Leonardo+da+Vinci

Born at 10:30pm on Saturday, April 15th, 1452. Died in 1519.

His first sketch of a flying machine was called the “Flying Ship” (left).

He came up with the theory of Newton’s First Law of Gravity, and it was called Da Vinci's Law, but then when Isaac Newton came up with the 3 laws of gravity, it became Newton's Laws.

He claimed that elephants could eat stones, but couldn’t swim well because of their weight. He was wrong.

One of 15 children.

When Leonardo drew paintings that involved people, he would draw the people naked and then draw them clothed, to get the detailed anatomy right.

Most of Leonardo Da Vinci’s notes were disjointed, out of order, and sometimes scribbled at different times.

Leonardo disappeared for 3 years, and he had notebooks entitled, “How to escape from prison”, that said they cast me into prison. It is suspected he was in prison for 3 years.

Leonardo Da Vinci and three of his friends were accused of something and brought to court, in which the judges whispered to each other and agreed to suspend the case so they wouldn’t upset a relative of a powerful politician which was one of Leonardo’s friends. The trial was never reopened.

Someone named Alberti discovered perspective drawings, but Leonardo went more in depth and wrote 3 laws about perspective in drawings: 1) As objects get farther away, they get smaller. 2) As objects get far away, their shading gets lighter. 3) The distinction of the object will decrease as the object gets further away.

Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to work on one of Verochio's (someone who paid Leonardo to do art work in a workshop) paintings (Right), and one of his friends said that his was a hundred times better than Verochio's and because of that, Verochio never painted anything again.

He studied the aerodynamics of bird wings and how they flew and then adjusted this to a person and used it for an angel in his artwork (Below).

Leonardo liked to paint with his fingers more than his brushes, so his fingerprints were left on the artwork in small places.

His first painting was when he was 21 (Below).

He was left handed, but taught himself to be ambidextrous and to write the mirror image of what he was saying.

Leonardo was asked to paint The Last Supper, so he invented his own way to paint The Last Supper, but it didn’t work.

He invented the concept of the parachute and the helicopter.

After Leonard da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, he started getting more interested in his experiments and inventions. He only painted a few more paintings after that.

Over the period of 25 years, Leonardo drew almost 200 drawings of anatomy that he had learned by examining dead bodies.

Leonardo began writing in notebooks when he was about 30 years old.

The first painting he did in Milan was called “Virgin of the Rocks” and people liked it so much that he had to paint another one that was almost just like it (below). “Of noses, there are 9 varieties: Straight, crooked, bent, those which are prominent above the middle point, and those which are so below the middle, hawk noses, stub noses, round noses, and pointed noses”. – da Vinci. Even after all that, there are still some faces that don’t meet any of those categories.
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Leonardo loved watching birds, but he was most interested in watching vultures, because they glide really well.

Someone named Francesco del Giocondo __commissioned__ Leonardo da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa, which was portrait of Francesco’s wife, Lisa Gheradini. Leonardo da Vinci spent the last few years of his life as the advisor to the king of France Someone name Luca Pacioli in 1509 asked Leonardo da Vinci to illustrate his book. This is one of the pictures of the book of the platonic solids. It was the first time Leonardo’s work was ever published.

Leonardo da Vinci even knew more about anatomy than most scientists in the time period. Leonardo believed that there is a locus of the human soul in the skull. Even though Leonardo da Vinci drew great anatomy pictures, the doctors in that time period didn’t use them because they thought people should read for information, instead of looking for pictures.

The painting //St. John the Baptist// took Leonardo 6 years to paint. It is pointing to the echoes of the angel in //Virgin of the Rocks.//(above) Before da Vinci went to France to be advisor to the king, he spent 3 years in Rome. He stayed at the house of the brother of the Pope. Leonardo da Vinci even knew more about anatomy than most scientists in the time period. Even though Leonardo da Vinci drew great anatomy pictures, the doctors in that time period didn’t use them because they thought people should read for information, instead of looking for pictures. His self portrait was drawn 7 years before he died.(Right)