RenaissanceRenaissance

““To be Reborn”To be Reborn”

Great Men of the Great Men of the RenaissanceRenaissance

Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da Vinci

MichealangeloMichealangelo

The Last SupperThe Last Supper

We know so little about the circumstances surrounding da Vinci's creation of "The Last Supper" that an account offering

this much detail is immediately suspect. Certainly da Vinci didn't take twenty-five years, or even ten years, to complete

his work, as claimed in these accounts. Documentary evidence indicates he began "The Last Supper" in 1495 and was finished with it by 1498. (At the outside, Da Vinci would

had to have completed his work by the end of 1499; that year he fled Milan ahead of the invading French and didn't return to the city until 1506.) Other details presented here are woefully wrong as well: We have no records of whom

Leonardo used as models for the figures in "The Last Supper," but he was painting on a wall, undoubtedly from

sketches, so in no case would he have had models sitting in a "studio" for "days" while he "painted on canvas."

The Mona The Mona LisaLisa

The Mona Lisa (begun c. 1503)Without doubt simply the most famous portrait in

the world - instantly recognised virtually anywhere - the Mona Lisa was one of just two paintings that Leonardo had in the room in which he died in the farmhouse at Cloux, northern France in May 1519 (The other was his St John the Baptist, whose own mysterious smirk is not to everyone's tastes, see

below.) But despite the Mona Lisa's amazing celebrity, almost everything about this painting is

the subject of hot debate.

Superbly executed on poplar wood as the epitome of the sfumato technique - which creates

imperceptible transitions between light and shade, without the usual outline of the image - it now

hangs in the Louvre, Paris. Its curator, Jean-Pierre Cuzin, says: 'Today's art critics call attention to the painting's mystery and harmony. But the first art historians to describe it emphasised its striking

realism, pointing out "the lips that smile" and "the eyes that shine". Giorgio Vasari, for example, wrote in his early biography of Vinci, Lives of the Painters: "As art may imitate nature, she does not appear to be painted, but truly of flesh and blood. On looking closely at the pit of her throat, one could swear that

the pulses were beating."'

Who was the model? Lisa dei Gioconda, wife of a rich silk merchant of Florence, has long been

considered the leading candidate for the subject of the painting, although others - such as Constanza

D'Avalos, the Duchess of Ischia, Isabella D'Este who had begged Leonardo to paint her, and Isabella

Gualanda, mistress of his last Italian patron. New research conducted by Sherwin Nuland, Professor of

Clinical Anatomy at Yale University indicates that

she may be smiling because she was pregnant.

Da Vinci’s Flying MachineDa Vinci’s Flying Machine

Da Vinci First Applied Science to Early Ideas of Flight

da Vinci

Although the possibilities of flight for man was only one of the many interests of the great Italian creative genius, Leonardo da Vinci, he is generally credited with sketching the first plans for flying machines

which might have become airborne had there been a sufficiently light power plant available.

Da Vinci, who lived from 1452 to 1519, conducted extensive research on the possibility of flight using either the ornithopter (flapping wing)

principle or the aerial screw principle for vertical flight.Vol. 3 No. 8 PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA August, 1952

Copter-News Home - Hiller Aviation Museum

Da Vinci First Applied Science to Early Ideas of Flight

da Vinci

Although the possibilities of flight for man was only one of the many interests of the great Italian creative genius, Leonardo da Vinci, he is generally credited with sketching the first plans for flying machines which might have become airborne had there been a sufficiently light power plant available.

Da Vinci, who lived from 1452 to 1519, conducted extensive research on the possibility of flight using either the ornithopter (flapping wing) principle or the aerial screw principle for vertical flight.

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DAVIDDAVIDThe Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence is

home to Michelangelo's most famous statue of "David."

The "David" was commissioned to Michelangelo in 1501 by the Cathedral Works Committee (Opera Del Duomo). At the age of 26, he was given a leftover block of marble that came from the mountains of Carrara,

and which had previously been worked on by numerous artists. Hailed by the city after his tremendous accomplishment of turning the stone into a masterpiece, Michelangelo was

awarded a house and studio in which to work.

One of the principal components of Renaissance art is the painter or sculptors' obsession with the perfection of form and

proportion. The "David" is not proportionally accurate; his upper body is bigger than the

rest of his body. Experts say that this is not a mistake on Michelangelo's part; it was fully

intentional. Michelangelo calculated that from the viewer's vantage point, the upper torso

would have to be bigger as it is farther away.

Full View of Sistine Chapel which took Full View of Sistine Chapel which took Michealangelo 20 years to completeMichealangelo 20 years to complete

Renaissance MenRenaissance Men

Men who were very good at Men who were very good at many different things, but not many different things, but not

experts at anything.experts at anything.

Da Vinci’s Da Vinci’s AccomplishmentsAccomplishments

Aerial screw

"Trovo, se questo strumento a vite sarà ben fatto, cioè fatto di tela lina, stopata i suoi pori con amido, e svoltata con prestezza, che detta vite si fa la femmina nell’aria e monterà in alto". "I believe that if this screw device is well manufactured, that is, if it is made of linen cloth, the pores of which have been closed with starch, and if the device is promptly reversed, the screw will engage its gear when in the air and it will rise up on high"

This is one of Leonardo's best known drawings. Some experts have identified it as the ancestor of the helicopter. The only drawing accompanying Leonardo's note is the sketch of an aerial screw with a diameter of 5 metres, made of reed, linen cloth and wire, operated presumably by four men who might have stood on the central platform and exerted pressure on the bars in front of them with their hands, so as to make the shaft turn. A machine thus designed would probably never have risen off the ground or been set moving; the idea remains, however, that if an adequate driving force were applied, the machine might have spun in the air and risen off the ground.