The da Vinci Code

Leonardo da Vinci defined the term “Renaissance Man.” He is, in fact, the person who comes to mind when one thinks of a “Renaissance Man.” He was charismatic and could easily befriend almost everyone (but not Michelangelo). He was accomplished in the fields of art, science, music, and engineering, but perhaps the most impressive thing about Leonardo is that most of what he knew or learned of the world, he taught himself (he taught himself how to play the lyre and he even built himself one in the shape of a lion’s head.) He discovered the world on his own terms instead of simply settling for the knowledge that his teachers could offer him. He did not simply learn all that he could that was previously discovered by men before him, he challenged himself to become more than what any human thought that a man could be. He realized his own potential and explored the furthest reaches of his mind. He wanted to know everything, and he had the mental capacity to teach himself.

Leonardo did things that other people did not dare to such as going to morgues in the dark of the night to study the anatomy of the human body. People whispered about how abnormal that was, but he continued to do it until people were openly questioning his sanity and his patron was threatening to stop sponsoring him. He gained valuable knowledge through his midnight studies of the human body. He made sketched of muscles and He was the first person to be called a “genius.” He was also the first person to perfect perspective and foreshortening. Leonardo also had the ability to breathe life into his paintings. As Vasari said, “The eyes have the luster and moisture always seen in living people….Anyone who looked very attentively at the hollow of her throat would see her pulse beating.” The painting that he is describing is the “Mona Lisa.” (fig.1) She has a mystery about her smile and it can be related to the Archaic smile that is shown in ancient Greek sculpture. The woman depicted in the painting was once said to be the wife of Francisco del Giocondo, but now historians maintain that she was the wife of a Florentine merchant. The “Mona Lisa” is one of the most celebrated works that came out of the Renaissance era because of the attention to detail and its lifelike qualities. It is arguably the most recognizable portrait ever made.

He had the amazing ability to capture not just the image of a person, but also their essence in his portraits. He has done the same with his self portraits. (fig. 2) He looks as though he is concentrating on something in deep thought, which is fitting because he was painting himself and was probably in both deep concentration and thought. Leonardo was, as most genius’ are, troubled. During the 1480s, he was especially troubled. His emotions were shown through his paintings. His unfinished painting, Jerome in the Wilderness,(fig. 3) has an eerie, dark feeling to it. Jerome looks as though he is troubled by something and the scenery of craggy rocks surrounding him is less than cheery. To further document this unpleasant time in Leonardo’s life, he wrote in his journal, “all this time I thought I was learning to live; I was learning to die.” However, even unfinished, this drawing shows his genius. He drew it from an unusual angle; it appears as though he is below the level of Jerome. The precision of Leonardo’s drawings of Jerome’s musculature and body can be attributed to his studies of the anatomy of the human body.

Leonardo rarely finished his projects, but his notebooks are further testimony to his genius. In those notebooks, he made sketches that provided the basis of information for anatomists and biologists. His sketch known as Embryo in the Womb (fig. 4) not only provided a diagram of an embryo, but also provided notes on his observations and conclusions. Another sketch of his is the heart. The sketches of the embryo and the heart were most likely drawn during Leonardo’s midnight visits to the morgue. He made drawings of the human skeleton and human musculature. He contributed to the study of anatomy over 200 drawings of the human body. With his Vitruvian Man (fig. 5) he shows how movement affects the musculature of a drawing and he demonstrates perfect proportion.

Leonardo also made many contributions to the world of engineering. In his journals he designed many inventions such as musical instruments, hydraulic pumps, reversible crank mechanisms, finned mortar shells and a steam cannon. In 1502, he created a drawing of a bridge that would span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus River that is known as the Golden Horn. He intended the bridge to be 720 feet long. However, the sultan that he would be building it for, the Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul believed that it was impossible to erect such a massive construction. It turns out that Leonardo’s idea was not impossible for in 2001, Norway decided to build a smaller bridge using his idea. Furthermore, on May 17, 2006, the Turkish government decided to build Leonardo’s bridge over the Golden Horn. Leonardo was particularly infatuated with the concept of flight. He studied birds which produced his “Codex on the Flight of Birds” in 1505 which examined the flight behaviors of birds and held his idea’s for flying machines.(fig.6) Some of his ideas included a helicopter and a hang glider. The helicopter was impractical for him, but the hang glider has successfully been built.

Vasari talks about Leonardo’s attention to detail in the horses in his cartoon in the Hall of the Pope. (fig.7) The cartoon tells the story Niccolo Piccinino, who was a commander of the Duke Filippo of Milan. Leonardo drew a group of horsemen fighting for a standard. He studied the anatomy of horses and drew them in his notebooks (fig.8) This cartoon shows Leonardo’s ability to portray emotion in a piece of art. The horses are just as violent and engaged in the battle as the horsemen are. Vasari says in the painting “anger, disdain, and vindictiveness are displayed no less by the horsemen than by their horses, two of which forelegs intertwined are battling with their teeth no less fiercely than their riders are fighting for the standard, which one of the soldiers has seized.”

Leonardo was more than just a “Renaissance Man.” He possessed all the qualities of one such man because he was learned on the subjects of art, athletics, science, mathematics, engineering, music and architecture. He was also charismatic. He was a friend of kings and popes as well as common people. He made invaluable discoveries that impact the worlds of the subjects that he mastered. He was the champion of his time and he, as well as his art, was well-known and it is even more well-known today, but even that was not enough for Leonardo. He believed that he never achieved perfection in his art and that he said on his death bed to the king that he “had offended God and the men of the world by not having worked at his art as he should have.” He may not have given the world the caliber of art that he wanted to, but what he did achieve still warrants the work of a true genius. As Vasari says, “The loss of Leonardo saddened beyond all measure everyone who had known him, for no one ever lived who had brought such honour to painting.”

fig. 1

fig. 2

fig. 3

fig. 4

fig. 5

fig. 6

fig. 7

fig. 8