From killing machines to gruesome dissections, uncover the Renaissance polymath’s hidden history
Leonardo da Vinci is remembered as a ‘dual genius’, the great artist who gave us the Mona Lisa and the great inventor who conceived machines that would not exist for some time, from the parachute to flying contraptions. But did you know that Leonardo was deeply interested in science not apart from his art, but because of it? Insatiably curious, he delved into many sciences – anatomy, hydraulics, geology, botany, mechanics, astronomy – but the one that mattered to him the most was optics, the science that teaches about darkish, smoky, and blurred shadows. He thought that those darkish shadows were key to understanding the human mind.
ENTER THE POLYMATH
Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452, in Vinci, a small village about 20 miles from Florence. His father, Ser Piero, a notary, had conceived him out of wedlock with Caterina, a household servant. Leonardo’s grandfather proudly recorded the arrival of his first grandson in the family memory book: “There was born to me a grandson, the son of Ser Piero my son.” But in other, more fundamental ways, the boy was not part of the family. According to the laws of the time, illegitimate children were deprived of inheritance rights. They did not even have the right to attend university, let alone enrol in the guild of notaries. Because of the circumstances of his birth, the boy had to be directed towards a different career. We know nothing about Leonardo’s childhood, but based on what we know about the upbringing of children in this period, we can surmise that he spent a couple of years with his mother in Vinci and then moved to Florence, where his father lived with his wife, whom he married after Leonardo’s birth. Leonardo learned how to read and write in a neighbourhood grammar school and attended an abacus school that taught commercial mathematics: double-entry bookkeeping, algebra, and the use of numerals of Indian and Middle Eastern origin, all skills merchants needed for their profession. It’s unclear how much
authority Leonardo’s teachers held over him, however, as the boy refused to write in normal script running from left to right, preferring instead to write in reverse, from right to left, and in mirror writing. For some time it was thought that Leonardo wrote this way to keep his thoughts secret, but the reality is that he was also lefthanded, and like many left-handed people he found it
