Leonardo da Vinci: scientist and inventor. Leonardo da Vinci

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Today is Leonardo da Vinci's birthday. Scientist, inventor, writer, musician

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci - a man of Renaissance art, sculptor, inventor, painter, philosopher, writer, scientist, polymath (universal person).

The future genius was born as a result of a love affair between the noble Piero da Vinci and the girl Katerina (Katarina). According to the social norms of that time, the marriage of these people was impossible due to the low origin of Leonardo’s mother. After the birth of her first child, she was married to a potter, with whom Katerina lived the rest of her life. It is known that she gave birth to four daughters and a son from her husband.

Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

The parent apprenticed Leonardo to the Tuscan master Andrea Verrocchio. During his studies with his mentor, son Pierrot learned not only the art of painting and sculpture. Young Leonardo studied the humanities and engineering, leather craftsmanship, and the basics of working with metal and chemicals. All this knowledge was useful to Da Vinci in life.

Leonardo received confirmation of his qualifications as a master at the age of twenty, after which he continued to work under the supervision of Verrocchio. The young artist was involved in minor work on his teacher’s paintings, for example, he painted background landscapes and clothes of minor characters. Leonardo only got his own workshop in 1476.

Drawing "Vitruvian Man" by Leonardo da Vinci

In 1482, da Vinci was sent by his patron Lorenzo de' Medici to Milan. In Milan, Duke Lodovico Sforza enrolled Leonardo in the court staff as an engineer. The high-ranking person was interested in defensive devices and devices for entertaining the courtyard. Da Vinci had the opportunity to develop his talent as an architect and his abilities as a mechanic. His inventions turned out to be an order of magnitude better than those proposed by his contemporaries.

The engineer stayed in Milan under Duke Sforza for about seventeen years. At this time, Leonardo created his most famous drawing, “The Vitruvian Man,” made a clay model of the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza, painted the wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery with the composition “The Last Supper,” and made a number of anatomical sketches and drawings of apparatus.

Leonardo's engineering talent also came in handy after his return to Florence in 1499. He entered the service of Duke Cesare Borgia, who relied on Da Vinci's ability to create military mechanisms. The engineer worked in Florence for about seven years, after which he returned to Milan. By that time, he had already completed work on his most famous painting, which is now kept in the Louvre Museum.

The master's second Milanese period lasted six years, after which he left for Rome. In 1516 Leonardo went to France, where he spent his last years. On the journey, the master took with him Francesco Melzi, a student and main heir of da Vinci’s artistic style.

Portrait of Francesco Melzi

Despite the fact that Leonardo spent only four years in Rome, it is in this city that there is a museum named after him. In three halls of the institution you can get acquainted with devices built according to Leonardo’s drawings, examine copies of paintings, photos of diaries and manuscripts.

The Italian devoted most of his life to engineering and architectural projects. His inventions were both military and peaceful in nature. Leonardo is known as the developer of prototypes of a tank, an aircraft, a self-propelled carriage, a searchlight, a catapult, a bicycle, a parachute, a mobile bridge, and a machine gun. Some of the inventor's drawings still remain a mystery to researchers.

Drawings and sketches of some of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions

In 2009, the Discovery TV channel aired the series of films “Da Vinci Apparatus.” Each of the ten episodes documentary series was dedicated to the construction and testing of mechanisms based on Leonardo's original drawings. The film's technicians tried to recreate the inventions of the Italian genius using materials from his era.

Modern researchers have concluded that the probable cause of the artist’s death was a stroke. Da Vinci died at the age of 67 in 1519. Thanks to the memoirs of his contemporaries, it is known that by that time the artist was already suffering from partial paralysis. Leonardo couldn't move right hand, as researchers believe, due to a stroke suffered in 1517.

Despite the paralysis, the master continued to be active creative life, resorting to the help of student Francesco Melzi. Da Vinci's health deteriorated, and by the end of 1519 it was already difficult for him to walk without assistance. This evidence is consistent with the theoretical diagnosis. Scientists believe that a repeated attack of cerebrovascular accident in 1519 ended his life's journey famous Italian.

Monument to Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, Italy

At the time of his death, the master was in the castle of Clos-Lucé near the city of Amboise, where he lived for the last three years of his life. In accordance with Leonardo's will, his body was buried in the gallery of the Church of Saint-Florentin.

Unfortunately, the master's grave was destroyed during the Huguenot wars. The church in which the Italian was buried was looted, after which it fell into severe neglect and was demolished by the new owner of the Amboise castle, Roger Ducos, in 1807.

Amboise Castle

After the destruction of the Saint-Florentin chapel, remains from many burials different years were mixed and buried in the garden.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, researchers have made several attempts to identify the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. Innovators in this matter were guided by the lifetime description of the master and selected the most suitable fragments from the found remains. They were studied for some time. The work was led by archaeologist Arsen Housse. He also found fragments of a tombstone, presumably from da Vinci's grave, and a skeleton in which some fragments were missing. These bones were reburied in the reconstructed artist's tomb in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert on the grounds of the Castle of Amboise.

Da Vinci's tomb at Amboise Castle

In 2010, a team of researchers led by Silvano Vinceti was going to exhume the remains of the Renaissance master. It was planned to identify the skeleton using genetic material taken from the burials of Leonardo's paternal relatives. Italian researchers were unable to obtain permission from the castle owners to carry out the necessary work.

On the site where the Church of Saint-Florentin used to be located, at the beginning of the last century a granite monument was erected, marking the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the famous Italian. The engineer's reconstructed grave and stone monument with his bust are among the most popular attractions in Amboise.

Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci is a man of Renaissance art, sculptor, inventor, painter, philosopher, writer, scientist, polymath (universal person).

Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

The first-born Piero da Vinci lived with his mother for three years. Leonardo's father immediately after his birth married a wealthy representative noble family, but his legal wife was never able to give birth to an heir. Three years after the marriage, Pierrot took his son to him and began raising him. Leonardo's stepmother died 10 years later while trying to give birth to an heir. Pierrot remarried, but quickly became a widower again. In total, Leonardo had four stepmothers, as well as 12 paternal half-siblings.

Creativity and inventions of da Vinci

Drawing "Vitruvian Man" by Leonardo da Vinci

In 1482, da Vinci was sent by his patron Lorenzo de' Medici to Milan. During this period, the artist worked on two paintings, which were never completed. In Milan, Duke Lodovico Sforza enrolled Leonardo in the court staff as an engineer. The high-ranking person was interested in defensive devices and devices for entertaining the courtyard. Da Vinci had the opportunity to develop his talent as an architect and his abilities as a mechanic. His inventions turned out to be an order of magnitude better than those proposed by his contemporaries.

The engineer stayed in Milan under Duke Sforza for about seventeen years. During this time, Leonardo painted the paintings “Madonna in the Grotto” and “Lady with an Ermine”, created his most famous drawing “The Vitruvian Man”, made a clay model of the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza, painted the wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery with the composition “The Last Supper”, made a number of anatomical sketches and drawings of devices.

The master's second Milanese period lasted six years, after which he left for Rome. In 1516, Leonardo went to France, where he spent his last years. On the journey, the master took with him Francesco Melzi, a student and main heir of da Vinci’s artistic style.

Portrait of Francesco Melzi

Drawings and sketches of some of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions

In 2009, the Discovery TV channel aired the series of films “Da Vinci Apparatus.” Each of the ten episodes of the documentary series was devoted to the construction and testing of mechanisms based on Leonardo's original drawings. The film's technicians tried to recreate the inventions of the Italian genius using materials from his era.

Personal life

The master's personal life was kept in the strictest confidence. Leonardo used a code for entries in his diaries, but even after deciphering, researchers received little reliable information. There is a version that the reason for secrecy was da Vinci’s unconventional orientation.

The theory that the artist loved men was based on researchers’ guesses based on indirect facts. At a young age, the artist was involved in a case of sodomy, but it is not known for certain in what capacity. After this incident, the master became very secretive and stingy with comments about his personal life.

Leonardo's possible lovers include some of his students, the most famous of whom is Salai. The young man was endowed with an effeminate appearance and became a model for several paintings by da Vinci. John the Baptist is one of Leonardo's surviving works for which Szalai sat.

There is a version that the "Mona Lisa" was also painted from this sitter, dressed in women's dress. It should be noted that there is some physical similarity between the people depicted in the paintings “Mona Lisa” and “John the Baptist”. The fact remains that da Vinci bequeathed his artistic masterpiece namely Salai.

Historians also include Francesco Melzi among Leonardo's possible lovers.

There is another version of the secret of the Italian’s personal life. It is believed that Leonardo had a romantic relationship with Cecilia Gallerani, who is supposedly depicted in the portrait “Lady with an Ermine”. This woman was the favorite of the Duke of Milan, the owner of a literary salon, and a patron of the arts. She introduced the young artist to the circle of Milanese bohemia.

Fragment of the painting “Lady with an Ermine”

Among Da Vinci's notes was found a draft of a letter addressed to Cecilia, which began with the words: “My beloved goddess...”. Researchers suggest that the portrait “Lady with an Ermine” was painted with clear signs of unspent feelings for the woman depicted in it.

Some researchers believe that the great Italian did not know carnal love at all. Men and women were not attracted to him physical sense. In the context of this theory, it is assumed that Leonardo led the life of a monk who did not give birth to descendants, but left a great legacy.

Death and grave

Modern researchers have concluded that the probable cause of the artist’s death was a stroke. Da Vinci died at the age of 67 in 1519. Thanks to the memoirs of his contemporaries, it is known that by that time the artist was already suffering from partial paralysis. Leonardo could not move his right hand, as researchers believe, due to a stroke suffered in 1517.

Despite the paralysis, the master continued his active creative life, resorting to the help of his student Francesco Melzi. Da Vinci's health deteriorated, and by the end of 1519 it was already difficult for him to walk without assistance. This evidence is consistent with the theoretical diagnosis. Scientists believe that a repeated attack of cerebrovascular accident in 1519 ended the life of the famous Italian.

Monument to Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, Italy

After the destruction of the Saint-Florentin chapel, the remains from many burials over the years were mixed and buried in the garden. Since the mid-nineteenth century, researchers have made several attempts to identify the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. Innovators in this matter were guided by the lifetime description of the master and selected the most suitable fragments from the found remains. They were studied for some time. The work was led by archaeologist Arsen Housse. He also found fragments of a tombstone, presumably from da Vinci's grave, and a skeleton in which some fragments were missing. These bones were reburied in the reconstructed artist's tomb in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert on the grounds of the Castle of Amboise.

The secrets of da Vinci's paintings

Leonardo's work has occupied the minds of art critics, religious researchers, historians and ordinary people for more than four hundred years. The works of the Italian artist have become an inspiration for people of science and creativity. There are many theories that reveal the secrets of da Vinci's paintings. The most famous of them says that when writing his masterpieces, Leonardo used a special graphic code.

Using a device of several mirrors, researchers were able to find out that the secret of the looks of the heroes from the paintings “Mona Lisa” and “John the Baptist” lies in the fact that they are looking at a creature in a mask, reminiscent of an alien. The secret code in Leonardo's notes was also deciphered using an ordinary mirror.

Hoaxes surrounding the work of the Italian genius have led to the emergence of a number of works of art, authored by the writer. His novels became bestsellers. In 2006, the film “The Da Vinci Code” was released, based on Brown’s work of the same name. The film was met with a wave of criticism from religious organizations, but set box office records in its first month of release.

Lost and unfinished works

Not all of the master’s works have survived to this day. The works that have not survived include: a shield with a painting in the form of the head of Medusa, a sculpture of a horse for the Duke of Milan, a portrait of the Madonna with a spindle, the painting “Leda and the Swan” and the fresco “The Battle of Anghiari”.

Modern researchers know about some of the master’s paintings thanks to surviving copies and memoirs of da Vinci’s contemporaries. For example, the fate of the original work “Leda and the Swan” is still unknown. Historians believe that the painting may have been destroyed in the mid-seventeenth century on the orders of the Marquise de Maintenon, wife of Louis XIV. Sketches made by Leonardo's hand and several copies of the canvas made by Leonardo have survived to this day. by different artists.

The painting showed a young naked woman in the arms of a swan, with babies hatched from huge eggs playing at her feet. When creating this masterpiece, the artist was inspired by a famous mythical plot. It is interesting that the painting based on the story of Leda’s copulation with Zeus, who took the form of a swan, was painted not only by da Vinci.

Leonardo's lifetime rival also painted a painting dedicated to this ancient myth. Buonarotti's painting suffered the same fate as da Vinci's work. Paintings by Leonardo and Michelangelo simultaneously disappeared from the collection of the French royal house.

Among the unfinished works of the brilliant Italian, the painting “Adoration of the Magi” stands out. The canvas was commissioned by the Augustinian monks in 1841, but remained unfinished due to the master’s departure to Milan. The customers found another artist, and Leonardo saw no point in continuing to work on the painting.

Fragment of the painting “Adoration of the Magi”

Researchers believe that the composition of the canvas has no analogues in Italian painting. The painting depicts Mary with the newborn Jesus and the Magi, and behind the pilgrims are riders on horses and the ruins of a pagan temple. There is an assumption that Leonardo depicted himself at the age of 29 among the men who came to the son of God.

In 2009, researcher of religious mysteries Lynn Picknett published the book “Leonardo da Vinci and the Brotherhood of Zion,” naming the famous Italian one of the masters of a secret religious order.
It is believed that da Vinci was a vegetarian. He wore clothes made of linen, neglecting outfits made of leather and natural silk.
A group of researchers plans to isolate Leonardo's DNA from the master's surviving personal belongings. Historians also claim to be close to finding da Vinci's maternal relatives.
The Renaissance was the time when noble women in Italy were addressed with the words “my lady”, in Italian - “ma donna”. IN colloquial speech the expression was shortened to "monna". This means that the title of the painting “Mona Lisa” can be literally translated as “Lady Lisa”.

Rafael Santi called da Vinci his teacher. He visited Leonardo's studio in Florence and tried to adopt some features of his artistic style. Raphael Santi also called Michelangelo Buonarroti his teacher. The three artists mentioned are considered the main geniuses of the Renaissance.
Australian enthusiasts have created the largest traveling exhibition of the great architect's inventions. The exhibition was developed with the participation of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Italy. The exhibition has already visited six continents. During its operation, five million visitors were able to see and touch the works of the most famous engineer of the Renaissance.

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Introduction

1. Biography

1.1 Childhood

1.2 Verrocchio's workshop

1.3 Defeated teacher

1.4 Professional activity, 1472-1513

2. Achievements

2.1 Art

2.2 Science and engineering

2.3 Anatomy and medicine

2.4 Invention

2.5 Thinker

2.6 Literary heritage

3. Image in modern mass consciousness

4. Editions of works

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The Renaissance was rich in prominent figures. But Leonardo, born in the town of Vinci near Florence on April 15, 1452, stands out even from 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 plunges researchers into shock: well, a person, even if he has seven spans in his forehead, cannot be at once a brilliant engineer, artist, sculptor, inventor, mechanic, chemist, philologist, scientist, seer, one of the best of his time singer, swimmer, creator musical instruments, cantatas, equestrian, fencer, architect, fashion designer, etc. His external characteristics are also striking: Leonardo is tall, slender and so beautiful in face that he was called an “angel”, while he is superhumanly strong (with his right hand - being left-handed! - he could crush a horseshoe).

Leonardo da Vinci has been written about more than once. But the theme of his life and work, both as a scientist and as a man of art, is still relevant today.

revival of Leonardo scientist inventor heritage

1. BIOGRAPHY

1.1 Detstin

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the village of Anchiano near the small town of Vinci, not far from Florence at “three o’clock in the morning”, that is, at 22:30 according to modern time [source not specified 792 days]. A noteworthy entry in the diary of Leonardo’s grandfather, Antonio da Vinci (1372-1468) (literal translation): “On Saturday, at three o’clock in the morning on April 15, my grandson, the son of my son Piero, was born. The boy was named Leonardo. He was baptized by Father Piero di Bartolomeo." His parents were the 25-year-old notary Pierrot (1427-1504) and his lover, the peasant woman Katerina. Leonardo spent the first years of his life with his mother. His father soon married a rich and noble girl, but this marriage turned out to be childless, and Piero took his three-year-old son to be raised. Separated from his mother, Leonardo spent his whole life trying to recreate her image in his masterpieces. At that time he lived with his grandfather.

(Figure 1. Leonardo da Vinci)

In Italy at that time, illegitimate children were treated almost as legal heirs. Many influential people of the city of Vinci took part in future fate Leonardo.

When Leonardo was 13 years old, his stepmother died in childbirth. The father remarried - and again soon became a widower. He lived to be 77 years old, was married four times and had 12 children. The father tried to introduce Leonardo to the family profession, but to no avail: the son was not interested in the laws of society.

Leonardo had no last name modern sense; "da Vinci" simply means "(originally) from the town of Vinci." His full name is Italian. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, that is, “Leonardo, son of Mr. Piero from Vinci.”

1.2 Verrocchio's workshop

In 1466 Leonardo da Vinci entered Verrocchio's workshop as an apprentice artist.

Verrocchio's workshop was located in the intellectual center of what was then Italy, the city of Florence, which allowed Leonardo to study the humanities, as well as acquire some technical skills. He studied drawing, chemistry, metallurgy, working with metal, plaster and leather. In addition, the young apprentice was engaged in drawing, sculpture and modeling. In addition to Leonardo, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Agnolo di Polo studied in the workshop, Botticelli worked, and such people often visited famous masters, like Ghirlandaio and others. Subsequently, even when Leonardo’s father hires him to work in his workshop, he continues to collaborate with Verrocchio.

In 1473, at the age of 20, Leonardo da Vinci qualified as a master at the Guild of St. Luke.

1.3 Defeated teacher

In the 15th century, ideas about the revival of ancient ideals were in the air. At the Florentine Academy the best minds Italy created a theory of new art. Creative youth spent time in lively discussions. Leonardo remained aloof from his busy social life and rarely left his studio. He had no time for theoretical disputes: he improved his skills. One day Verrocchio received an order for the painting “The Baptism of Christ” and commissioned Leonardo to paint one of the two angels. This was a common practice in art workshops of that time: the teacher created a picture together with student assistants. The most talented and diligent were entrusted with the execution of an entire fragment. Two Angels, painted by Leonardo and Verrocchio, clearly demonstrated the superiority of the student over the teacher. As Vasari writes, the amazed Verrocchio abandoned his brush and never returned to painting.

1.4 Professional activities, 1472- 1513

In 1472-1477 Leonardo worked on: “The Baptism of Christ”, “The Annunciation”, “Madonna with a Vase”.

In the second half of the 70s, the “Madonna with a Flower” (“Benois Madonna”) was created.

At the age of 24, Leonardo and three other young men were attracted to trial on a false anonymous charge of sodomy. They were acquitted. Very little is known about his life after this event, but it is likely (there are documents) that he had his own workshop in Florence in 1476-1481.

In 1481, da Vinci completed the first large order in his life - the altar image “The Adoration of the Magi” (not completed) for the monastery of San Donato a Sisto, located near Florence. In the same year, work began on the painting “Saint Jerome”

In 1482 Leonardo, being, according to Vasari, very talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de' Medici sent him to Milan as a peacemaker to Lodovico Moro, and sent the lyre with him as a gift. At the same time, work began on the equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza.

Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, 1490, Czartoryski Museum, Krakow

1483 -- work began on “Madonna in the Grotto”

1487 - development of a flying machine - an ornithopter, based on bird flight

1489--1490 -- painting “Lady with an Ermine”

1489 -- anatomical drawings of skulls

1490 - painting “Portrait of a Musician”. A clay model of the monument to Francesco Sforza was made.

1490 -- Vitruvian Man -- famous drawing, sometimes called canonical proportions

1490--1491 -- "Madonna Litta" created

1490--1494 -- "Madonna in the Grotto" completed

1495--1498 -- work on the fresco "The Last Supper" in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan

1499 -- Milan is captured by the French troops of Louis XII, Leonardo leaves Milan, the model of the Sforza monument is badly damaged

1502 -- enters the service of Cesare Borgia as an architect and military engineer

1503 -- return to Florence

1503 -- cardboard for the fresco “Battle of Andjaria (at Anghiari)” and the painting “Mona Lisa”

1505 -- sketches of birds flying

1506 - return to Milan and service with King Louis XII of France (who at that time controlled northern Italy, see Italian Wars)

1507 -- study of the structure of the human eye

1508--1512 - work in Milan on the equestrian monument to Marshal Trivulzio

1509 -- painting in St. Anne's Cathedral

1512 -- “Self-Portrait”

1512 - move to Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X

2. ACHIEVEMENTS

2.1 Art

Our contemporaries know Leonardo primarily as an artist. In addition, it is possible that da Vinci could also have been a sculptor: researchers from the University of Perugia - Giancarlo Gentilini and Carlo Sisi - claim that the terracotta head they found in 1990 is the only sculptural work of Leonardo da Vinci that has come down to us. However, da Vinci himself, at different periods of his life, considered himself primarily an engineer or scientist. He did not devote much time to fine art and worked rather slowly. Therefore, Leonardo’s artistic heritage is not large in quantity, and a number of his works have been lost or severely damaged. However, his contribution to world artistic culture is extremely important even against the background of the cohort of geniuses that he gave Italian Renaissance. Thanks to his works, the art of painting moved to a qualitatively new stage of its development. The Renaissance artists who preceded Leonardo decisively rejected many of the conventions of medieval art. This was a movement towards realism and much had already been achieved in the study of perspective, anatomy, and greater freedom in compositional solutions. But in terms of painting, working with paint, the artists were still quite conventional and constrained. The line in the picture clearly outlined the object, and the image had the appearance of a painted drawing. The most conventional was the landscape that played minor role. Leonardo realized and embodied a new painting technique. His line has the right to be blurry, because that’s how we see it. He realized the phenomenon of light scattering in the air and the appearance of sfumato - a haze between the viewer and the depicted object, which softens color contrasts and lines. As a result, realism in painting moved to a qualitatively new level.

(Figure 2. Mona Lisa (1503--1505/1506)

Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue. In the book “On Painting” he wrote: “The blueness of the sky is due to the thickness of illuminated air particles, which is located between the Earth and the blackness above.”

Leonardo, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Scientists doubted that famous self-portrait Sanguine Leonardo (traditionally dated 1512-1515), depicting him in old age, is such. It is believed that perhaps this is just a study of the head of the apostle for the Last Supper. Doubts that this is a self-portrait of the artist have been expressed since the 19th century, the latest to be expressed recently by one of the leading experts on Leonardo, Professor Pietro Marani.

2.2 Science and Engineering

His only invention that received recognition during his lifetime was a wheel lock for a pistol (started with a key). At the beginning, the Wheel Pistol was not very widespread, but by the middle of the 16th century it had gained popularity among the nobles, especially among the cavalry, which was even reflected in the design of the armor, namely: Maximilian armor began to be made with gloves instead of mittens for the sake of firing pistols. The wheel lock for a pistol, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, was so perfect that it continued to be found in the 19th century.

Leonardo da Vinci was interested in the problems of flight. In Milan, he made many drawings and studied the flight mechanism of birds of various breeds and bats. In addition to observations, he also conducted experiments, but they were all unsuccessful. Leonardo really wanted to build a flying machine. He said: “He who knows everything can do everything. Just find out - and there will be wings!

At first, Leonardo developed the problem of flight using wings driven by human muscle power: the idea of the simplest apparatus of Daedalus and Icarus. But then he came up with the idea of building such an apparatus to which a person should not be attached, but should maintain complete freedom in order to control it; The apparatus must set itself in motion by its own force. This is essentially the idea of an airplane.

Leonardo da Vinci worked on a vertical take-off and landing apparatus. Leonardo planned to place a system of retractable staircases on the vertical “ornitottero”. Nature served as an example for him: “look at the stone swift, which sat on the ground and cannot take off because of its short legs; and when he is in flight, pull out the ladder, as shown in the second image from above... this is how you take off from the plane; these stairs serve as legs...” Regarding landing, he wrote: “These hooks (concave wedges) which are attached to the base of the ladders serve the same purpose as the tips of the toes of the person who jumps on them, without his whole body being shaken by it, as if he was jumping on his heels.”

Leonardo da Vinci proposed the first design of a telescope with two lenses (now known as the Kepler telescope). In the manuscript of the “Atlantic Codex”, sheet 190a, there is an entry: “Make glasses (ochiali) for the eyes to see the big moon” (Leonardo da Vinci. “LIL Codice Atlantico...”, I Tavole, S.A. 190a),

Leonardo da Vinci may have first formulated the simplest form of the law of conservation of mass for the movement of fluids when describing the flow of a river, but due to vagueness of the wording and doubts about its authenticity, this statement has been criticized.

2.3 Anatomy and medicine

During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his work. While dissecting the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small parts. According to clinical anatomy professor Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways superior to the famous Gray's Anatomy.

2.4 Inventions

List of inventions, both real and attributed to Leonardo da Vinci:

(Figure 3. Parachute)

(Figure 4. Wheel lock)

(Figure 5. Bicycle)

(Figure 6. Tank)

(Figure 7. Lightweight portable bridges for the army)

(Figure 8. Spotlight)

(Figure 9. Catapult)

(Figure 10. Robot)

(Fig. 11. Two-lens telescope)

2.5 Thinker

The creator of “The Last Supper” and “La Gioconda” also showed himself as a thinker, early realizing the need for theoretical justification of artistic practice: “Those who devote themselves to practice without knowledge are like a sailor setting off on a journey without a rudder and compass... practice should always be based on good knowledge of theory."

Demanding from the artist an in-depth study of the objects depicted, Leonardo da Vinci recorded all his observations in a notebook, which he constantly carried with him. The result was a kind of intimate diary, the like of which is not found in all world literature. Drawings, drawings and sketches are accompanied here by brief notes on issues of perspective, architecture, music, natural science, military engineering and the like; all this is sprinkled with various sayings, philosophical reasoning, allegories, anecdotes, fables. Taken together, the entries in these 120 books provide materials for an extensive encyclopedia. However, he did not strive to publish his thoughts and even resorted to secret writing, full transcript his records have not yet been completed.

Recognizing experience as the only criterion of truth and contrasting the method of observation and induction with abstract speculation, Leonardo da Vinci not only in words, but in deeds death blow medieval scholasticism with its predilection for abstract logical formulas and deduction. For Leonardo da Vinci, speaking well means thinking correctly, that is, thinking independently, like the ancients, who did not recognize any authorities. So Leonardo da Vinci comes to deny not only scholasticism, this echo of feudal-medieval culture, but also humanism, a product of still fragile bourgeois thought, frozen in superstitious admiration for the authority of the ancients. Denying book learning, declaring the task of science (as well as art) to be the knowledge of things, Leonardo da Vinci anticipates Montaigne's attacks on literary scholars and opens the era of a new science a hundred years before Galileo and Bacon.

...Those sciences are empty and full of errors that are not generated by experience, the father of all certainty, and are not completed in visual experience...

No human research can be called true science unless it has gone through mathematical proof. And if you say that sciences that begin and end in thought have truth, then I cannot agree with you on this, ... because such purely mental reasoning does not involve experience, without which there is no certainty.

2.6 Literary heritage

After the death of Leonardo da Vinci, his friend and student Francesco Melzi selected from them passages related to painting, from which the “Treatise on Painting” (Trattato della pittura, 1st ed., 1651) was subsequently compiled. The handwritten legacy of Leonardo da Vinci was published in its entirety only in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition to the enormous scientific and historical significance it also has artistic value due to its compressed, energetic style and unusually clear language. Living in the heyday of humanism, when the Italian language was considered secondary compared to Latin, Leonardo da Vinci delighted his contemporaries with the beauty and expressiveness of his speech (according to legend, he was a good improviser), but did not consider himself a writer and wrote as he spoke; his prose is therefore an example spoken language intelligentsia of the 15th century, and this saved it in general from the artificiality and eloquence inherent in the prose of humanists, although in some passages of the didactic writings of Leonardo da Vinci we find echoes of the pathos of the humanistic style.

Even in the least “poetic” fragments by design, Leonardo da Vinci’s style is distinguished by its vivid imagery; Thus, his “Treatise on Painting” is equipped with magnificent descriptions (for example, the famous description of the flood), amazing with the skill of verbal transmission of pictorial and plastic images. Along with descriptions in which one can feel the manner of an artist-painter, Leonardo da Vinci gives in his manuscripts many examples of narrative prose: fables, facets (joking stories), aphorisms, allegories, prophecies. In fables and facets, Leonardo stands on the level of the prose writers of the 14th century with their simple-minded practical morality; and some of its facets are indistinguishable from Sacchetti’s short stories.

Chessboard480.svg h8 black queen a7 white king d6 white queen a5 white pawn b5 black pawn h5 black rook d4 white knight e4 black king h4 black bishop b3 black pawn h3 black knight a2 black bishop b2 white pawn c2 white rook f2 white rook b1 white knight d1 white bishop f1 black rook g1 black knight

(Fig. 12. Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci. Checkmate in three moves from the manuscript).

Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci. Checkmate in three moves from the manuscript “On the Game of Chess”

Allegories and prophecies are more fantastic in nature: in the first, Leonardo da Vinci uses the techniques of medieval encyclopedias and bestiaries; the latter are in the nature of humorous riddles, distinguished by brightness and precision of phraseology and imbued with caustic, almost Voltairean irony, directed at the famous preacher Girolamo Savonarola. Finally, in the aphorisms of Leonardo da Vinci his philosophy of nature, his thoughts about the inner essence of things are expressed in epigrammatic form. Fiction had a purely utilitarian, auxiliary meaning for him.

A special place in the artist’s heritage is occupied by the treatise “On the Game of Chess” (Latin “De Ludo Schacorum”) - a book by the Italian monk-mathematician Luca Bartolomeo Pacioli from the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre. Latin. The treatise is also known as “Dispelling Boredom” (Latin: “Schifanoia”). Some of the illustrations for the treatise are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and some researchers claim that he also compiled some of the chess problems from this collection.

3 . IMAGE IN MODERN MASS CONSCIOUSNESS

Leonardo is an example of a historical figure transformed by mass consciousness into the image of a “magician of science.” He was a brilliant artist and an unsurpassed mechanical engineer, although far from being the most educated person of its time. The source of myth-making was his notebooks, where he sketched and described both his own technical ideas and what he discovered in the works of predecessor scientists or the diaries of travelers, “spiked” from other practitioners (often with his own improvements). Now he is perceived by many as the inventor of “everything in the world.” Considered outside the context of other Renaissance engineers, his contemporaries and predecessors, he appears in the eyes of the public as the man who single-handedly laid the foundation of modern engineering knowledge.

Leonardo da Vinci -- main character the story of the writer Keith Reed "Signor da V."

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

Leonardo is a minor character in the game Assassin's Creed 2. Here he is shown still young, but talented artist and also an inventor.

4 . PUBLICATIONS OF ESSAYS

* Leonardo da Vinci. Selected natural science works. -- M. 1955

* Fairy tales and parables of Leonardo da Vinci

* Natural science writings and works on aesthetics (1508).

* Leonardo da Vinci. "Fire and the Cauldron (story)"

CONCLUSION

In the history of science, which is the history of human knowledge, people who make revolutionary discoveries are important. The most a shining example The person who made such discoveries is Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci - Italian artist, sculptor, architect, scientist, engineer, naturalist. Of course, in all areas of his activity throughout his life, he showed the highest intelligence and creativity, which was reflected in both his scientific achievements and engineering inventions. Researchers continue to see Leonardo da Vinci primarily as an artist, but at the same time they perceive him as a generally perfect personality, harmoniously developed.

The art of Leonardo da Vinci, his scientific and theoretical research, the uniqueness of his personality has passed through the entire history of world culture and science, and had a huge influence on it...

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Website about Leonardo da Vinci

2. Leonardo da Vinci. Artist's website.

3. All paintings and biography of Leonardo da Vinci

4. Leonardo Da Vinci: The Encrypted Life. “Echo of Moscow” program from the series “Everything is so”

5. Large collection works by Leonardo da Vinci

6. Da Vinci at artcyclopedia.com

7. Da Vinci on Web Gallery of Art

8. Detailed biography, scientific discoveries and creativity of Leonardo da Vinci on istorya.ru

9. Works of Leonardo da Vinci in the Hermitage

10. Biography of Leonardo da Vinci

11. Homer Bautdinov, Leonardo da Vinci

12. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4

13. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%BE_%D0%B4 %D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%87%D0%B8#.D0.94.D0.BD.D0.B5.D0.B2.D0.BD.D0.B8. D0.BA.D0.B8

14. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%BE_%D0%B4 %D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%87%D0%B8#.D0.98.D0.B7.D0.B4.D0.B0.D0.BD.D0.B8. D1.8F_.D1.81.D0.BE.D1.87.D0.B8.D0.BD.D0.B5.D0.BD.D0.B8.D0.B9

15. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%86%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8B %D0%B9_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BA

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A brief sketch of the life, personal and creative development of Leonardo da Vinci as the most famous Italian painter, sculptor, architect, inventor and natural scientist. His study of the laws of nature, the ethical foundations of scientific developments.

Introduction

The Renaissance was rich in outstanding personalities. But Leonardo, born in the town of Vinci near Florence on April 15, 1452, stands out even from 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 plunges researchers into shock: well, a person, even if he has seven spans in his forehead, cannot be at once a brilliant engineer, artist, sculptor, inventor, mechanic, chemist, philologist, scientist, seer, one of the best of his time singer, swimmer, creator of musical instruments, cantatas, equestrian, fencer, architect, fashion designer, etc. His external characteristics are also striking: Leonardo is tall, slender and so beautiful in face that he was called an “angel”, and at the same time superhumanly strong (with his right hand - being left-handed! - he could crush a horseshoe).

Leonardo da Vinci has been written about more than once. But the theme of his life and work, both as a scientist and as a man of art, is still relevant today. The purpose of this work is to tell in detail about Leonardo da Vinci. This goal is achieved by solving the following tasks:

consider 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, an introduction, a conclusion, a list of references and illustrations in the appendix.

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

The second chapter examines 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 da Vinci's work in the field of mechanics, as well as his flying machines.

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

1. 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 Catherine was a simple peasant girl, a fleeting whim of an influential lord. There were no children in Pierrot's official family, so from the age of 4-5 the boy was raised by his father and stepmother, while his own mother, as was customary, was hastened to marry off with a dowry to a peasant. The handsome boy, who was distinguished by his extraordinary intelligence and affable character, immediately became everyone’s 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, Margarita, entered the house of Leonardo's father when her famous stepson was already 24 years old. From his third wife, Senor Pierrot had nine sons and two daughters, but none of them shone “neither in mind nor in 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 fickle. In fact, he began to study many subjects, but, having started, 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 to the teacher with whom he studied, he more than once baffled him. He also spent some effort on learning the science of music, but soon decided to learn only to play the lyre. As a man naturally endowed with a sublime spirit and full of charm, he sang divinely, improvising to her accompaniment. Yet, despite his various activities, he never gave up drawing and modeling, as the things that attracted his imagination more than anything else.

In 1466, at the age of 14, Leonardo da Vinci entered Verrocchio's workshop as an apprentice. It happened 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 urgently asked him to say whether Leonardo, having taken up drawing, would achieve any success. Struck by the enormous potential that he saw in the drawings of the novice Leonardo, Andrea supported Ser Piero in his decision to devote him to this work and immediately agreed with him that Leonardo would enter his workshop, which Leonardo did more than willingly and began to practice not in just one area, but in all those areas where the drawing is included. At this time, he also showed himself in sculpture, sculpting several heads of laughing women from clay, and in architecture, drawing many plans and other views of various buildings. He was the first who, while still a young man, discussed the question of how to divert the Arno River through a canal connecting Pisa with Florence. He also made drawings of mills, fulling machines and other machines that could be set in motion by water power.

In Verrocchio's painting: "The Baptism of the Lord", one of the angels is painted by Leonardo da Vinci; According to the legend conveyed by Vasari, the old master, seeing himself surpassed by the work of his student, allegedly gave up painting. Be that as it may, around 1472 Leonardo, who was then about twenty years old, left Verrocchio’s workshop and began to work independently.

Leonardo da Vinci was handsome, beautifully built, possessed enormous physical strength, and was knowledgeable in the arts of chivalry, horse riding, dancing, fencing, etc. Leonardo's contemporaries note that he was so pleasant to talk to that he attracted the souls of people. He loved animals very much - especially horses. Walking through the places where birds were sold, he took them out of the cage with his own hands and, having paid the seller the price he demanded, released them into the wild, returning them their lost freedom.

There are many legends and stories about Leonardo da Vinci. They say that one day, when Ser Piero of Vinci was on his estate, one of his peasants, who had carved with his own hands a round shield from a fig tree that 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 readily agreed, since this peasant was a very experienced bird catcher and knew very well the places where fish were caught, and Ser Pierrot 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. Leonardo, when one fine day this shield fell into his hands and when he saw that the shield was crooked, poorly processed and unsightly, he straightened it over the fire and, giving it to the turner, from warped and unsightly, made it smooth and even, and then, Having weeded it and processed it in his own way, he began to think about what to write on it that would frighten everyone who came across it, producing the same impression that the head of Medusa once made. And for this purpose, Leonardo released into one of the rooms, into which no one except him entered, various lizards, crickets, snakes, butterflies, grasshoppers, bats and other strange types of similar creatures, from a variety of which, combining them in different ways. In various ways, he created a very disgusting and terrible monster, which poisoned with its breath and ignited the air. He depicted it crawling out of a dark cleft in the rock and emitting poison from its open mouth, flames from its eyes and smoke from its nostrils, and it was so unusual that it actually seemed something monstrous and frightening. And he worked on it for so long that there was a cruel and unbearable stench in the room from dead animals, 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, whenever he wanted, send for the shield, since he had done his job for his part. And so, one morning, when Ser Piero entered his room for a shield and knocked on the door, Leonardo opened it, but asked him to wait and, returning to the room, placed the shield on the lectern and in the light, but adjusted the window so that it gave a muted lighting. Ser Piero, who had not thought about it, shuddered in surprise at first glance, not believing that this was the same shield, and especially since the image he saw was a painting, and when he backed away, Leonardo, supporting him, said: “This is the work serves what it was made for. So take it and give it away, for this is the effect that is expected from works of art." This thing seemed more than wonderful to Ser Pierrot, and he awarded Leonardo’s bold words with the greatest praise. And then, slowly buying from the shopkeeper another shield, on which was written heart, pierced by an arrow, he gave it to a peasant, who remained grateful to him for this all his life. Later, Ser Piero in Florence secretly sold a shield painted by Leonardo to some merchants for a hundred ducats, and soon this shield fell into the hands of the Milanese to the Duke, to whom the same merchants resold it for three hundred ducats.

Around 1480, Leonardo was summoned to Milan to the court of Duke Louis Sforza, as a musician and improviser. He was, however, commissioned to found an art academy in Milan. To teach 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 studying anatomy, mathematics, perspective, mechanics; he abandoned extensive projects, such as the project to connect Florence and Pisa by means of a canal; His plan for raising the ancient baptistery of S. Giovanni in Florence was extremely bold, in order to raise the foundation beneath it and thus give the building a more majestic appearance. For the sake of studying the expressions of feelings and passions in man. He visited the most crowded places where human activity was in full swing, and recorded everything that he came across in an album; he escorted the criminals to the place of execution, capturing in his memory the expression of agony and extreme despair; he invited peasants to his house, to whom he told the most amusing things, wanting to study the comic expression on their faces. With such realism, Leonardo was at the same time endowed with the highest degree of deep subjective feeling, tender, partly sentimental dreaminess. In some of his works, first one or the other element predominates, but in the main, best works, both elements are balanced by beautiful harmony, so that, thanks to his ingenious design and sense of beauty, they occupy that high level, which certainly consolidates his one of the first places among the great masters of modern art.

Leonardo started a lot, but never finished anything, because it seemed to him that in the things that he had conceived, the hand was not capable of achieving artistic perfection, since in his plan he created for himself various difficulties, so subtle and amazing that even could never be expressed by the most skillful hands.

Of the enterprises carried out by da Vinci on behalf of Louis Sforza, the colossal equestrian statue in memory of Francesca Sforza, cast in bronze, is especially remarkable. The first model of this monument accidentally broke. 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. Leonardo also created the famous Last Supper in Milan.

After the expulsion of Lodovico Sforza from Milan by the French in 1499, Leonardo left for Venice, visiting Mantua along 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 even want to think about picking up a brush. For twelve years, Leonardo moved constantly from city to city, working for the famous Cesare Borgia in Romagna, designing fortifications (never built) for Piombino. In Florence he entered into rivalry with Michelangelo; This rivalry culminated in the enormous battle compositions that the two artists painted for the Palazzo della Signoria (also Palazzo Vecchio). Leonardo then 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 varied 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 patronage of the Medici. Depressed and upset by the lack of material for anatomical research, Leonardo tinkered 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. It is therefore not surprising that in 1516 Francis I, well aware of Leonardo's varied talents, invited him to the court, which was then located at the castle of Amboise in the Loire Valley. Although Leonardo worked on hydraulic projects and plans for the 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 advisor. On May 2, 1519, Leonardo dies in the arms of King Francis I, asking forgiveness from God and people for “not doing everything he could have done for art.” Thus, we examined a short biography of the great Italian painter of the Renaissance - Leonard da Vinci. The next chapter will examine the work of Leonard da Vinci as a painter.

2. The work of Leonardo da Vinci

2.1 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 a river valley visible from a gorge; on one side there is a castle, on the other there is 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. Landscape depicted from a high vantage point overlooking the floodplain was a common device in Florentine art in the 1460s (although it always served only as a background to the paintings). A silver pencil drawing of an ancient warrior in profile (mid-1470s, British Museum) demonstrates 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 living, vibrant image.

Undated painting" Annunciation"(mid-1470s, Uffizi) was attributed to Leonardo only 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, the perspective reduction of the building on the left is too sharp or the scale relationship between the figure of the Mother of God and the music stand is poorly developed in perspective. However, in other respects, especially in the subtle and soft modeling, as well as in the interpretation of the foggy landscape with a mountain vaguely looming in the background, the painting belongs to the hand of Leonardo; this can be inferred from a study of his later works. The question of whether the compositional idea belongs to him remains open. The colors, muted in comparison with the works of his contemporaries, anticipate the coloring of the artist’s later works.

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

Portrait of Ginevra dei Benci(c. 1478, Washington, National Gallery) - possibly the first painting by Leonardo, painted independently. The board was cut about 20 cm from the bottom, so that the crossed arms of the young woman disappeared (this is known from a comparison with surviving imitations of this painting). In this portrait, Leonardo does not seek to penetrate into the inner world of the model, however, as a demonstration of excellent mastery of soft, almost monochrome cut-off modeling, this picture has no equal. Behind you can see juniper branches (in Italian - ginevra) and a landscape shrouded in damp haze.

Portrait of Ginevra dei Benci and Benois Madonna(St. Petersburg, Hermitage), 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 close in style to the Adoration of the Magi, can also be dated to around 1480. These paintings are contemporaneous with the first surviving sketches of military mechanisms. Having been trained as an artist, but striving to be a military engineer, Leonardo abandoned work on the Adoration of the Magi and set out in search of new tasks and a new life in Milan, 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 order he received in 1483 was the production of part of the altar image for the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception - Madonna in the Grotto (Louvre; attribution of Leonardo's brush to a later version from the London National Gallery disputed). A kneeling Mary looks at the Christ Child and baby John the Baptist, while an 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 slight haze, the so-called sfumato (blurred and indistinct contours, soft shadow), which now becomes characteristic feature of Leonardo's painting. Behind them, in the semi-darkness of the cave, stalactites and stalagmites and slowly flowing waters shrouded in fog are visible. The landscape seems fantastic, but we should remember Leonardo's statement that painting is a science. As can be seen from the drawings contemporaneous with the painting, it was based on careful observations of geological phenomena. This also applies to the depiction of plants: you 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 curved lines that are repeated throughout the composition, and this, combined with muted colors and delicate skin tones, creates the impression of ideal grace and beauty. The beauty of the Lady with an Ermine contrasts strikingly with the grotesque sketches of freaks in which Leonardo explored the extremes of anomalies in the facial structure.

In Milan, Leonardo began to take notes; around 1490 he focused on two disciplines: architecture and anatomy. He sketched several options for the design of a central-domed temple (an equal-pointed 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 - circle. Leonardo drew a plan and perspective views of the entire structure, which outlined the distribution of masses and the configuration of the internal space. Around this time, he obtained the 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 to sketches of architectural projects in that both of them depict partitions separating parts of the internal space.

Two great paintings, “La Gioconda (Mona Lisa)” and “The Last Supper,” belong to Leonardo da Vinci’s mature period.

The Mona Lisa was created at a time when Leonardo was so absorbed in studying the structure of the female body, anatomy and problems associated with childbirth that it was 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 on the plot of the ancient myth about the birth of Castor and Pollux from the union of the mortal girl Leda and Zeus, who took the form of a swan. Leonardo studied 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 orders was also related to war. In 1503, perhaps at the insistence of Niccolo Machiavelli, he received a commission for a fresco measuring approximately 6 by 15 m 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 Cascina, commissioned by Michelangelo, was to be depicted; both plots are heroic victories of Florence. This commission allowed the two artists to continue the intense rivalry that had begun in 1501. Neither fresco was completed, as both artists soon left Florence, Leonardo back to Milan and Michelangelo to Rome; the preparatory cardboards have not survived. In the center of Leonardo's composition (known from his sketches and copies of the central part, which was obviously completed by that time), there was an episode with the battle for the banner, where horsemen fiercely fight with swords, and fallen warriors lie under the feet of their horses. Judging by other sketches, the composition was supposed to consist of three parts, with the battle for the banner in the center. Since there is no clear evidence, surviving paintings by Leonardo and fragments of his notes suggest that the battle was depicted against the backdrop of 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 for the plot of the Madonna and Child and St. Anna; This idea first arose in Florence. It is possible that the cardboard was created around 1505 (London, National Gallery), and in 1508 or a little later the painting, now in the Louvre, was created. Madonna sits on the lap of St. Anna and stretches out his hands to the Christ Child holding a lamb; free, rounded shapes of the figures, outlined by smooth lines, form a single composition.

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

In a later series of drawings Flood(Windsor, Royal Library) depicts cataclysms, the power of tons of water, hurricane winds, rocks and trees turning into splinters in a whirlwind of a storm. The notes contain many passages about the Flood, some of them poetic, others dispassionately descriptive, others scientific research, in the sense that they treat such problems as the vortex movement of water in a whirlpool, its power and trajectory.

For Leonardo, art and exploration were complementary aspects of the constant quest to observe and record the external appearance and internal workings of the world. It can definitely be said that he was the first among scientists whose research was complemented by art.

Some seven thousand pages of Leonardo da Vinci's surviving manuscripts contain his thoughts on various issues of art, science and technology. From these notes the “Treatise on Painting” was later compiled. In particular, it sets out 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... you will see that a picture executed on a plane shows objects so that they appear convex, and a mirror on a plane makes the same thing; a picture is just a surface, and a mirror is the same; a picture is intangible, because what appears to be round and detachable cannot be grasped with the hands - the same in a mirror; a mirror and a picture show images of objects, surrounded by shadow and light, both of which seem very far beyond the surface. There is another perspective, which I call aerial, because due to the change in air one can recognize different distances to different buildings, limited below by a single (straight) line.. . Make the first building... your color, make the more distant one more... blue, the one you want to be just as far back, make it just as much bluer..."

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

The Treatise on Painting also provides information about proportions. During the Renaissance, the mathematical concept of the golden proportion was elevated to the rank of the main aesthetic principle. Leonardo da Vinci called it Sectio aurea, which is where the term “golden ratio” came from. According to Leonardo’s artistic canons, the golden proportion corresponds not only to the division of the body into two unequal parts by the waist line (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, just as the distance between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin refers to the distance between the corners of the lips and the bottom of the chin, this distance is equal to the golden ratio. Developing rules for depicting the human figure, Leonardo da Vinci tried to restore the so-called “square of the ancients” on the basis of literary information from antiquity. He made a drawing that shows that the span of a person’s outstretched arms is approximately equal to his height, as a result of which the human figure 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 background story 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, measuring 97x53 cm, was completed in 1503 and immediately gained fame. 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. Thus, the face of Mona Lisa, unlike her 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.

When 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 cause a feeling of excitement in the viewer. 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 up, in a slight turn, the face is turned to the viewer, folded hands limit the composition from below. The inspired hands of Mona Lisa are as beautiful as the light smile on her face and the primordial rocky landscape in the foggy distance.

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

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

There is an opinion that the artist encrypted something in his painting and in particular in the famous smile of Gioconda. A barely noticeable movement of the lips and eyes fits into the correct circle, which is not in the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, or Botticelli - other geniuses of the Renaissance. The background of the “Madonnas” is just a dark wall with one and two window slots, respectively. In these paintings everything is clear: a mother looks at her child with love.

It is likely that for Leonardo this painting was the most complex 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, landscapes exposing the “bones of the earth” are constantly found in Leonardo’s work. The artist embodied the secrets of Nature that constantly tormented the great Leonardo da Vinci in the all-penetrating gaze of Mona Lisa, directed as if from the depths of a dark cave. In confirmation of this are the words of Leonardo himself: “Submiting my greedy attraction, wanting to see the great variety of diverse 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 prevented me. I stayed like that for some time. Suddenly two feelings awoke in me: fear and desire; fear of the menacing and dark cave, the desire to see if there was something... something wonderful in its depths."

2.2.2 "Last Supper"

Leonardo's thoughts 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 in his life story of Leonardo a funny episode that perfectly characterizes the artist’s style of work and his sharp tongue. Dissatisfied with Leonardo's slowness, 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 stood immersed in thought for the whole half of the day. He wanted the artist not to let go of his brushes, just as they do not stop working in the garden. Not limiting themselves to this, he complained to the Duke and began to pester him, that he was forced to send for Leonardo and in a delicate manner ask him to take up the work, while 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 only had 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 same prior, so intrusive and immodest.” This remark made the Duke laugh very much, who told him that he was right a thousand times. Thus, the poor embarrassed prior continued to push on with the work in the garden and left Leonardo alone, who completed 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 Milan painting. He completed many sketches in which he studied the poses and gestures of individual figures. “The Last Supper” attracted him not for its dogmatic content, but for the opportunity to unfold a great human drama before the viewer, show different characters, reveal the spiritual world of a person and accurately and clearly describe his experiences. He perceived the Last Supper as a scene of betrayal and set himself the goal of introducing into this traditional image that dramatic element, thanks to which it would acquire a completely new emotional sound.

While pondering 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: “The one who drank and put the cup in its place turns his head to the speaker, the other connects the fingers of both hands and with frowning eyebrows 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 to which each was called occupy in the overall composition. Refining poses and gestures in his drawings, he looked for forms of expression that would draw all the figures into 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 their 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 he depicts; he achieves a rare convincingness of the 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 forces all perspective lines to 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 with enormous plastic power. All these techniques reflect the deep purposefulness of the creative plan, in which everything is weighed and taken into account.

The main task that Leonardo set himself in The Last Supper was to realistically convey the most complex mental reactions to the words of Christ: “One of you will betray me.” By giving complete human characters and temperaments in the images of the apostles, Leonardo forces each of them to react in their own way to the words spoken by Christ. It was this subtle psychological differentiation, based on the diversity of faces and gestures, that most amazed Leonardo’s contemporaries, especially when comparing his painting with earlier Florentine images on the same theme by Tadeo Gaddi, Andrea del Castagno, Cosimo Rosselli and Domenico Ghirlandaio. In all these masters, the apostles sit calmly, like extras, at the table, remaining completely indifferent to everything that happens. Not having sufficiently strong means in their arsenal to psychologically characterize Judas, 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 congregation 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 into one group with all the other apostles, but gives him such features that allow an attentive viewer to immediately recognize him among the twelve disciples of Christ.

Leonardo treats each of his students individually. Like a stone thrown into water, creating ever more divergent circles on the surface, the words of Christ, falling in the midst of dead silence, cause the greatest movement in the assembly, which a minute before was in a state of complete peace. Those three apostles who sit on his left hand respond especially impulsively to Christ’s words. They form an inextricable group, imbued with a single will and a single movement. Young Philip jumped up from his seat, addressing Christ with a bewildered question, James the elder spread his arms in indignation and leaned back a little, Thomas raised his hand up, as if trying to understand 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 incomparably greater restraint of gestures. Presented in a sharp turn, Judas convulsively clutches a purse of silver and looks at Christ with fear; his shadowed, ugly, rough profile is contrasted with the brightly lit, beautiful face of John, who limply lowered his head onto his shoulder and calmly folded his hands on the table. Peter's head is wedged between Judas and John; 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. The three other apostles sitting near Peter are turned in profile. Looking intently at Christ, they seem to ask him about the culprit of the betrayal. At the opposite end of the table is the last group of three figures. Matthew, with his hands stretched out towards Christ, indignantly turns to the elderly Thaddeus, as if wanting to get an explanation from him of everything that is happening. However, the latter’s bewildered gesture clearly shows that he, too, remains in the dark.

It is not by chance that Leonardo depicted both extreme figures, sitting at the edges of the table, in pure profile. They close the movement coming from the center on both sides, fulfilling here the same role that belonged to the figures of the old man and the young man, placed at the very edges of the picture, in “The Adoration of the Magi.” But if Leonardo’s psychological means of expression did not rise above the traditional level in this work of the early Florentine era, then in “The Last Supper” they achieve 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 perfectly understood by the master’s contemporaries, 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. Just two years later, Leonardo was horrified to see his work changed so much. And ten years later, he and his students try to carry out the first restoration work. A total of eight restorations were made over the course of 300 years. In connection with these attempts, new layers of paint were repeatedly applied to the painting, significantly distorting the original. In addition, by the beginning of the 20th century, the feet of Jesus Christ were completely erased, since the constantly opening door of the dining room was in contact with this very place. The door was cut by monks to provide access to the dining room, but since it was made in the 1600s, it is a historical hole and there is no way to brick it up.

Milan is rightly proud of this masterpiece, which is the only Renaissance work of this magnitude. To no avail, two French kings dreamed of transporting the painting 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 bombed Milan, the roof and three walls of the famous building were completely demolished. And only the one on which Leonardo painted his painting remained standing. It was a real miracle!

For a long time, this brilliant work was under restoration. To reconstruct the work, the latest technologies were used, which made it possible to gradually remove layer by layer. In this way, centuries of hardened dust, mold and all sorts of other foreign materials were removed. Moreover, let's face it, 1/3 or even half of the original colors were lost over the course of 500 years. But the general appearance of the painting has changed significantly. She seemed to come to life, sparkling with cheerful, lively colors that the great master had given her. And finally, in the spring of May 26, 1999, after a restoration that lasted 21 years, the work of Leonardo da Vinci was again open to 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. Entry is limited to 25 people every 15 minutes.

Thus, in this chapter we examined Leonardo da Vinci as a creator - painter, sculptor, architect. The next chapter will examine him as a scientist and inventor.

3. Leonardo da Vinci - scientist and inventor

3.1 Leonardo da Vinci's contributions to science

Da Vinci made his greatest contribution to the field of mechanics. Leonardo Da Vinci is the author of studies on the fall of a body on an inclined plane, on the centers of gravity of pyramids, on the impact of bodies, on the movement of sand on sounding records; about the laws of friction. Leonardo also wrote essays on hydraulics.

Some historians whose research dates back to the Renaissance have expressed the opinion that although Leonardo da Vinci was talented in many fields, he nevertheless did not make significant contributions to such an exact science as theoretical mechanics. However, a careful analysis of his recently discovered manuscripts and especially the drawings contained in them convinces us of the opposite. Leonardo da Vinci's work on the effects of various types of weapons, in particular the crossbow, appears to have been 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 body movement.

Leonardo da Vinci's contribution to theoretical mechanics can be appreciated to a greater extent by a more careful study of his drawings, rather than the texts of the manuscripts and the mathematical calculations contained in them.

Let's start with an example reflecting Leonardo da Vinci's persistent attempts to solve problems related to improving the design of weapons (never completely solved), which aroused his interest in the laws of addition of velocities and addition of forces. Despite the rapid development of gunpowder weapons during the life of Leonardo da Vinci, the bow, crossbow and spear continued to be common types of weapons. Leonardo da Vinci paid especially much 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 had been carried out earlier, before Leonardo da Vinci. For example, shortened arrows began to be used in crossbows, which had approximately 2 times better aerodynamic characteristics than conventional bow arrows. In addition, a beginning was made to study the basic principles underlying crossbow shooting.

In an effort not to be limited by traditional design solutions, Leonardo da Vinci considered a crossbow design that would allow only the tip of the arrow to be fired, leaving its shaft motionless. Apparently, he understood that by reducing the mass of the projectile it was 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 activate a smaller and lighter arc, and that in turn would drive an even smaller one, etc. The arrow would be fired on the last arc. It is obvious that Leonardo da Vinci considered this process from the point of view of adding speeds. For example, he notes that the firing range of a crossbow will be maximum if you fire a shot while galloping from a galloping horse and lean forward at the moment of the shot. This would not actually result in a significant increase in arrow speed. However, Leonardo da Vinci's ideas were directly relevant to the growing debate over whether an infinite increase in speed was possible. Later, scientists began to incline to 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 parallelogram of forces, was discovered after Leonardo da Vinci. This law is discussed in the branch of mechanics that helps answer the question of what happens when two or more forces interact at different angles.

When making a crossbow, it is important to achieve symmetry of the forces occurring in each wing. Otherwise, the arrow may move out of its groove when fired, and the shooting accuracy will be impaired. Usually, crossbowmen, preparing their weapons for shooting, checked whether the bend 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 facing upward. Various weights are suspended from the middle of the bowstring. Each weight causes a certain bend in 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, as the load increases, the center of the string drops vertically or moves away from it.

This method may have given Leonardo da Vinci the idea of using 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 represented as a function of the size of the suspended weight. He understood that the force required for the arc to begin to bend was small at first and increased with increasing mixing of the ends of the arc. (This phenomenon is based on a law formulated much later by Robert Hooke: the absolute amount of mixing as a result of deformation of a 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 size of the load suspended from the bowstring “pyramidal”, since, just as in a pyramid, the opposite sides diverge as they move away from the intersection point, so this dependence becomes more and more noticeable as the ends of the arc are displaced. Noting the change in the position of the bowstring depending on the size of the load, he, however, noticed nonlinearities. One of them was that, although the displacement of the ends of the arc depended linearly on the size of the load, there was no linear relationship between the displacement of the bowstring and the size 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, when released after applying a certain amount of force to it, initially moves faster than when approaching its original position.

Such nonlinearity may have been observed when using crossbows with poorly made arcs. It is likely that Leonardo da Vinci's conclusions were based on faulty reasoning rather than calculations, although he did resort to calculations on occasion. However, this task sparked his deep interest in analyzing crossbow design. Is it true that an arrow that quickly picks up speed at the beginning of the shot begins to move faster than the bowstring and breaks away from it before the bowstring returns to its original position?

Without a clear understanding of such concepts as inertia, force and acceleration, Leonardo da Vinci naturally 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 positively, in others - negatively. 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, which later became known as the “law of addition of forces.”

Leonardo da Vinci did not limit himself only to the problem of the speed of movement 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 crossbow arc was doubled. If we measure the total weight of all arrows placed one after another end to end and forming a continuous line, the length of which is equal to the maximum flight distance, will this weight be equal to the force with which the bowstring acts on the arrow? Sometimes Leonardo da Vinci really looked deeply, for example, in search of an answer to the question, does the vibration of the bowstring immediately after the shot indicate a 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 crossbow string to move increases as the angle at the center of the bowstring decreases.” The fact that this statement does not appear anywhere else in his notes may mean that this conclusion was reached by him definitively. Undoubtedly, he used it in numerous attempts to improve the design of the crossbow with the so-called block arches.

Block arches, in which the bowstring is passed through blocks, are known to modern archers. These arcs allow the arrow to fly at high speeds. The laws underlying their operation are now well known. Leonardo da Vinci did not have such a complete understanding of the action of block bows, 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 apparently intended to make an arc, the design of which would solve the “string-angle” problem, i.e. an increase in the force acting on the arrow would be achieved by reducing the angle at the center of the bowstring. In addition, he tried to reduce energy loss when firing a crossbow.

In the basic design of Leonardo da Vinci's crossbow, a very flexible arc was mounted on a frame. Some pictures show that at maximum tension on the bowstring, the arc bent almost into a circle. From the ends of the arc, the string on each side was passed through a pair of blocks mounted in front of the frame next to the arrow guide groove, and then went to the release device.

Leonardo da Vinci apparently did not give an explanation of his design anywhere, but its diagram appears repeatedly in his drawings along with the image of a crossbow (also with a strongly curved arc), in which the stretched bowstring running from the ends of the arc to the trigger device has a V -shape.

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

Leonardo da Vinci's block bow was apparently impractical, since the sudden tension of the bowstring caused it to bend significantly. Only composite arches made in a special way could withstand such significant deformation.

Compound arcs were used during Leonardo da Vinci's lifetime and may have sparked his interest in the problem that led him to the idea of what is called the neutral plane. The study of this problem was also associated with a more in-depth study of the behavior of materials under mechanical stress.

In a typical compound bow used during the era of Leonardo da Vinci, the outer and inner sides of the crossbow wings were made of different materials. The inner side, which experienced compression, was usually made of horn, and the outer side, which experienced tension, was usually made of tendons. Each of these materials is stronger than wood. A layer of wood was used between the outer and inner sides of the arc, 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 were generated in a given 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 on the convex side and converge on the concave side.

These drawings are accompanied by a caption in which Leonardo da Vinci notes that when a spring is bent, the convex part becomes thicker and the concave part becomes thinner. "This modification is pyramidal and therefore will never change at the center of the spring." In other words, the distance between the 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 represents the zone where the tension 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 is clear that the idea of a neutral plane arose in him when studying the action of a crossbow. An example is his drawing of a giant rock-shooting catapult. The arc of this weapon was bent using a screw gate; the stone flew out of a pocket located in the center of the double bowstring. Both the collar and the stone pocket are drawn (to a larger scale) the same as in the crossbow drawings. However, Leonardo da Vinci apparently realized that increasing the size of the arc would lead to complex problems. Judging by Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of the neutral zone, he knew that (for a given angle of flexion) the stresses in the arch increased in proportion to its thickness. To prevent stresses from reaching a critical value, he changed the design of the giant arc. The front (front) part of it, which experienced tension, according to his ideas, should be made of a solid log, and its rear part (rear), working in compression, should be made of separate blocks fixed behind the front part. The shape of these blocks was such that they could come into contact with each other only when the arc was bent at its maximum. This design, as well as others, shows that Leonardo da Vinci believed that tensile and compressive forces should be considered separately from each other. In the manuscript of his 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 in front of the center of resistance (the point at which the pressure in front and behind is equal). This functional principle, used by Leonardo da Vinci in the theory of bird flight, is still important in the theory of flight of airplanes and rockets.

3.2 Leonardo da Vinci's inventions

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, for a meeting in Milan with the French king Louis XII, designed a wooden mechanical lion, which, after taking a few steps, opened its chest and showed its insides “filled with lilies.” The scientist is the inventor of a spacesuit, a submarine, a steamship, and flippers. He has a manuscript that shows the possibility of diving to great depths without a spacesuit thanks 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 a battleship!), invented a helicopter, a bicycle, a glider, a parachute, a tank, a machine gun, poisonous gases, a smoke screen for troops, a magnifying glass (100 years before Galileo!). Da Vinci invented textile machines, weaving machines, machines for making needles, powerful cranes, systems for draining swamps through pipes, and arched bridges. He creates drawings of gates, levers and screws 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 were impossible to make at that time due to the fact that ball bearings were not known at that time (but Leonardo himself knew this - the corresponding drawing has been preserved).

Leonardo da Vinci invented the dynamometer, odometer, some blacksmith tools, and a lamp with double air flow.

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 ashen color of the Moon.

Aircraft stand out as a separate line in this series of inventions.

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

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

Last year, for example, he made a 4,000 km flight together with Siberian cranes, and this coming spring he plans to fly a hang glider over Everest, following the route of Tibetan eagles. It took D'Arrigo two years of hard work to, together with professional engineers and technicians, realize the “artificial wings” in material, first on a scale of 1:5, and then in life-size, thus reproducing Leonardo’s idea. An elegant structure was built, consisting of thin, ultra-light and durable aluminum tubes and synthetic Dacron fabric in the form of a sail. The resulting structure is in the form of a trapezoid, very reminiscent of the open wings invented by specialists of the American space agency NASA in the 60s for a smooth return from orbit of the Gemini descent capsules Angelo first checked all the calculations on a computer flight "simulator" and on a stand, and then he himself tested the new device in the wind tunnel of the FIAT aircraft manufacturing workshops in Orbassano (15 km from Turin, Piedmont region). At a conventional speed of 35 km per hour "Feather" Leonardo smoothly lifted off the floor and soared in the air with his pilot-passenger for two hours. “I realized that I had proven the teacher right,” the pilot admits in shock. So, the great Florentine’s brilliant intuition did not deceive him. Who knows, if the maestro had used lighter materials (and not just wood and homespun canvas), humanity might have celebrated this year not the centenary of aeronautics, but its five hundredth anniversary. And it is not known how civilization on Earth would have developed if “homo sapiens” could have seen his small and fragile cradle from a bird’s eye view five thousand years earlier.

From now on, the current model "Feather" will take pride of place in the history of aircraft section of the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, not far from the monastery and temple of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo da Vinci's fresco "The Last Supper" is kept.

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

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

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

Before Liden flew the hang glider, it was placed on a test bench at the University of Liverpool. “The main problem is stability,” says Professor Gareth Padfield. “They did the right thing by carrying out bench tests. Our pilot fell several times. This device is very difficult to control.”

According to BBC science series producer Michael Mosley, the reason the hang glider cannot fly flawlessly is because Leonardo did not want his inventions to be used for military purposes. "By building the machines 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 designs." As evidence, there is a note on the back of a drawing of a diving respirator: “By knowing how the human heart works, they can learn to kill people under water.”

3.3 Leonardo Da Vinci's predictions

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 are still far from being realized in modern man. Thus, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s secrets 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 extended his lifespan 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 psychic and mnemonic techniques, they have never been made public.

And he was also an excellent magician (contemporaries spoke more frankly - a magician). Leonardo could create 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 so impress his contemporaries that he is seriously suspected of serving “black magic.” In addition, near the genius there are always strange, dubious personalities, like Tomaso Giovanni Masini, known under the pseudonym Zoroaster de Peretola, a good mechanic, jeweler and at the same time an adept of the secret sciences.

Leonardo kept a very strange diary, addressing himself as “you” in it, giving instructions and orders to himself as a servant or slave: “order me to show you...”, “you must show in your essay...”, “order make two travel bags..." One gets the impression that there were two personalities living in da Vinci: one - well-known, friendly, not without 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 frightening pictures of the future, many of which were either already our past or are now our present. “People will talk to each other from the most distant countries and answer each other” - we are undoubtedly talking about the telephone. “People will walk and not move, they will talk to someone who is not there, they will hear someone who does not speak” - television, tape recording, sound reproduction. “People... will instantly scatter to different parts of the world without moving from their place” - broadcast of a television image.

“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 ground” - here, most likely, the seer is talking about craters from aerial bombs and shells, which actually destroyed countless lives. Leonardo even foresees travel into space: “And many land and water 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 most cruel way!” - a clear indication of the 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 exploration were complementary aspects of the constant quest to observe and record the external appearance and internal workings of the world. It can definitely be said that he was the first among scientists whose research was complemented 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 could not imagine any other state. Rest for him was a change of activity and a four-hour sleep. He created 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 look around the vast space of areas of science and human knowledge that Leonardo’s thought touched, it will become clear that it was not the huge number of discoveries, or even the fact that many of them were years ahead of their time, that made him immortal. The main thing in his work remains that his genius in science is the birth of the era of experience.

Leonardo da Vinci is the brightest representative of the new, experimentally based natural science. “Simple and pure experience is the true teacher,” the scientist wrote. He studies not only the machines that existed in his time, but also turns to the mechanics of the ancients. He persistently and carefully examines individual parts of machines, carefully measures and records everything in search of the best shape, both parts and the whole. He is convinced that ancient scientists were just approaching an understanding of the basic laws of mechanics. He sharply criticizes the scholastic sciences, contrasting them with the harmonious combination of experiment and theory: “I know well that some proud people, because I am not well-read, will think that they have the right to blame me, citing 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 the works of others, 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, who 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 guesses.

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

Literature

Batkin L.M. Leonardo da Vinci and the features of Renaissance creative thinking. M., 1990.

Vasari G. Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine painter and sculptor. M., 1989.

Gastev A.L. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1984.

Gelb, M. J. Learn to think and draw like Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1961.

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

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

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

Foley W. Werner S. Leonardo da Vinci's contribution to theoretical mechanics. // Science and life. 1986-№11.

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

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

Application

Leonardo da Vinci – self-portrait

Last Supper

Gioconda (Mona Lisa)

Lady with an ermine

Baby in the womb - anatomical drawing

Leonardo da Vinci - Anatomical drawings:

Human heart - anatomical drawing

Hang glider "Feather"

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

State educational institution

higher professional education

"Tver State Technical University"

(GOU VPO "TSTU")

in the discipline "History of Science"

on the topic: "Leonardo da Vinci - a great scientist and engineer"

Performed: 1st year student

FAS AU ATP 1001

Ivanova Tatyana Lyubomirovna

Tver, 2010

I. Introduction

II. Main part

1. Artist and scientist

2. Leonardo da Vinci - a brilliant inventor

. "It is better to be deprived of movement than to be tired of being useful"

3.1 Aircraft

3.2 Hydraulics

3 Car

4 Leonardo da Vinci as a pioneer of nanotechnology

5 Other inventions of Leonardo

Conclusion

Bibliography

Application

I. INTRODUCTION

Renaissance (French Renaissance, Italian Rinascimento) is an era of great economic and social transformations in the life of many European countries, an era of radical changes in ideology and culture, an era of humanism and enlightenment.

During this historical period, favorable conditions for an unprecedented rise in culture arise in various areas of human society. The development of science and technology, great geographical discoveries, the movement of trade routes and the emergence of new trade and industrial centers, the inclusion of new sources of raw materials and new markets in the sphere of production significantly expanded and changed man’s understanding of the world around him. Science, literature, and art are flourishing.

The Renaissance gave humanity a number of outstanding scientists, thinkers, inventors, travelers, artists, poets, whose activities made an enormous contribution to the development of human culture.

In the history of mankind it is not easy to find another person as brilliant as the founder of High Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci. The phenomenal research power of Leonardo da Vinci penetrated into all areas of science and art. Even centuries later, researchers of his work are amazed at the genius of the insights of the greatest thinker. Leonardo da Vinci was an artist, sculptor, architect, philosopher, historian, mathematician, physicist, mechanic, astronomer, and anatomist.

II. MAIN PART

1. Artist and scientist

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the mysteries in human history. His versatile genius of an unsurpassed artist, a great scientist and a tireless researcher has plunged the human mind into confusion in all centuries.

“Leonardo da Vinci is a titan, an almost supernatural being, the owner of such versatile talent and such a wide range of knowledge that there is simply no one to compare him with in the history of art.”

For Leonardo da Vinci himself, science and art were fused together. Giving the palm in the “dispute of arts” to painting, he considered it a universal language, a science that, like mathematics in formulas, displays in proportions and perspective all the diversity and rational principles of nature. The approximately 7,000 sheets of scientific notes and explanatory drawings left by Leonardo da Vinci are an unattainable example of synthesis and art.

Long before Bacon, he expressed the great truth that the basis of science is, first of all, experience and observation. A specialist in mathematics and mechanics, he was the first to expound the theory of forces acting on a lever in an indirect direction. Studies in astronomy and the great discoveries of Columbus led Leonardo to the idea of rotation globe. Specifically studying anatomy for the sake of painting, he understood the purpose and functions of the iris of the eye. Leonardo da Vinci invented the camera obscura, conducted hydraulic experiments, deduced the laws of falling bodies and motion on an inclined plane, had a clear understanding of respiration and combustion, and put forward a geological hypothesis about the movement of continents. These merits alone would be enough to consider Leonardo da Vinci an outstanding person. But if we consider that he did not take everything except sculpture and painting seriously, and in these arts he showed himself to be a real genius, then it will become clear why he made such a stunning impression on subsequent generations. His name is inscribed on the pages of art history next to Michelangelo and Raphael, but an impartial historian will give him an equally significant place in the history of mechanics and fortification.

With all his extensive scientific and artistic pursuits, Leonardo da Vinci also had time to invent various “frivolous” devices with which he entertained the Italian aristocracy: flying birds, inflating bubbles and intestines, fireworks. He also supervised the construction of canals from the Arno River; construction of churches and fortresses; artillery pieces during the siege of Milan by the French king; Seriously engaged in the art of fortification, he nevertheless managed to simultaneously construct an unusually harmonious silver 24-string lyre.

"Leonardo da Vinci is the only artist about whom it can be said that everything that his hand touched became eternal beauty. The structure of the skull, the texture of the fabric, a tense muscle... - all this was done with an amazing flair for line, color and illumination are transformed into true values" (Bernard Berenson, 1896).

In his works, issues of art and science are practically inseparable. In his “Treatise on Painting,” for example, he conscientiously began to outline advice to young artists on how to correctly recreate the material world on canvas, then imperceptibly moved on to discussions about perspective, proportions, geometry and optics, then about anatomy and mechanics (and to mechanics as animate , and inanimate objects) and, ultimately, to thoughts about the mechanics of the Universe as a whole. It seems obvious that the scientist is striving to create a kind of reference book - an abbreviated summary of all technical knowledge, and even distribute it according to its importance, as he imagined it. His scientific method boiled down to the following: 1) careful observation; 2) numerous verifications of observation results from different points of view; 3) a sketch of an object and phenomenon, as skillfully as possible, so that they can be seen by everyone and understood with the help of short accompanying explanations.

For Leonardo da Vinci, art has always been science. To engage in art meant for him to make scientific calculations, observations and experiments. The connection of painting with optics and physics, with anatomy and mathematics forced Leonardo to become a scientist.

2. Leonardo da Vinci - a brilliant inventor

Leonardo da Vinci enriched the Renaissance worldview with the idea of the value of science: mathematics and natural science. Next to aesthetic interests - and above them - he placed scientific ones.

At the center of his scientific constructions is mathematics. "No human research can claim to be a true science unless it makes use of mathematical proof." “There is no certainty where one of the mathematical sciences does not find application, or where sciences not related to mathematics are applied.” It was no coincidence that he filled his notebooks with mathematical formulas and calculations. It is no coincidence that he sang hymns to mathematics and mechanics. No one sensed more keenly than Leonardo the role that mathematics had to play in Italy in the decades that elapsed between his death and the final triumph of mathematical methods in the works of Galileo.

His materials were collected and largely scientifically processed in a wide variety of disciplines: mechanics, astronomy, cosmography, geology, paleontology, oceanography, hydraulics, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, various branches of physics (optics, acoustics, theriology, magnetism), botany, zoology, anatomy, perspective, painting, grammar, languages.

In his notes there are such amazing provisions that, in all their conclusions, were revealed only by mature science of the second half of the 19th century and later. Leonardo knew that “motion is the cause of every manifestation of life” (il moto e causa d "ogni vita), the scientist discovered the theory of speed and the law of inertia - the basic principles of mechanics. He studied the fall of bodies along a vertical and inclined line. He analyzed the laws of gravity. He established the properties of the lever as a simple machine, the most universal.

If not before Copernicus, then simultaneously with him and independently of him, he understood the basic laws of the structure of the universe. He knew that space is limitless, that the worlds are countless, that the Earth is the same luminary as the others and moves like them, that it “is neither in the center of the circle of the Sun, nor in the center of the universe.” He established that “the sun does not move”; This position is written down by him, as especially important, in large letters. He had a correct understanding of the history of the Earth and its geological structure.

Leonardo da Vinci had a very solid scientific background. He was, without a doubt, an excellent mathematician, and, what is very curious, he was the first in Italy, and perhaps in Europe, to introduce the signs + (plus) and - (minus). He was looking for the squaring of a circle and became convinced of the impossibility of solving this problem, that is, to be more precise, of the incommensurability of the circumference of a circle with its diameter. Leonardo invented a special tool for drawing ovals and for the first time determined the center of gravity of the pyramid. The study of geometry allowed him to create for the first time a scientific theory of perspective, and he was one of the first artists to paint landscapes that were somewhat consistent with reality.

Leonardo da Vinci was more interested in various branches of mechanics than other areas of science. The scientist is also known as a brilliant improver and inventor, equally strong in theory and practice. Leonardo da Vinci's theoretical conclusions in the field of mechanics are striking in their clarity and provide him with place of honor in the history of this science, in which he is the link connecting Archimedes with Galileo and Pascal.

With remarkable clarity, the scientist-artist sets out in general, large terms, the theory of leverage, explaining it with drawings; Without stopping there, he gives drawings related to the movement of bodies on an inclined plane, although, unfortunately, he does not explain them in text. From the drawings, however, it is clear that Leonardo da Vinci was 80 years ahead of the Dutchman Stevin and that he already knew the relationship between the weights of two weights located on two adjacent faces of a triangular prism and connected to each other by means of a thread thrown over a block. Leonardo also studied, long before Galileo, the length of time required for the fall of a body descending an inclined plane and along various curved surfaces or cuts of these surfaces, that is, lines.

Even more curious are the general principles, or axioms, of mechanics that Leonardo is trying to establish. Much here is unclear and directly incorrect, but there are thoughts that are positively amazing from a writer of the late 15th century. “No sensually perceived body,” says Leonardo, “can move by itself. It is set in motion by some external cause, force. Force is an invisible and incorporeal cause in the sense that it cannot change either in shape or in tension. If a body is moved by a force given time and passes a given space, then the same force can move it in half the time to half the space. Every body exerts resistance in the direction of its movement. (Newton’s law of action equal to reaction is almost guessed here). A freely falling body at each moment of its movement receives a certain increase in speed. The impact of bodies is a force acting for a very short time."

Leonardo da Vinci's views on wave-like motion are even more distinct and remarkable. To explain the movement of water particles, Leonardo da Vinci begins with the classic experiment of modern physicists, that is, throwing a stone, producing circles on the surface of the water. He gives a drawing of such concentric circles, then throws two stones, gets two systems of circles and wonders what will happen when both systems meet? “Will the waves be reflected at equal angles?” asks Leonardo and adds. “This is a most magnificent (bellissimo) question.” Then he says: "The movement of sound waves can be explained in the same way. Air waves move away in a circle from their place of origin, one circle meets another and passes on, but the center always remains in the same place."

These extracts are enough to convince oneself of the genius of the man who, at the end of the 15th century, laid the foundation for the wave theory of motion, which received full recognition only in the 19th century.

3. "It is better to be deprived of movement than to be tired of being useful."

Leonardo da Vinci is a genius whose inventions belong entirely to both the past, present and future of humanity. He lived ahead of his time, and if even a small part of what he invented had been brought to life, then the history of Europe, and perhaps the world, would have been different: already in the 15th century we would have driven cars and crossed the seas by submarines.

Historians of technology count hundreds of Leonardo's inventions, scattered throughout his notebooks in the form of drawings, sometimes with short expressive remarks, but often without a single word of explanation, as if the inventor's rapid flight of imagination did not allow him to stop at verbal explanations.

Let's look at some of Leonardo's most famous inventions.

3.1 Aircraft

“The big bird begins its first flight from the back of a gigantic swan, filling the universe with amazement, filling all the scriptures with rumors about itself, filling the nest where it was born with eternal glory.”

The most daring dream of Leonardo the inventor, without a doubt, was human flight.

One of the very first (and most famous) sketches on this topic is a diagram of a device that in our time is considered to be a prototype of a helicopter. Leonardo proposed making a propeller with a diameter of 5 meters from thin flax soaked in starch. It had to be driven by four people turning levers in a circle. Modern experts argue that the muscular strength of four people would not be enough to lift this device into the air (especially since even if lifted, this structure would begin to rotate around its axis), but if, for example, a powerful spring were used as an “engine” , such a “helicopter” would be capable of flight - albeit short-term.

Leonardo soon lost interest in propeller-driven aircraft and turned his attention to the flight mechanism that had been working successfully for millions of years - the bird's wing. Leonardo da Vinci was convinced that “a person who overcomes air resistance with the help of large artificial wings can rise into the air. If only its members were of greater stamina, able to withstand the swiftness and impulse of descent with ligaments made of strong tanned leather and tendons made of raw silk. And let no one fiddle with iron material, because the latter quickly breaks at bends or wears out.”

Leonardo thought about flight with the help of the wind, that is, about soaring flight, rightly noting that in this case less effort is required to maintain and move in the air. He developed a design for a glider that was attached to a person's back so that the latter could balance in flight. The drawing of the device, which Leonardo himself described as follows, turned out to be prophetic: “If you have enough linen fabric sewn into a pyramid with a base of 12 yards (about 7 m 20 cm), then you can jump from any height without any harm to your body.” .

The master made this recording between 1483 and 1486. Several centuries later, such a device was called a “parachute” (from the Greek para - “against” and the French “chute” - fall). Leonardo’s idea was brought to its logical conclusion only by the Russian inventor Kotelnikov, who in 1911 created the first backpack rescue parachute attached to the pilot’s back.

3.2 Hydraulics

Leonardo da Vinci began to become interested in hydraulics while working in Verrocchio's workshop in Florence, working on fountains. As the Duke's chief engineer, Leonardo da Vinci developed hydraulics for use in agriculture and to power machinery and mills. “Water moving in a river is either called, or driven, or moves itself. If it is driven, who is the one who drives it? If it is called or demanded, who is the demander.”

Leonardo often used wooden or glass models of canals, in which he painted the created flows of water and marked them with small buoys to make it easier to follow the flow. The results of these experiments have found practical application in solving sewerage problems. His drawings include ports, closures, and sluices with sliding doors. Leonardo da Vinci even planned to dig a shipping canal diverting the river. Arno to connect Florence with the sea through Prato, Pistoia and Serraval. Another hydraulic project was conceived for Lombardy and Venice. He assumed the flooding of the Isonzo Valley in the event of a Turkish invasion. There was also a plan for draining the Pontine swamps (which Medici Pope Leo X consulted with Leonardo da Vinci about).

Leonardo da Vinci created lifebuoys and gas masks for both military and practical needs. Imitating the outlines of a fish, he improved the shape of the ship's hull to increase its speed; for the same purpose, he used a device on it that controlled the oars. For military needs, Leonardo da Vinci invented a double hull for the ship that could withstand shelling, as well as a secret device for anchoring the ship. This problem was solved with the help of divers who went underwater in special suits or in simple submarines.

To speed up swimming, the scientist developed a design of webbed gloves, which over time turned into the well-known flippers.

One of the most necessary things for teaching a person to swim is a lifebuoy. This invention of Leonardo remained virtually unchanged.

3.3 Car

It was in the head of Leonardo da Vinci that the idea of a car was born. Unfortunately, the body drawings were not fully drawn out, because during the development of his project the master was very interested in the engine and chassis.

This famous drawing shows a prototype of a modern car. The self-propelled three-wheeled cart is propelled by a complex crossbow mechanism that transmits power to actuators connected to the steering wheel. The rear wheels have differentiated drives and can move independently. In addition to the large front wheel, there was another small one, rotating, which was placed on a wooden lever. This vehicle was originally intended for the entertainment of the royal court and belonged to the range of self-propelled vehicles that were created by other engineers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Today, the word “excavator” will not surprise anyone. But hardly anyone thought about the history of the creation of this universal machine. Leonardo excavators were designed more for lifting and transporting excavated material. This made the workers' work easier. The excavator was mounted on rails and, as work progressed, moved forward using a screw mechanism on the central rail.

3.4 Leonardo da Vinci as a pioneer of nanotechnology

artist screw hydraulic saw

A group of researchers from the laboratory of the Center for Research and Restoration of Museums in France, led by Philippe Walter, once descended on the Louvre and, pushing museum workers aside, conducted an X-ray fluorescence analysis of the works of Leonardo da Vinci. Seven portraits by the great master, including the Mona Lisa, were exposed to the rays of a portable X-ray machine.

The analysis made it possible to determine the thickness of individual layers of paint and varnish in the paintings and to clarify some features of the sfumato painting technique (sfumato - “vague, blurred”), which made it possible to soften the transition between light and dark areas in the picture and create believable shadows. Actually, sfumato is da Vinci’s invention, and it was he who achieved the greatest heights in this technique.

As it turned out, Leonardo used varnish and paint with unique additives. But most importantly, da Vinci was able to apply glaze (glaze) in a layer 1-2 microns thick. The total thickness of all layers of varnish and paint in portraits by Leonardo does not exceed 30-40 microns; however, the refraction of light rays in various transparent and translucent layers creates a powerful effect of volume and depth. It is curious that modern screen coatings that create a stereoscopic effect are designed according to the same principle (see Appendix).

The study left open the question of how Leonardo managed to apply paint and varnish in such a thin layer (up to 1/1000 of a millimeter!). An additional intriguing fact is that no traces of brush strokes, much less fingerprints, were found in any layer of the paintings.

3.5 Other inventions of Leonardo

Leonardo's theoretical contributions to science are contained in his studies of "gravity, force, pressure and impact... the children of motion...". His drawings remain components mechanisms and devices for transmitting motion. Five main types of mechanisms have been known since ancient times: winch, lever, block (gate), wedge and screw. Leonardo used them in complex devices that automate various operations. He paid special attention to screws: “On the nature of the screw and its application, how many eternal screws can be made and how to supplement them with gears”

The problem of motion transmission is closely related to friction research, which led to the appearance of bearings that are still used today. Leonardo tested bearings made of antifriction material (an alloy of copper and tin), and ultimately settled on a variety of ball bearings - the prototypes of modern ones.

Let us also mention Leonardo's most famous inventions: devices for converting and transmitting motion (for example, steel chain drives, still used in bicycles); simple and interlaced belt drives; various types clutches (conical, spiral, stepped); roller bearings to reduce friction; double connection, now called "universal joint" and used in cars; various machines (for example, a precision machine for automatic notching or a hammering machine for forming gold bars); a device (attributed to Cellini) to improve the legibility of coinage; bench for experiments on friction; suspension of axles on movable wheels located around it to reduce friction during rotation (this is a device reinvented by Atwood in late XVIII century, led to modern ball and roller bearings); a device for experimentally testing the tensile strength of metal threads; numerous weaving machines (for example, shearing, twisting, carding); power loom and spinning machine for wool; combat vehicles for waging war (“the most severe insanity,” as he called it); various intricate musical instruments.

Oddly enough, only one invention of da Vinci received recognition during his lifetime - a wheel lock for a pistol that was wound with a key. At first, this mechanism was not very widespread, but by the middle of the 16th century it had gained popularity among nobles, especially in the cavalry, which was even reflected in the design of the armor: for the sake of firing pistols, armor began to be made with gloves instead of mittens. The wheel lock for a pistol, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, was so perfect that it continued to be found in the 19th century.

But, as often happens, recognition of geniuses comes centuries later: many of his inventions were expanded and modernized, and are now used in everyday life.

Archimedean screws and water wheels

Hydraulic saw

CONCLUSION

In the history of science, which is the history of human knowledge, people who make revolutionary discoveries are important. Without this factor, the history of science turns into a catalog or inventory of discoveries. The most striking example of this is Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci - Italian artist, sculptor, architect, scientist, engineer, naturalist. His extraordinary and versatile talent aroused amazement and admiration of his contemporaries, who saw in him the living embodiment of the ideal of a harmoniously developed, perfect person. In all his endeavors he was an explorer and pioneer, and this had a direct impact on his art. He left behind few works, but each of them was a stage in the history of culture. The scientist is also known as a versatile scientist. The scale and uniqueness of Leonardo da Vinci’s talent can be judged by his drawings, which occupy one of the honorable places in the history of art. Not only manuscripts dedicated to the exact sciences are inextricably linked with Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, sketches, outlines, and diagrams. Leonardo da Vinci owns numerous discoveries, projects and experimental studies in mathematics, mechanics, and other natural sciences.

The art of Leonardo da Vinci, his scientific and theoretical research, the uniqueness of his personality have passed through the entire history of world culture and science and had a huge influence on it.

The legendary fame of Leonardo has lived for centuries and has not yet faded, but is still burning brighter: the discoveries of modern science again and again fuel interest in his engineering and science fiction drawings, in his encrypted notes. Particularly hotheads even find in Leonardo’s sketches almost a prediction of atomic explosions.

Leonardo believed in the idea of homo faber, man - the creator of new tools, new things that did not exist in nature. This is not man’s resistance to nature and its laws, but creative activity on the basis of the same laws, for man is the “greatest instrument” of the same nature. River floods can be counteracted by dams, artificial wings are destined to lift a person into the air. In this case, it can no longer be said that human strength is wasted and drowns without a trace in the stream of time, the “destroyer of things.” Then, on the contrary, it will be necessary to say: “People unfairly complain about the passage of time, blaming it for being too fast, not noticing that it is passing quite slowly.” And then the words of Leonardo, which he wrote on the 34th sheet of the Codex Trivulzio, will be justified:

A life well lived is a long life.

La vita bene spesa longa`e.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Arshinov, V.I., Budanov V.G. Cognitive foundations of synergetics. Synergetic paradigm. Nonlinear thinking in science and art. - M., 2002, pp. 67-108.

2. Voloshinov, A.V. Mathematics and art. - M., 1992, 335 p.

Gasteev A.A. Leonardo da Vinci. Life wonderful people. - M.: Young Guard, 1984, 400 p.

Gnedich P.I. History of art. High Renaissance. - M.: Eksmo Publishing House, 2005, 144 p.

Zubov V.P. Leonardo da Vinci. - L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962, 372 p.

Cuming R. Artists: the life and work of 50 famous painters. - M., 1999, 112 p.

7. COMPULENT. Science and Technology / Applied Research / <#"526349.files/image003.gif">

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