The Greatness of Leonardo da Vinci
Where Would Aviation Be Without Leonardo da Vinci?
Man Beyond the Ages
Best known as an artist and creator of great masterpieces as "The Mona Lisa", "Madonna of the Rocks", and "The Last Supper", he was also noted as a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. His wonderful scientific work far exceeded his art, if that seems possible. His painstaking observations and research in the areas of architecture and civil engineering, astronomy and zoology,geography, geology, and paleontology, were not equaled, even by today's standards. An obsessive fan and follower of Leonardo was the biographer, Georgio Vasarie, and he said that Leonardo had an indescribable grace in his every effortless work of art and undertaking. He said that Leonardo has mastered every subject given his attention. He said that this man was showered with the gifts of heaven. Of all the great people who were born on this planet, the one individual who I would choose as the most wonderful contributor to his fellow man, and their future in technology,would be most assuredly, Leonardo da Vinci.
More than 4000 manuscripts have been collected in libraries all over Europe. He was once thought to have meant to have published these in a big encyclopedia. Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and lived to 1519. After his death, his works were scattered all over Europe in libraries and institutions there. The magnificent quality and intelligence that Leonardo displayed in his work was not fathomed until the nineteenth century.
Leonardo da Vinci was considered "A Man of Both Worlds",one of art, and the other of science. He was considered to be the greatest man of the ages by many and listed as a painter,sculptor, architect,musician,engineer, inventor and scientist. He was said to be "The Renaissance Man". Born in 1452 in the small town of Anchiano, Italy, he was the illegitimate son of Piera da Vinci and his mother, Caterina. As he moved to Milan in 1483, his first major work was "The Madonna of the Rocks". Later he was commissioned by officials in his art and by the government to design and construct elaborate buildings, churches, and devise weaponry to be used in defense against the enemy. His sketches and research of the human body shows elaborate views of the muscles, circulatory system, and bones that make up the skeletal system. Some of the cadavers used in his studies were taken from nearby morgues.
When Leonardo da Vinci passed away in 1519, he was under the care of French King Francis I. He was highly admired by the king in his stay there.To this very day, Leonardo was thought to be one of the greatest people on the face of this earth and a great man of the arts and sciences. Many of he illustrations about science and the human body were actually used later in the medical professions of the world and modeled after.
Leonardo's painting of "The Last Supper", has been heralded as one of the greatest of the "High Renaissance". It is a masterpiece of the dramatic narrative of how Christ is telling his apostles about one of them who is to betray him. The emotion of his apostles is captured on the canvas in this wonderful and dramatic painting. The "Mona Lisa" is another of Leonardo's greatest works of art. Lisa is the wife of Francisco del Giacondo. The painting portrays in soft tones the Mona Lisa and her ambiguous half-smile. It is a marvelous rendering of Leonardo's great ability to paint using textures and soft tones in the oil that he used. His drawings of such inventions as the submarine, aircraft, tanks, that were made for wartime, and hundreds of insightful and brilliant creations, were unsurpassed in their seemingly limitless productions.
Leonardo died on May 2, 1514 at Clos Luce'. Much of his time in later years was spent in the Vatican in Rome during the time that Raphael and Michelangelo, two other great artist of the period, were there also. Francis I said of Leonardo that never before had a man been born into the world, who knew as much as Leonardo da Vinci knew as an artist, and yet, he was more of a great philosopher. Leonardo was truly a great inspiration and influence for the world and continues to be, to this day.
