Leonardo da Vinci: The Epitome of a Renaissance Man

Leonardo da Vinci’s early life had a profound effect on his later accomplishments. Like William Shakespeare, he came from an insignificant background and, purely because of his genius, became one of the most influential people of his time. He was born on April 15, 1452, at 3 A.M. in the small town

Leonardo da Vinci was also a forward thinking inventor who envisioned various machines that are still in use today. It is believed that his interest for machinery began when he was an apprentice in the studio of the artist Verrocchio. However, it was not until he was living out on his own that is love for ‘how do things really work’ started. Since making a living as an artist was, and still is, difficult to do, in order to support himself, Leonardo started working for the Duke of Milan in 1482 where he was a military engineer. Leonardo found mechanical gears to be quite interesting and while he was studying them he reasoned that by understanding how each separate machine part worked, you could modify them and combine them in different ways to improve existing machines or you could create inventions no one had ever seen before. Other than his inventions of weapons for the Duke, no one really knew just how much of a forward thinker Leonardo was until centuries after his death. When he had died, his notebooks were hidden away, scattered or lost and his ideas were forgotten, it was not until they were found that people realized how genius this man really was. In his notes from 1485, he had sketches for a parachute. He even wrote suggestions for optimum safety for the user although no one really knows if his version was ever tested but, it would take 298 years before the first successful parachute jump took place. Although we know Leonardo never achieved human-powered flight, in his notes were drawings for flying machines, some of them even had retractable landing gear. It wasn’t until 1907 that the first helicopter was designed and it took another 26 years before retractable landing gear was used. Tanks were also something Leonardo envisioned. The illustrations however, held only 4 soldiers and in order to move the armored vehicle, they’d have to turn cranks but his drawing for them looks almost identical to the ones in use today. During his life, he didn’t solely enjoy mechanical gears, he also developed a liking for water probably because during his time it was the ultimate source of power. He started to study all the different forms of water (liquids, steam and ice) and from his research, he began to draw plans for machines. There were drawings of a steam-powered cannon, floating snowshoes to walk on water, a life preserver, devices to attack and sink ships from underwater, a double-hulled ship and dredges for cleaning harbors and channels, machines to measure humidity and even a self-contained breathing apparatus. Because Leonardo was such an innovator, he even proposed creating a bridge that would cross the Gulf of Istanbul and it would connect the Golden Horn and the Bosporus with a bridge. When the engineers heard how long it was going to be, they found his idea to be preposterous yet, modern engineers have determined that the bridge Leonardo had designed not only would have been completely sound, its construction would have been possible. It is easy to see how Leonardo was a true innovator in the field of inventions and thanks to his tremendous talents as an illustrator his mechanical ideas were so exceptionally clear that they are even used today.

Although there aren’t many examples of his work, Leonardo is still viewed as a wonderful, powerful sculptor. Part of Leonardo’s apprenticeship under Verrocchio was the study of sculpture although he considered it dirty work ‘of lesser genius than painting’ and ‘wholly mechanical exercise’ It might be because of this that most of Leonardo’s sculptural projects were not completed and why most people judge his 3-dimentional art by his drawings. However, Leonardo has said that he has worked, ‘no less in sculpture than in painting’ and that he is equally skilful at both. He is probably best known for his busts which are sculptures that represent a person's head, shoulders, and upper chest. Right now there is a bit of a controversy going around b

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