leonardo da vinci inventions essay

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Leonardo da vinci (1452–1519).

A Bear Walking

• Leonardo da Vinci

The Head of a Woman in Profile Facing Left

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right

Allegory on the Fidelity of the Lizard (recto); Design for a Stage Setting (verso)

The Head of a Grotesque Man in Profile Facing Right

After Leonardo da Vinci

Head of a Man in Profile Facing to the Left

Compositional Sketches for the Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, with and without the Infant St. John the Baptist; Diagram of a Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)

Studies for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Frontal View, Male Nude Unsheathing a Sword, and the Movements of Water (Recto); Study for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Rear View (Verso)

Carmen Bambach Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him, a tool for recording his investigation of nature. Although completed works by Leonardo are few, he left a large body of drawings (almost 2,500) that record his ideas, most still gathered into notebooks. He was principally active in Florence (1472–ca. 1482, 1500–1508) and Milan (ca. 1482–99, 1508–13), but spent the last years of his life in Rome (1513–16) and France (1516/17–1519), where he died. His genius as an artist and inventor continues to inspire artists and scientists alike centuries after his death.

Drawings Outside of Italy, Leonardo’s work can be studied most readily in drawings. He recorded his constant flow of ideas for paintings on paper. In his Studies for the Nativity ( 17.142.1 ), he studied different poses and gestures of the mother and her infant , probably in preparation for the main panel in his famous altarpiece known as the Virgin of the Rocks (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Similarly, in a sheet of designs for a stage setting ( 17.142.2 ), prepared for a staging of a masque (or musical comedy) in Milan in 1496, he made notes on the actors’ positions on stage alongside his sketches, translating images and ideas from his imagination onto paper. Leonardo also drew what he observed from the world around him, including human anatomy , animal and plant life, the motion of water, and the flight of birds. He also investigated the mechanisms of machines used in his day, inventing many devices like a modern-day engineer. His drawing techniques range from rather rapid pen sketches, in The   Head of a Man in Profile Facing to The Left ( 10.45.1) , to carefully finished drawings in red and black chalks, as in The   Head of the Virgin ( 51.90 ). These works also demonstrate his fascination with physiognomy, and contrasts between youth and old age, beauty and ugliness.

The Last Supper (ca. 1492/94–1498) Leonardo’s Last Supper , on the end wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, is one of the most renowned paintings of the High Renaissance. Recently restored, The Last Supper had already begun to flake during the artist’s lifetime due to his failed attempt to paint on the walls in layers (not unlike the technique of tempera on panel), rather than in a true fresco technique . Even in its current state, it is a masterpiece of dramatic narrative and subtle pictorial illusionism.

Leonardo chose to capture the moment just after Christ tells his apostles that one of them will betray him, and at the institution of the Eucharist. The effect of his statement causes a visible response, in the form of a wave of emotion among the apostles. These reactions are quite specific to each apostle, expressing what Leonardo called the “motions of the mind.” Despite the dramatic reaction of the apostles, Leonardo imposes a sense of order on the scene. Christ’s head is at the center of the composition, framed by a halo-like architectural opening. His head is also the vanishing point toward which all lines of the perspectival projection of the architectural setting converge. The apostles are arranged around him in four groups of three united by their posture and gesture. Judas, who was traditionally placed on the opposite side of the table, is here set apart from the other apostles by his shadowed face.

Mona Lisa (ca. 1503–6 and later) Leonardo may also be credited with the most famous portrait of all time, that of Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and known as the Mona Lisa (Musée du Louvre, Paris). An aura of mystery surrounds this painting, which is veiled in a soft light, creating an atmosphere of enchantment. There are no hard lines or contours here (a technique of painting known as sfumato— fumo in Italian means “smoke”), only seamless transitions between light and dark. Perhaps the most striking feature of the painting is the sitter’s ambiguous half smile. She looks directly at the viewer, but her arms, torso, and head each twist subtly in a different direction, conveying an arrested sense of movement. Leonardo explores the possibilities of oil paint in the soft folds of the drapery, texture of skin, and contrasting light and dark (chiaroscuro). The deeply receding background, with its winding rivers and rock formations, is an example of Leonardo’s personal view of the natural world: one in which everything is liquid, in flux, and filled with movement and energy.

Bambach, Carmen. “Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Bambach, Carmen C., ed. Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman . Exhibition catalogue.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Additional Essays by Carmen Bambach

• Bambach, Carmen. “ Anatomy in the Renaissance .” (October 2002)
• Bambach, Carmen. “ Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function .” (October 2002)

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Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for inventions like a flying machine.

(1452-1519)

Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman — the epitome of a true Renaissance man. Gifted with a curious mind and a brilliant intellect, da Vinci studied the laws of science and nature, which greatly informed his work. His drawings, paintings and other works have influenced countless artists and engineers over the centuries.

Da Vinci was born in a farmhouse outside the village of Anchiano in Tuscany, Italy (about 18 miles west of Florence) on April 15, 1452.

Born out of wedlock to respected Florentine notary Ser Piero and a young peasant woman named Caterina, da Vinci was raised by his father and his stepmother.

At the age of five, he moved to his father’s estate in nearby Vinci (the town from which his surname derives), where he lived with his uncle and grandparents.

Young da Vinci received little formal education beyond basic reading, writing and mathematics instruction, but his artistic talents were evident from an early age.

Around the age of 14, da Vinci began a lengthy apprenticeship with the noted artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. He learned a wide breadth of technical skills including metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing, painting and sculpting.

His earliest known dated work — a pen-and-ink drawing of a landscape in the Arno valley — was sketched in 1473.

Early Works

At the age of 20, da Vinci qualified for membership as a master artist in Florence’s Guild of Saint Luke and established his own workshop. However, he continued to collaborate with del Verrocchio for an additional five years.

It is thought that del Verrocchio completed his “Baptism of Christ” around 1475 with the help of his student, who painted part of the background and the young angel holding the robe of Jesus.

According to Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects , written around 1550 by artist Giorgio Vasari, del Verrocchio was so humbled by the superior talent of his pupil that he never picked up a paintbrush again. (Most scholars, however, dismiss Vasari’s account as apocryphal.)

In 1478, after leaving del Verrocchio’s studio, da Vinci received his first independent commission for an altarpiece to reside in a chapel inside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.

Three years later the Augustinian monks of Florence’s San Donato a Scopeto tasked him to paint “Adoration of the Magi.” The young artist, however, would leave the city and abandon both commissions without ever completing them.

Was Leonardo da Vinci Gay?

Many historians believe that da Vinci was a homosexual: Florentine court records from 1476 show that da Vinci and four other young men were charged with sodomy, a crime punishable by exile or death.

After no witnesses showed up to testify against 24-year-old da Vinci, the charges were dropped, but his whereabouts went entirely undocumented for the following two years.

Leonardo da Vinci: Paintings

Although da Vinci is known for his artistic abilities, fewer than two dozen paintings attributed to him exist. One reason is that his interests were so varied that he wasn’t a prolific painter. Da Vinci’s most famous works include the “Vitruvian Man,” “The Last Supper” and the “ Mona Lisa .”

Vitruvian Man

Art and science intersected perfectly in da Vinci’s sketch of “Vitruvian Man,” drawn in 1490, which depicted a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart inside both a square and a circle.

The now-famous sketch represents da Vinci's study of proportion and symmetry, as well as his desire to relate man to the natural world.

The Last Supper

Around 1495, Ludovico Sforza, then the Duke of Milan, commissioned da Vinci to paint “The Last Supper” on the back wall of the dining hall inside the monastery of Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie.

The masterpiece, which took approximately three years to complete, captures the drama of the moment when Jesus informs the Twelve Apostles gathered for Passover dinner that one of them would soon betray him. The range of facial expressions and the body language of the figures around the table bring the masterful composition to life.

The decision by da Vinci to paint with tempera and oil on dried plaster instead of painting a fresco on fresh plaster led to the quick deterioration and flaking of “The Last Supper.” Although an improper restoration caused further damage to the mural, it has now been stabilized using modern conservation techniques.

In 1503, da Vinci started working on what would become his most well-known painting — and arguably the most famous painting in the world —the “Mona Lisa.” The privately commissioned work is characterized by the enigmatic smile of the woman in the half-portrait, which derives from da Vinci’s sfumato technique.

Adding to the allure of the “Mona Lisa” is the mystery surrounding the identity of the subject. Princess Isabella of Naples, an unnamed courtesan and da Vinci’s own mother have all been put forth as potential sitters for the masterpiece. It has even been speculated that the subject wasn’t a female at all but da Vinci’s longtime apprentice Salai dressed in women’s clothing.

Based on accounts from an early biographer, however, the "Mona Lisa" is a picture of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant. The painting’s original Italian name — “La Gioconda” — supports the theory, but it’s far from certain. Some art historians believe the merchant commissioned the portrait to celebrate the pending birth of the couple’s next child, which means the subject could have been pregnant at the time of the painting.

If the Giocondo family did indeed commission the painting, they never received it. For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with the painting. Today, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, secured behind bulletproof glass and regarded as a priceless national treasure seen by millions of visitors each year.

Battle of Anghiari

In 1503, da Vinci also started work on the "Battle of Anghiari," a mural commissioned for the council hall in the Palazzo Vecchio that was to be twice as large as "The Last Supper."

He abandoned the "Battle of Anghiari" project after two years when the mural began to deteriorate before he had a chance to finish it.

In 1482, Florentine ruler Lorenzo de' Medici commissioned da Vinci to create a silver lyre and bring it as a peace gesture to Ludovico Sforza. After doing so, da Vinci lobbied Ludovico for a job and sent the future Duke of Milan a letter that barely mentioned his considerable talents as an artist and instead touted his more marketable skills as a military engineer.

Using his inventive mind, da Vinci sketched war machines such as a war chariot with scythe blades mounted on the sides, an armored tank propelled by two men cranking a shaft and even an enormous crossbow that required a small army of men to operate.

The letter worked, and Ludovico brought da Vinci to Milan for a tenure that would last 17 years. During his time in Milan, da Vinci was commissioned to work on numerous artistic projects as well, including “The Last Supper.”

Da Vinci’s ability to be employed by the Sforza clan as an architecture and military engineering advisor as well as a painter and sculptor spoke to da Vinci’s keen intellect and curiosity about a wide variety of subjects.

Flying Machine

Always a man ahead of his time, da Vinci appeared to prophesy the future with his sketches of devices that resemble a modern-day bicycle and a type of helicopter.

Perhaps his most well-known invention is a flying machine, which is based on the physiology of a bat. These and other explorations into the mechanics of flight are found in da Vinci's Codex on the Flight of Birds, a study of avian aeronautics, which he began in 1505.

Like many leaders of Renaissance humanism, da Vinci did not see a divide between science and art. He viewed the two as intertwined disciplines rather than separate ones. He believed studying science made him a better artist.

In 1502 and 1503, da Vinci also briefly worked in Florence as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and commander of the papal army. He traveled outside of Florence to survey military construction projects and sketch city plans and topographical maps.

He designed plans, possibly with noted diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli , to divert the Arno River away from rival Pisa in order to deny its wartime enemy access to the sea.

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Da Vinci’s Study of Anatomy and Science

Da Vinci thought sight was humankind’s most important sense and eyes the most important organ, and he stressed the importance of saper vedere, or “knowing how to see.” He believed in the accumulation of direct knowledge and facts through observation.

“A good painter has two chief objects to paint — man and the intention of his soul,” da Vinci wrote. “The former is easy, the latter hard, for it must be expressed by gestures and the movement of the limbs.”

To more accurately depict those gestures and movements, da Vinci began to study anatomy seriously and dissect human and animal bodies during the 1480s. His drawings of a fetus in utero, the heart and vascular system, sex organs and other bone and muscular structures are some of the first on human record.

In addition to his anatomical investigations, da Vinci studied botany, geology, zoology, hydraulics, aeronautics and physics. He sketched his observations on loose sheets of papers and pads that he tucked inside his belt.

Da Vinci placed the papers in notebooks and arranged them around four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy. He filled dozens of notebooks with finely drawn illustrations and scientific observations.

Ludovico Sforza also tasked da Vinci with sculpting a 16-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue of his father and founder of the family dynasty, Francesco Sforza. With the help of apprentices and students in his workshop, da Vinci worked on the project on and off for more than a dozen years.

Da Vinci sculpted a life-size clay model of the statue, but the project was put on hold when war with France required bronze to be used for casting cannons, not sculptures. After French forces overran Milan in 1499 — and shot the clay model to pieces — da Vinci fled the city along with the duke and the Sforza family.

Ironically, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, who led the French forces that conquered Ludovico in 1499, followed in his foe’s footsteps and commissioned da Vinci to sculpt a grand equestrian statue, one that could be mounted on his tomb. After years of work and numerous sketches by da Vinci, Trivulzio decided to scale back the size of the statue, which was ultimately never finished.

Final Years

Da Vinci returned to Milan in 1506 to work for the very French rulers who had overtaken the city seven years earlier and forced him to flee.

Among the students who joined his studio was young Milanese aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would become da Vinci’s closest companion for the rest of his life. He did little painting during his second stint in Milan, however, and most of his time was instead dedicated to scientific studies.

Amid political strife and the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan, da Vinci left the city and moved to Rome in 1513 along with Salai, Melzi and two studio assistants. Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of newly installed Pope Leo X and son of his former patron, gave da Vinci a monthly stipend along with a suite of rooms at his residence inside the Vatican.

His new patron, however, also gave da Vinci little work. Lacking large commissions, he devoted most of his time in Rome to mathematical studies and scientific exploration.

After being present at a 1515 meeting between France’s King Francis I and Pope Leo X in Bologna, the new French monarch offered da Vinci the title “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King.”

Along with Melzi, da Vinci departed for France, never to return. He lived in the Chateau de Cloux (now Clos Luce) near the king’s summer palace along the Loire River in Amboise. As in Rome, da Vinci did little painting during his time in France. One of his last commissioned works was a mechanical lion that could walk and open its chest to reveal a bouquet of lilies.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci died of a probable stroke on May 2, 1519, at the age of 67. He continued work on his scientific studies until his death; his assistant, Melzi, became the principal heir and executor of his estate. The “Mona Lisa” was bequeathed to Salai.

For centuries after his death, thousands of pages from his private journals with notes, drawings, observations and scientific theories have surfaced and provided a fuller measure of the true "Renaissance man."

Book and Movie

Although much has been written about da Vinci over the years, Walter Isaacson explored new territory with an acclaimed 2017 biography, Leonardo da Vinci , which offers up details on what drove the artist's creations and inventions.

The buzz surrounding the book carried into 2018, with the announcement that it had been optioned for a big-screen adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio .

Salvator Mundi

In 2017, the art world was sent buzzing with the news that the da Vinci painting "Salvator Mundi" had been sold at a Christie's auction to an undisclosed buyer for a whopping $450.3 million. That amount dwarfed the previous record for an art work sold at an auction, the $179.4 million paid for “Women of Algiers" by Pablo Picasso in 2015.

The sales figure was stunning in part because of the damaged condition of the oil-on-panel, which features Jesus Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left holding a crystal orb, and because not all experts believe it was rendered by da Vinci.

However, Christie's had launched what one dealer called a "brilliant marketing campaign," which promoted the work as "the holy grail of our business" and "the last da Vinci." Prior to the sale, it was the only known painting by the old master still in a private collection.

The Saudi Embassy stated that Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud of Saudi Arabia had acted as an agent for the ministry of culture of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Around that time, the newly-opened Louvre Abu Dhabi announced that the record-breaking artwork would be exhibited in its collection.

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QUICK FACTS

• Name: Leonardo da Vinci
• Birth Year: 1452
• Birth date: April 15, 1452
• Birth City: Vinci
• Birth Country: Italy
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for inventions like a flying machine.
• Science and Medicine
• Writing and Publishing
• Architecture
• Technology and Engineering
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock to a respected Florentine notary and a young peasant woman.
• Da Vinci used tempera and oil on dried plaster to paint "The Last Supper," which led to its quick deterioration and flaking.
• For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with the painting.
• Death Year: 1519
• Death date: May 2, 1519
• Death City: Amboise
• Death Country: France

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Leonardo da Vinci Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/leonardo-da-vincii
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 28, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
• Nothing is hidden beneath the sun.
• Obstacles cannot bend me. Every obstacle yields to effort.
• We make our life by the death of others.
• Necessity is the mistress and guardian of nature.
• One ought not to desire the impossible.
• He who neglects to punish evil sanctions the doing thereof.
• Darkness is the absence of light. Shadow is the diminution of light.
• The painter who draws by practice and judgment of the eye without the use of reason, is like the mirror that reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite to it without knowledge of the same.
• He who does not value life does not deserve it.
• Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
• Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

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• Early Modern

10 of Leonardo da Vinci’s Most Important Inventions

Jon Bauckham

26 jan 2021.

It’s something of an understatement to say that Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was a ‘genius’.

As well as being responsible for world-famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper , the Renaissance man was also a highly talented anatomist, zoologist, geologist, mathematician and military engineer (to name but a few), whose insatiable curiosity about the world around him knew no bounds.

During the course of his life – from his early days in Florence, right through to his final years in France – the polymath sketched out ideas and recorded scientific investigations on thousands of sheets of paper, gathered today in volumes known as codices.

In this article we delve into Leonardo’s notes and pick out 10 of his most impressive inventions and feats of engineering – some of which foreshadow innovations of more recent times.

1. Ornithopters

Among his numerous scientific interests, Leonardo harboured a particular obsession with flight. By studying the anatomy of birds, he hoped to build a machine that would one day allow humans to join them in the skies.

Towards the end of his life, the polymath gathered his thoughts on the topic in a text known as the Codice sul volo degli uccelli (‘Codex on the Flight of Birds’), written around 1505–06.

However, concepts for so-called flying machines were sketched throughout Leonardo’s career. Typically, the contraptions he drew were ‘ornithopters’, with membrane-covered wings designed to flap up and down.

Whether lying horizontally or standing in an upright position, the pilot would have operated the machines using pedals and levers – very much relying on their physical strength to get off the ground and stay airborne.

Detail from one of Leonardo da Vinci’s many flying machine designs, c1485. The drawing appears in a collection of sketches and notes known as Manuscript B , held by the Institut de France in Paris (Image Credit: Public Domain ).

2. Helical air screw

Another notable flying machine design (pictured below) can be found in a collection of Leonardo’s papers known today as Manuscript B . Sketched during the 1480s, the device – sometimes dubbed the ‘helical air screw’ – bears more than a passing resemblance to a modern helicopter.

Instead of individual rotor blades, however, Leonardo’s invention features a single, screw-shaped blade, designed to ‘bore’ into the air and allow the machine to ascend vertically.

Unfortunately, none of Leonardo’s flying machines would have actually worked. Not only would the materials have been too heavy, but human muscle power alone simply isn’t sufficient for such devices to take flight.

A modern-day model of Leonardo’s helical air screw, which predates the invention of the helicopter by more than 400 years (Image Credit: Citron / CC-BY-SA-3.0)

3. Parachute

As well as building machines that would enable humans to soar up into the clouds, Leonardo was also interested in creating devices that would allow people to descend from great heights.

In a drawing found in the Codex Atlanticus , Leonardo depicts a contraption resembling a parachute, constructed from reinforced cloth and wooden poles. Designed to be “12 arms wide and 12 tall”, the device, Leonardo writes, would enable a man to leap off a tall structure “without hurting himself”.

A miniature version of Leonardo’s pyramid-shaped parachute, which was successfully tested by a British skydiver in 2000. The original design is found in the Codex Atlanticus in Milan (Image Credit: Nevit Dilmen / CC).

In June 2000, a British skydiver named Adrian Nicholas constructed his own replica of Leonardo’s ‘parachute’, which he tested by jumping out of a hot-air balloon positioned 10,000 feet above the province of Mpumalanga in South Africa.

Although he deployed a conventional parachute shortly before landing, Nicholas sailed towards earth strapped to Leonardo’s device for a total of five minutes, reporting a surprisingly smooth descent.

4. Self-supporting bridge

Leonardo was employed by a number of powerful patrons throughout his life, including Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Cesare Borgia , son of Pope Alexander VI.

Of the numerous contraptions Leonardo invented for his patrons, one of the simplest – but most effective – is a portable wooden bridge that appears in the Codex Atlanticus .

A modern incarnation of Leonardo’s self-supporting bridge, constructed in Denmark. The simple structure was designed to be erected in a matter of minutes, making it ideal for military use (Image Credit: Cntrading / CC).

Designed to help armies cross bodies of water, the bridge is made up of several notched wooden poles, erected without the need for any screws or other fastenings.

As demonstrated by modern replicas (like that pictured above), the pressure created by the interlocking beams keeps the whole structure firmly in place.

5. Giant crossbow

A more famous military invention, sketched c1490, is also found in the Codex Atlanticus .

Commonly dubbed the ‘giant crossbow’, the ludicrously large contraption (as demonstrated by the size of the man in the drawing, below) was designed to launch projectiles such as boulders.

While there is no evidence to suggest a working prototype was ever built, Leonardo believed that the sheer sight of such weapons would strike fear into the hearts of the enemy.

Leonardo’s ‘giant crossbow’, accompanied by notes written in his characteristic mirror-writing script. The weapon – although never built – was deliberately designed to be intimidating (Image Credit: Public Domain ).

Overall, the crossbow was one of a number of siege weapons that Leonardo drew after studying the works of an earlier military engineer named Roberto Valturio, who published a treatise named De re militari (‘On the Military Arts’) in 1472.

Other such contraptions are depicted on the same sheet as the crossbow, improving on Valturio’s designs.

6. Armoured fighting vehicle

Alongside his so-called ‘helicopter’ and ‘parachute’, Leonardo designed several other contraptions that foreshadow innovations of more recent times.

Among them is the armoured car that appears in the Codex Arundel (below), which has often been likened to a modern tank.

Conceived in c1487, the conical vehicle is depicted with cannons around its full circumference, allowing it to attack from 360 degrees.

Crucially, the soldiers inside the tank would have been protected from enemy fire thanks to metal plates reinforcing its wooden shell.

Leonardo’s sketch of a fighting vehicle or ‘tank’, which appears among the pages of the Codex Arundel at the British Library (Image Credit: Public Domain ).

Unusually for a man of his engineering ability, the gears in Leonardo’s supporting drawings are configured in such a way that renders the vehicle immobile.

This may have been a genuine mistake, but some historians have posited that Leonardo incorporated the error on purpose, just in case in his notes were ever stolen and someone else tried to copy the design.

7. Equestrian sculpture

Although ostensibly employed by Ludovico Sforza as a military engineer, Leonardo also pledged that he would build a huge equestrian monument as a memorial to the duke’s late father, Francesco.

In order to create the sculpture – intended to be 24 feet high – Leonardo carefully studied the anatomy of horses, and undertook calculations to work out how much bronze would be needed.

Most crucially of all, Leonardo also came up with innovative new methods for the casting process, which involved designing complex machinery to construct the moulds required.

An early study for Leonardo’s equestrian monument for the Duke of Milan, dated c1490. He later simplified the design, realising that it would be too complicated to make a reality (Image Credit: Public Domain ).

Unfortunately, the scheme was put on hold following the outbreak of the Italian Wars in the 1490s, and Milan’s bronze supplies were diverted to make weapons instead.

Then, when French troops entered Milan in 1499 and Sforza was overthrown, the project was abandoned for good. According to one story, the invading soldiers used Leonardo’s massive clay model of the sculpture for target practice.

8. Diving suits

Following the invasion of Milan, Leonardo fled the city state and spent a brief stint in Venice.

As his temporary new home was also under threat from foreign powers (this time by the Ottoman empire), the polymath again offered his services as a military engineer.

In the  Codex Arundel , Leonardo depicts designs for diving suits made from leather, complete with glass goggles and cane tubing.

In theory, the suits would have allowed Venetian soldiers to walk on the seabed and sabotage enemy ships from below – their breathing made possible by air tanks floating on the water’s surface.

One of Leonardo’s designs for underwater breathing apparatus (found in the Codex Arundel ), alongside a modern museum exhibit showing how the mask would have fit over the diver’s head (Image Credit: Public Domain / Public Domain ).

9. The ‘robot’

As well as flying machines, bridges and weapons, Leonardo also made contraptions designed purely for entertainment.

Around 1495, he drew up plans for a mechanical knight – an armour-clad ‘robot’ that could sit up, move its head, and even wave a sword in its hands.

Having immersed himself in the study of anatomy, Leonardo knew how to make the knight’s complex system of gears and pulleys emulate the movements of the human body as closely as possible.

While a complete drawing of the knight doesn’t survive, American robotics expert Mark Rosheim managed to construct a successful working replica in 2002 using Leonardo’s notes.

A miniature model of Leonardo’s mechanical knight and its inner workings on display in Berlin. Fragments of the original design were not discovered until the 1950s (Image Credit: Public Domain ).

10. Mechanical lion

Another impressive automaton was conceived towards the end of Leonardo’s life, when – under the employ of Giuliano de’ Medici (brother of Pope Leo X) – he built a mechanical lion as a diplomatic gift for King Francis I of France.

According to contemporary reports, the beast could walk, move its head, and open its chest to reveal fleurs-de-lys .

As it happens, Leonardo entered the king’s service in 1516. He was given his own house in the Loire Valley, where he died three years later, aged 67.

Leonardo was buried in Amboise inside a small chapel located within the grounds of the royal castle – a relatively modest final resting place for one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen.

A drawing of the castle at Amboise, France – the town where Leonardo spent the final years of his life. The sketch is attributed to his assistant, Francesco Melzi (Image Credit: Public Domain ).

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Leonardo da Vinci's Inventions

Leonardo da vinci might have been the best inventor ever, however, he hardly had any impact on the technology of his century. find out more about these mechanical marvels that never were..

This story was created for the Google Expeditions project by Vida Systems, now available on Google Arts & Culture.

Leonardo da Vinci (1817) by Raphael Morghen Los Angeles County Museum of Art

He drew sketches and images of his ideas, but either lost fascination with creating them or was never in a position to persuade any of his rich patrons to fund the building of his designs.

The Renaissance Man

Leonardo is considered the ultimate Renaissance man — with passions spanning geology, geometry, astronomy, mathematics, botany, pyrotechnics, optics, and zoology.

Among his many achievements, he was the first to explain why the sky is blue and wrote the words “for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction” 200 years before Newton was born.

Ahead of Time

Da Vinci's designs were spectacularly ahead of his time. If they had been built, they might have revolutionized the history of technology, though many of them may have been impossible to build with the tools available in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Musical Inventions

Leonardo was a skilled poet, singer, and practiced musician. Da Vinci drew up plans for many new musical instruments, including various flutes and the viola organista (a keyboard instrument with strings, which were sounded by the means of a wheel, horsehair strap, and a bow).

The Diagram Code

Leonardo never published all his diagrams, and nobody else knew about them until his notebooks were discovered long after his death. In recent years, however, engineers have begun to construct models of da Vinci's amazing machines and most of them actually work.

Air Screw and Flying Machine

Working much like a modern helicopter, this flying machine looks a lot like a giant whirling pinwheel. The "blades" of this helicopter were to have been made out of linen. 

As with many of da Vinci’s ideas, he never actually built and tested it — but his notes and drawings mapped out exactly how the device would operate.

What Was It Made of?

Da Vinci’s helicopter was made of reed, linen, and wire. It measured over 15 feet in diameter. He was a big proponent of the many possibilities offered by the screw shape, and he used the shape for other inventions and designs as well.

Function Today

Would the air screw actually have worked in practice? Probably not. Due to weight constrictions, modern scientists do not believe da Vinci’s invention would have been able to take flight. And that's a pity — it would have looked amazing in flight.

City of the Future

Da Vinci designed a whole city, planned from the ground up, to be sanitary and livable, featuring wide streets and underground waterways. The result was a triumph of urban planning that unfortunately was never built. This idea is surprisingly modern.

High Above the Plague

When Leonardo was living in Milan around the year 1400, the Black Plague devastated Europe. Cities suffered far more than the countryside, and da Vinci theorized that something about cities made them especially vulnerable to disease.

Canal Network

Da Vinci's "ideal city" was divided into levels, with everything thought to be unsanitary kept on the lowest level, and a network of canals available for rapid waste disposal. 

Water would have been distributed through buildings, using a hydraulic system that prefigured modern plumbing.

Opus Magnum

This invention focused not just on a single area but combined da Vinci’s talents as an artist, architect, engineer, and inventor to create an entire city. The resources needed to build such a city were well beyond his patron’s means.

Self-Propelled Cart

Da Vinci's self-propelled cart can be looked at as history's first car. In fact, because it has no driver, it can be looked at as history's first robot vehicle, too.

The drawings that da Vinci made of the car in his notebooks don't fully reveal the mechanism inside and modern engineers have had to guess at what made it go.

How Did It Work?

The best guess is that it used a spring-driven mechanism similar to that in a clock. The "mainsprings" are contained inside drum-shaped casings and can be wound up by hand. As the springs uncoil, the cart is driven forward like a wind-up toy.

Right Turns Only

Steering of the cart could be programmed through a series of blocks set among the gears, though the fact that the cart could only make right turns would have limited its usability. Way ahead of its time, its exact workings baffled scholars until the late 20th century.

Leonardo apparently considered his cart to be something of a toy. In 2006, Italy's Institute and Museum of the History of Science built a working model. Some experts even noted that it looked similar to the Mars Land Rover.

The Armored Tank

While working for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, da Vinci proposed what may have been his ultimate war machine: the armored tank. The tank was operated by a system of gears, propelled by cranks that turned a sequence of wheels.

Driven by the muscle power of 8 men, the armored tank was a turtle-like moving shell with 36 guns poking out of its sides. Protected by the outer shell, the men could have driven the tank at about walking speed right into battle without being hurt.

Curious Flaw

The diagram of the armored tank in da Vinci's notebooks contains a curious flaw: the gearing causes the front wheels to move in the opposite direction from the rear wheels. If built as shown, the tank would have been unable to move.

Da Vinci was too smart to make such an error accidentally, so historians have speculated why he would have made it deliberately. Maybe he didn't really want the war machine to be built. Or maybe he was afraid that his diagram would fall into enemy hands.

Robot Knight

Da Vinci’s robotic knight is the first humanoid robot, a real 15th century C-3PO. Da Vinci was fascinated by human anatomy and spent long hours dissecting corpses, in order to figure out how the human body worked. This gave him an understanding of how muscles propelled bone.

Party Robot

Unlike most of his inventions, Leonardo da Vinci apparently actually built the robotic knight, an actual knight’s suit of armor with mechanisms inside. It was used primarily for entertainment at parties, thrown by his wealthy patron Ludovico Sforza.

The entire robotic system was operated by a series of pulleys and cables. The robotic knight was able to stand, sit, raise its visor and wave, and even work its jaw because it was anatomically correct.

Da Vinci in Outer Space

In 2002, robotics expert Mark Rosheim used da Vinci's notes to build a working model of da Vinci's robotic knight, and some of the concepts behind it have subsequently been used by Rosheim for the design of planetary exploration robots to be used by NASA. 

The Flying Machine

Aviation was probably da Vinci’s favorite area. He seemed truly excited by the possibility of people soaring through the skies like birds.

One of his most famous inventions, the flying machine (also known as the "ornithopter") is clearly inspired by the flight of winged animals, which da Vinci hoped to replicate.

With a wingspan that exceeded 33 feet, the frame was to be made of pine covered in raw silk. The pilot would lie face down in the center on a board and power the wings by pedaling a crank connected to a rod and pulley system.

Flapping Wings

As the pilot spins cranks with his hands and feet, the wings of the machine flap. The inspiration of nature in the invention is apparent in the way the wings were designed to twist as they flapped.

Could It Work?

Unfortunately, as da Vinci himself might have realized, while the flying machine may have flown once it was in the air, a person could never have created enough power to get the device off the ground.

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Leonardo da Vinci

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 13, 2022 | Original: December 2, 2009

Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, engineer, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific. His natural genius crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term “ Renaissance man.” Today he remains best known for two of his paintings, " Mona Lisa " and "The Last Supper." Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to human anatomy. His combination of intellect and imagination allowed him to create, at least on paper, such inventions as the bicycle, the helicopter and an airplane based on the physiology and flying ability of a bat.

When Was Leonardo da Vinci Born?

Da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Tuscany (now Italy), in 1452, close to the town of Vinci that provided the surname we associate with him today. In his own time he was known just as Leonardo or as “Il Florentine,” since he lived near Florence—and was famed as an artist, inventor and thinker.

Did you know? Leonardo da Vinci’s father, an attorney and notary, and his peasant mother were never married to one another, and Leonardo was the only child they had together. With other partners, they had a total of 17 other children, da Vinci’s half-siblings.

Da Vinci’s parents weren’t married, and his mother, Caterina, a peasant, wed another man while da Vinci was very young and began a new family. Beginning around age 5, he lived on the estate in Vinci that belonged to the family of his father, Ser Peiro, an attorney and notary. Da Vinci’s uncle, who had a particular appreciation for nature that da Vinci grew to share, also helped raise him.

Early Career

Da Vinci received no formal education beyond basic reading, writing and math, but his father appreciated his artistic talent and apprenticed him at around age 15 to the noted sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence. For about a decade, da Vinci refined his painting and sculpting techniques and trained in mechanical arts.

When he was 20, in 1472, the painters’ guild of Florence offered da Vinci membership, but he remained with Verrocchio until he became an independent master in 1478. Around 1482, he began to paint his first commissioned work, The Adoration of the Magi, for Florence’s San Donato, a Scopeto monastery.

However, da Vinci never completed that piece, because shortly thereafter he relocated to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza clan, serving as an engineer, painter, architect, designer of court festivals and, most notably, a sculptor.

The family asked da Vinci to create a magnificent 16-foot-tall equestrian statue, in bronze, to honor dynasty founder Francesco Sforza. Da Vinci worked on the project on and off for 12 years, and in 1493 a clay model was ready to display. Imminent war, however, meant repurposing the bronze earmarked for the sculpture into cannons, and the clay model was destroyed in the conflict after the ruling Sforza duke fell from power in 1499.

'The Last Supper' 

Although relatively few of da Vinci’s paintings and sculptures survive—in part because his total output was quite small—two of his extant works are among the world’s most well-known and admired paintings.

The first is da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” painted during his time in Milan, from about 1495 to 1498. A tempera and oil mural on plaster, “The Last Supper” was created for the refectory of the city’s Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Also known as “The Cenacle,” this work measures about 15 by 29 feet and is the artist’s only surviving fresco. It depicts the Passover dinner during which Jesus Christ addresses the Apostles and says, “One of you shall betray me.”

One of the painting’s stellar features is each Apostle’s distinct emotive expression and body language. Its composition, in which Jesus is centered among yet isolated from the Apostles, has influenced generations of painters.

'Mona Lisa'

When Milan was invaded by the French in 1499 and the Sforza family fled, da Vinci escaped as well, possibly first to Venice and then to Florence. There, he painted a series of portraits that included “La Gioconda,” a 21-by-31-inch work that’s best known today as “Mona Lisa.” Painted between approximately 1503 and 1506, the woman depicted—especially because of her mysterious slight smile—has been the subject of speculation for centuries.

In the past she was often thought to be Mona Lisa Gherardini, a courtesan, but current scholarship indicates that she was Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Florentine merchant Francisco del Giocondo. Today, the portrait—the only da Vinci portrait from this period that survives—is housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, where it attracts millions of visitors each year.

Around 1506, da Vinci returned to Milan, along with a group of his students and disciples, including young aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would be Leonardo’s closest companion until the artist’s death. Ironically, the victor over the Duke Ludovico Sforza, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, commissioned da Vinci to sculpt his grand equestrian-statue tomb. It, too, was never completed (this time because Trivulzio scaled back his plan). Da Vinci spent seven years in Milan, followed by three more in Rome after Milan once again became inhospitable because of political strife.

Inventions and Philosophy 

Da Vinci’s interests ranged far beyond fine art. He studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture, weaponry and more, often creating accurate, workable designs for machines like the bicycle, helicopter, submarine and military tank that would not come to fruition for centuries. He was, wrote Sigmund Freud, “like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep.”

Several themes could be said to unite da Vinci’s eclectic interests. Most notably, he believed that sight was mankind’s most important sense and that “saper vedere” (“knowing how to see”) was crucial to living all aspects of life fully. He saw science and art as complementary rather than distinct disciplines, and thought that ideas formulated in one realm could—and should—inform the other.

Probably because of his abundance of diverse interests, da Vinci failed to complete a significant number of his paintings and projects. He spent a great deal of time immersing himself in nature, testing scientific laws, dissecting bodies (human and animal) and thinking and writing about his observations. 

Da Vinci’s Notebooks

At some point in the early 1490s, da Vinci began filling notebooks related to four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy—creating thousands of pages of neatly drawn illustrations and densely penned commentary, some of which (thanks to left-handed “mirror script”) was indecipherable to others.

The notebooks—often referred to as da Vinci’s manuscripts and “codices”—are housed today in museum collections after having been scattered after his death. The Codex Atlanticus, for instance, includes a plan for a 65-foot mechanical bat, essentially a flying machine based on the physiology of the bat and on the principles of aeronautics and physics.

Other notebooks contained da Vinci’s anatomical studies of the human skeleton, muscles, brain, and digestive and reproductive systems, which brought new understanding of the human body to a wider audience. However, because they weren’t published in the 1500s, da Vinci’s notebooks had little influence on scientific advancement in the Renaissance period.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci left Italy for good in 1516, when French ruler Francis I generously offered him the title of “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King,” which afforded him the opportunity to paint and draw at his leisure while living in a country manor house, the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France.

Although accompanied by Melzi, to whom he would leave his estate, the bitter tone in drafts of some of his correspondence from this period indicate that da Vinci’s final years may not have been very happy ones. (Melzi would go on to marry and have a son, whose heirs, upon his death, sold da Vinci’s estate.)

Da Vinci died at Cloux (now Clos-Lucé) in 1519 at age 67. He was buried nearby in the palace church of Saint-Florentin. The French Revolution nearly obliterated the church, and its remains were completely demolished in the early 1800s, making it impossible to identify da Vinci’s exact gravesite.

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Leonardo Da Vinci Major Accomplishments

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Introduction, artistic achievements, scientific and engineering contributions, scientific method and inquiry, legacy and influence.

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A 500-year-old device invented by Leonardo da Vinci may hold the key to quieter drones

By Lisa Ercolano

The Federal Aviation Administration fields thousands of complaints each year about the characteristic loud buzzing produced as drone propellers slice through the air. In fact, a 2017 NASA study showed that people find drone noise more annoying than that of any other ground vehicle , even when they're at the same volume. And experts believe such noise pollution will only worsen as unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly used for package delivery, photography, emergency response, and more.

But there's new hope for quieter skies overhead. A research team led by Rajat Mittal , a Johns Hopkins professor of mechanical engineering, believes a device invented by Leonardo da Vinci more than 500 years ago may hold the key to softer sounding drones.

"Da Vinci's visionary aerial screw—a sort of precursor to the modern helicopter—inspired our investigation," Mittal says. "The idea was to bring historical inspiration and modern computation together to reimagine a quieter modern drone."

Mittal collaborated with a team that included Jung-Hee Seo , a Johns Hopkins associate research professor of mechanical engineering, and Suryansh Prakhar , a JHU doctoral candidate in Mechanical Engineering. Their work appeared in the Bulletin of the American Physical Society and was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics in Washington in November 2023.

The team was aware that other research groups had explored loop-shaped propellers that were less noisy than traditional propellers with their flat, thin blades and angled edges. The characteristic buzzing sound produced by traditional propellers is the result of "tip vortices"—small swirling tornadoes of air that whoosh and intersect with the flat, angled blades. Loop propellers spread those vortices around, muting the sound.

Mittal's team surmised that Leonardo's design, with its screwlike shape and single blade, might be even quieter.

To find out, the researchers needed to create a model, which required selecting the most accurate measurements and design features. They came across a project in which aerospace engineering students at the University of Maryland had analyzed the aerial screw's design, including its radius, curve, pitch, shape, and number of loops. In doing so, they brought to life the device depicted in Leonardo's sketch, proving his design could actually take flight.

"Using that project as a starting point, we constructed a 3D model of the da Vinci aerial screw's looped shape, and then used our simulation software, called ViCar3D, to simulate the flow of air around the rotor as the drone was hovering in place. The software then predicted the speed of airflow around the propeller and pressure patterns," Prakhar says.

The pressure generated on the rotating screw's surface would turn into sound, so the team used a Farassat formulation—a theory devised by a NASA scientist in the late 1970s in order to predict sound levels based on simulated airflow patterns—to calculate the noise produced 5 meters from the rotor. Then they simulated a canonical loop propeller in the same circumstances.

The da Vinci propeller was, in fact, a bit noisier than the loop propeller at any given rotation speed. But the aerial screw also produced more lift—the upward force that opposes gravity's downward pull. The researchers also knew that the amount of lift needed to remain fixed for common drone assignments such as delivering packages, so they then calculated the noise emitted by the da Vinci and loop propellers when producing the same amount of lift.

At last, they had their answer.

"The da Vinci propeller produced much less noise for the same given amount of lift being generated," Prakhar says.

The team next plans to conduct more simulations to model the propellers' noise levels when the drones are larger and operating at higher speeds.

"We would expect similar results in noise reduction," Prakhar says. "However, the aerodynamic efficiency of da Vinci's propeller will be lower when compared to a traditional propeller, since not all parts of the spiral screw shape can be optimized to produce a similar amount of lift force. Despite this possible loss in efficiency, these propeller shapes can be useful for applications where noise reduction is more important than aerodynamic efficiency."

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'The Inventor' Review: A Lovingly Animated Leonardo da Vinci Without Much of a Story

A clever inventor like Leonardo da Vinci seems like the ideal subject for a clever artform like stop-motion animation. And in many ways he is: Da Vinci’s creations translate to the screen with whimsy and skill in The Inventor , written, produced, and directed by Jim Capobianco and co-directed by Pierre-Luc Granjon. But despite its protagonist, voiced by British actor Stephen Fry, the film feels oddly disjointed, as if there’s not enough story to sustain 90 minutes of beautifully-made stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. 

We meet Da Vinci towards the end of his life. He’s working studiously in Italy, but Pope Leo X (Matt Berry) isn’t a fan of his creations. This sort of work, the pope says, should be devout and pay homage to God, not be so fanciful. But Da Vinci is on a existential quest to understand the purpose of life. Capobianco, known as the screenwriter of Ratatouille , intercuts the stop-motion with sketchy, hand-drawn sequences where the inventor seeks meaning before he ascends into the great beyond. It’s deep, in a good way, although younger viewers will drop their attention frequently in these scenes. Da Vinci eventually leaves Italy for the French court, where the royal family tasks him with building a perfect city. 

It’s all ripe for compelling visuals. The animation is executed with genuine care and love for the medium, and the craft is impressive. But the story is often aimless and surprisingly flat. Da Vinci teams up a young woman named Marguerite (Daisy Ridley) as he explores his ideas in France, but there is little in the way of actual plot. There are some songs, but you won’t remember any of them. There is a conflict of sorts with Louise of Savoy, voiced by the only actual French person in the film Marion Cotillard, but the stakes here are low. 

Stop-motion requires an immense amount of time and skill, which is why it’s so rarely made. The Inventor evokes the old-school style of Rankin-Bass in a way that’s enjoyably nostalgic. You can almost feel and touch the characters. So it’s disappointing that the film doesn’t seem to know what it is or who it’s for. It doesn’t seem like it’s for kids, especially young ones, although older children and teens might be interested in Da Vinci’s life and work presented in a less erudite way. It asks big questions about life and meaning that might compel adults, but it’s ultimately hard to see this landing anywhere outside of a niche audience. If you appreciate stop-motion as an art, it’s a must. If you want a good story, maybe not. 

In the end, Da Vinci finds his meaning, although it’s not fully shared with the audience. That choice feels emblematic of the film itself. Capobianco and his filmmakers visually showcase something sincerely beautiful. It’s a reminder of why stop-motion is a genre worth preserving and perpetuating. But under the colorful façade the foundation is underbuilt. Like Da Vinci’s own work, though, maybe it’s enough to try something interesting and see if it works.

Observer Reviews are regular assessments of new and noteworthy cinema.