Leonardo
da Vinci 1452-1519 made his living working as an engineer, designing military
equipment, an artist painting and sculpting national treasures, an architect
and a scientist illustrating the human anatomy.
Although he had no formal
academic training, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the
prime exemplar of the 'Universal Genius' or 'Renaissance Man', an individual of "unquenchable
curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination", and he
is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to
have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of
his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind
and personality seem to us
superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote." Scholars
interpret his view of the world as being based in logic, though the empirical
methods he used were unorthodox for his time.
Leonardo is revered
for his
technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, a type of armored fighting
vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull.
Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his
lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering
were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller
inventions, however, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded, such as an
automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire.
He is also sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter,
and tank. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering,
geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and
they had no direct influence on subsequent science.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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