.  The bridge was portable, able to be folded up and stored in comfortable parcels so soldiers could bring it out to progress over waterways and damaged bridges.

Leonardo da Vinci sketched ideas for several hundred inventions covering every aspect of life.  Many were years ahead of their time, but he built very few of them during his lifetime.  His aspiration was to organize and publish his ideas, but he died before that happened.

As a successful artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria in Florence and later in Milan and Rome. His drawings of the human anatomy, building of skeletons, and his detailed writings for chapters helped in the teaching of anatomy to future doctors. Although da Vinci had no formal schooling, his contemporaries regarded his genius as being so rare that his remarkable talents were inspired from God rather than from human skill.

da Vinci's Mona Lisa

Although the Mona Lisa is considered his most famous portrait, the Last Supper is the most reproduced painting of all time.

da Vinci's Last Supper

Trivia

In 1994, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, bought Leonardo's notebook The Codex Leicester for $30.8 million, the most expensive book ever sold.  The notebook is 72 pages long and written sometime between 1506 and 1510.  It holds many of da Vinci'sw diagrams, ideas, and sketches, relating to the Earth, Moon, and Sun. 

Death

In 1516, King Francis I of France bestowed on him the title of Premier Painter, Engineer, and Architect to the King." One of the perks was a country manor home, the Chateau of Clous which was where he spent his last years painting and drawing. He died there at age 67 in 1519.

Leonardo da Vinci lamented on his deathbed that he failed God and men by not practicing his art as he should have. He sent for a priest to make his confession, and receive the Holy Sacrament. King Francis I became his close friend and some legends claim that he held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died. He never married, never fathered any children. His work and his pupils were his family.

In his Will, he stipulated that 60 beggars carry tapers and follow his casket. His principal heir and executor was Francesco Melzi, one of his best pupils, who sketched da Vinci through the years and give us the likenesses we now know as da Vinci. Melzi received his paintings, tools, library, and personal effects. Another long time pupil named Salai and his servant Baptista each received half of the vineyards. His servant woman received a fur-lined cloak. 

Salai owned the Mona Lisa painting at the time of da Vinci's death but it later turned out to be one of several copies. In Salai's own Will, the date of his copy of the painting was around 1513 or so.  In 1524, it was assessed at 505 lire. In 1962, there was a proposal to insure the painting for over $100 million before making a tour around the world but the insurance was not purchased. Instead the money was spent on more security.

His exact gravesite near the palace church of Saint-Florentin was completely demolished in the early 1800s during the French Revolution making it impossible to identify da Vinci's actual gravesite.