Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Our mission here
is simple. We tear through a stack of sources,
extract the vital knowledge, and deliver it to
you as a high -octane intellectual shortcut.
And today, we're taking on, well, maybe the most
colossal mind in Western history. It feels that
way. We are synthesizing the life, the art, and
the frankly unbelievable scientific genius of
the high renaissance's quintessential polymath.
Leonardo da Vinci. It's not just a challenge
it's an absolute rabbit hole. I mean we're dealing
with a human being who truly defied categorization.
He really did. A painter, a draftsman, engineer,
a military architect, scientist, anatomist, a
theorist. The sources consistently describe him
as possessing an unquenchable curiosity. And
that phrase I love, a feverishly inventive imagination.
Yes, he was the very embodiment of the Renaissance
humanist ideal. That phrase, feverishly inventive
imagination, I think that has to be our anchor
because our goal today is to move beyond the
famous, you know, the familiar portrait. Beyond
the smile. Exactly. Beyond the smile to understand
the full revolutionary scope of his genius. We
need to uncover his groundbreaking and often
unpublished work in anatomy, in engineering.
Tribology, even. Tribology, right. And most importantly,
we need to address that central paradox. Why
did this towering intellect, whose notes contain
epoch -making discoveries, have so little direct
published influence during his lifetime? And
to set the baseline before we even jump into
all that science, we have to acknowledge his
artistic legacy first. It's immense. Of course.
Historians have noted that his collective works,
I mean, they represent a contribution to the
subsequent generations of European artists matched
only by his younger contemporary, Michelangelo.
His visual impact is just undeniable. Okay, so
let's start at the beginning. Let's unpack his
origin story. Before we get to the genius, who
was he? Where did he come from? That name, Leonardo
da Vinci, it's not really a family name, is it?
No, not in the modern sense. It's more of a geographic
marker. His full name was Leonardo di Serpiero
da Vinci. Okay, break that down for us. It's
simple, really. Leonardo, son of Serpiero, from
the town of Vinci. So he was born in, or at least
near, the Tuscan Hill town of Vinci, which is
about 20 miles outside of Florence. April 15th,
1452. So the da Vinci part is just from Vinci.
Exactly. It's just a place name. And the circumstances
of his birth are actually really revealing about
his education and, well, his later trajectory.
How so? He was born out of wedlock. His father
was Sir Piero, a successful Florentine legal
notary, a man of some standing. But his mother
was a woman named Caterina di Meolipi, described
in the sources as a lower class woman. They never
married. No, they both married other people the
year after Leonardo was born. And this social
reality had profound implications for him. Right.
Because in the Renaissance, that illegitimate
status, it would have closed certain doors. It
absolutely did. Because he was born outside those
strict societal bounds. He only received a basic
informal education. He learned to read. He learned
vernacular writing, some rudimentary mathematics.
So not the important stuff for a scholar. Critically,
no. He did not receive the classical education
in Latin that was mandatory for anyone aspiring
to a university degree or scholarly pursuits,
especially something like law or advanced medicine.
And the theory is that his family just saw his
artistic talent so early on. That's the common
theory, yes. They recognized his prodigious artistic
talent and decided to focus their resources there.
It was a more practical path for him. And that
lack of formal Latin, the language of European
scholarship at the time, that's going to become
the key intellectual roadblock for his scientific
work centuries later. A catastrophic irony. It's
unbelievable. The very tools of communication
he lacked were the things that would have instantly
validated his revolutionary findings in the eyes
of his peers. So that background leads us straight
into our first section, the artist's crucible.
This is from his birth in 1452 to about 1500.
In his real education, it wasn't a schoolhouse.
No, it was a workshop. The real training began
when he moved to Florence around age 14 and became
a garzone, which is essentially a studio boy
or an apprentice. In whose workshop? The workshop
of Andrea del Verrocchio. And you have to understand,
Verrocchio was not just a painter. He was the
leading Florentine master known for his sculpture
and for running this huge, almost industrial
-scale operation. Leonardo spent seven crucial
years there. And the sources are very clear.
This wasn't just an art class. Far from it. This
was vocational training. for a modern generalist.
I mean, his seven years there gave him these
incredibly broad technical and theoretical skills.
Like what specifically? Well, drafting, sculpting,
painting, obviously, but also chemistry for mixing
pigments and mediums, metallurgy for bronze casting,
mechanics for lifting these huge statues, plaster
casting, woodworking. Wow. It was a hands -on
technical institution. It set him up not just
as an artist, but as an innovator who really
understood how things were physically made. And
his mastery showed almost instantly. Which brings
us to that legendary story of the baptism of
Christ. Ah, yes. Vasari, the famed biographer,
he recounts this. Around 1472, maybe 1475, Leonardo
is still a young apprentice. He collaborates
with Verrocchio on this painting. Leonardo's
job was to paint one of the young angels holding
Jesus' robe. And the result was... Staggering.
It was. His angel was deemed so superior, so
alive and advanced in its technique that Verrocchio
allegedly became so disheartened that he vowed
never to paint again. Now, that's probably apocryphal,
right? I mean, Verrocchio was a very busy sculptor.
It probably is, yes. But the anecdote tells us
something really important about Leonardo's technique
at the time. Which was his immediate embrace
of innovation. Exactly. The majority of the baptism
of Christ was painted using the older, fast -drying
temper technique. Leonardo used the newer, richer,
more luminous oil paints for his angel. This
wasn't just better drawing. It was better material
science. He instantly saw and utilized his superior
medium to get a level of realism and glow that
just, well, it superseded his master's work.
And speaking of realism and technical superiority
translating into massive commercial value, we
have the bizarre and wonderful story of the Medusa
shield. Oh, this is a perfect anecdote. It shows
his dedication to psychological realism to dramatic
effect. A local peasant brings a round wooden
shield to Leonardo's father, asking for it to
be painted. A simple job. A simple job. Sir Piero
passes it to Leonardo. But instead of painting
a standard decorative scene, Leonardo decides
he wants to create something that would terrify
the viewer. He didn't just paint a Gorgon from
mythology. No, he painted a monster derived from
his own mind. He painted a fire -breathing, terrifying
composite creature. And it was so lifelike, so
detailed in its terror, that when he finally
unveiled it to his father, Sir Piero recoiled
in shock. This was his first use of art as pure
psychological shock. Absolutely. And Sir Piero,
being a savvy businessman, recognized the genius
and the commercial value. He did not give it
back to the peasant. What did he do? He quietly
bought the peasant a cheaper, different shield,
and then sold Leonardo's original creation to
a Florentine art dealer for 100 ducats. 100 ducats.
That was an enormous sum at the time. I mean,
that's years of a skilled laborer's wages. It
confirmed his commercial appeal early on. He
could generate fear, wonder, fascination, and
that translated directly into high monetary value.
He was a recognized master in the Guild of St.
Luke by age 20. And yet, despite all the success,
despite major commissions in Florence, like the
uncompleted Adoration of the Magi, he just ups
and leaves around 1482. He moves to Milan. He
does. And this move to Milan is perhaps the greatest
indicator of his true interests. He wasn't looking
for work as a painter. He was applying for a
job as a defense contractor. That's exactly right.
The letter he wrote to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke
of Milan, is the true aha moment for understanding
this whole paradox. In the same as letter, he
lists 10 points detailing his abilities. And
what's on the list? The first nine points relate
entirely to engineering, weapon design, military
architecture, and hydraulics. So he's talking
about bridges and cannons. Yes. He details how
he could build lightweight bridges. Design cannons
that fired unusual projectiles, create armored
fighting vehicles, use hydraulic principles for
siege warfare. All military tech. And the painting,
where does that come in? It's relegated to point
number 10. He writes, I can also carry out work
in sculpture. And in painting, I can do everything
possible, as well as any other whoever he may
be. So he positions painting almost as a side
skill, an optional extra. He saw himself, first
and foremost, as an engineer and military expert.
And he even brought a musical instrument shaped
like a horse's head made out of silver just to
showcase his flair for multidisciplinary craftsmanship
right in the job interview. And it worked. Sforza
hired him. He was hired for his technical knowledge.
And that kicked off his first Milanese period.
This period, however, did still produce some
absolute masterpieces. Right, like the Virgin
of the Rocks. Yes, commissioned for the confraternity
of the Immaculate Conception. That painting is
groundbreaking because of the way he handles
the figures and the environment. It has this
beautiful, almost ethereal quality. It's so atmospheric.
It does. He places the Madonna and the infants,
Jesus and John the Baptist, a subject known as
the apocryphal meeting. It's not explicitly in
the Bible in this strange, tumbling, almost lunar
landscape. It's filled with dark grottos and
strange flora. And the light is incredible. He
uses light and shadow to create this unified
emotional field. The figures just emerge from
the shadows, bathed in this soft internal glow.
It demonstrates an early mastery of atmospheric
depths that just moves far beyond the stiff linearity
of his predecessors. Then you have The Lady with
an Ermine, a portrait that introduces dynamic
movement into what was, until then, a pretty
static art form. A profound shift in portraiture.
This is a painting of Cecilia Gallerani, Sforza's
young mistress. And previously... Portraits were
often very stiff, formal profiles. You're just
looking off to the side. Exactly. But here, Cecilia's
head is turned at an angle that contrasts with
her torso. It suggests a sudden movement or a
reaction. She looks as if she just heard something
off canvas. But it's a psychological moment.
It is. And the ermine she's holding is also significant.
It could be a pun on her name. The Greek word
gali means ermine or weasel. Or it could relate
to Sforz's prestigious Order of the Ermine, which
signaled virtue and purity. The innovation is
that introduction of a narrative, a moment in
time. And all of that artistic triumph in Milan
was meant to culminate in this one massive project,
the Sforza horse, the Gran Cavallo. The Gran
Cavallo perfectly encapsulates the ambition and,
well, the disappointment of his Milanese service.
Sforza commissioned a massive equestrian monument
for his father, Francesco Sforza. And Leonardo
actually built a model, right? He did. He completed
a 24 -foot tall clay model. It was widely admired.
If it had been cast in bronze, it would have
been the largest equestrian statue in history,
far surpassing works like Donatello's Gattamelata.
But the irony strikes again. The engineer loses
his artistic monument because of a military need.
In 1494, history intervenes. Francis King Charles
VIII invades Italy, and Ludovico Sforza desperately
needs to defend the city. The 70 tons of bronze
that Leonardo had reserved for casting the horse
were diverted. To make cannons. To manufacture
cannons. The huge clay model was left exposed
to the elements, and years later it was used
for target practice by French soldiers. It just
fell into ruin. His greatest artistic sculpture
was sacrificed for the war machines he was hired
to design in the first place. A truly frustrating
cycle. A perfect example of the paradox. Okay,
moving into our second major phase, we look at
how Leonardo captured emotion and revolutionized
painting technique, often leaving this enduring
mystery behind the canvas. Let's start with what
has become the most iconic, psychologically charged
religious painting ever, The Last Supper. After
the failed horse project, Leonardo dedicated
himself to this commission. It's in the refectory
of the Convento Santa Maria del Vigrazi in Milan.
He painted it from about 1495 to 1498, and he
chose the most explosive, the most dramatic moment
possible. The moment of betrayal. The immediate
reaction of the disciples right after Jesus says,
one of you will betray me. And the genius of
the work is how he manages to capture 12 separate,
distinct psychological reactions. He groups them
into four triads of three. It's an absolute masterclass
in emotion, gesture, and characterization. I
mean, you see... Disbelief, you see anger, confusion,
horror, all radiating from these groups and all
of it pointing back to this calm, isolated figure
of Christ at the center. The emotional intensity
is just, it's unprecedented. And he did his research.
He didn't just imagine these faces. Not at all.
He spent hours simply observing people in the
streets, looking for faces that could represent
various character types from nobility to treachery.
That deep, almost clinical study of human emotion
physiognomy is so key to his artistic method.
But my favorite anecdote from this period involves
a convent prior who clearly did not understand
the creative process. Ah, yes, the poor prior.
The writer Matteo Bandello, who actually observed
Leonardo at work, noted that Leonardo's process
was erratic. Not a 9 -to -5 job. Definitely not.
Some days he would paint continuously from sunrise
to sunset, but then other days he would just
stand there and stare at the work for hours,
maybe add a single brush stroke or sometimes
not paint at all for three or four days. And
the prior, who thought painting should be a steady
job, hounded Leonardo mercilessly. And Leonardo
being Leonardo turned this bureaucratic irritation
into a pretty serious threat. He did. He sought
the Duke's intervention to stop the prior's harassment.
He explained that he was troubled over finding
the perfect face for Christ and equally the perfect
face for the traitor Judas. And then he dropped
the bombshell. He told the Duke that if he could
not find a suitable model for the villain soon,
he would be forced to use the face of the prior.
Huh. I love that. And according to Vasari, that
little threat secured him peace to work on the
mural for the remainder of the commission. That
detail about the non -continuous painting and
his desire for perfect realism, it also hints
at the profound tragedy of his choice of medium
for The Last Supper. It is perhaps the biggest
artistic miscalculation of his entire career.
He needed a medium that allowed for slow, deliberate
blending and correction. True fresco, painting
on wet plaster doesn't allow for that. You have
to work fast. So he experimented. He did. He
used tempera mixed with oil on a dry plaster
surface that he'd prepared with gesso and pitch.
But this technique was completely unstable, especially
in Milan's humid climate. And the consequence
was a disaster. A profound tragedy, absolutely.
The sources confirmed that within 100 years,
the painting was already described by one viewer
as completely ruined. The paint was just flaking
off the wall. And yet it's still the most reproduced
religious painting ever. Which just speaks to
the sheer power and perfection of the underlying
composition. It's that good. Speaking of achieving
nuanced, perfect effects, this brings us to Leonardo's
key painting innovation. It's the signature technique
you see on his most famous work, sfumato. Sfumato.
It literally translates from the Italian as smoky
or like smoke. And it's a technique of creating
this subtle, almost imperceptible gradation of
tone or shading. It allows colors and tones to
blend into one another without any distinct outlines.
So it softens the edges. It softens edges and
creates an elusive, misty quality. It's not just
shading, though. It's really an optical illusion
designed to trick the eye. And it perfectly complements
his study of physiognomy. Exactly. His lifelong
study of how the human face registers fleeting,
complex emotion. By blurring the lines around
the eyes and the mouth, he leaves the exact nature
of the subject's expression ambiguous. It forces
your eye and your brain to constantly re -evaluate
what you're seeing. And all of this converges
on the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda,
is the absolute culmination of this technique.
Its status as the world's most famous individual
painting rests entirely on that famous, elusive,
and mysterious smile. And that mystery is fumato.
It's pure fumato. The subtle, deeply shadowed
corners of the mouth and the eyes prevent you,
the viewer, from ever being able to definitively
say whether she is smiling or not. Right. If
you stare at her eyes, the smile seems to vanish,
and if you stare at her mouth, it reappears.
It's a kinetic painting, even though it's completely
static. And beyond that psychological effect,
the painting is a technical marvel. The dress
is unadorned. which ensures all your attention
is focused on the hands and the face. The background
is this dramatic, fluctuating, desolate, almost
alien landscape with winding paths and water.
And the brush strokes are invisible. That's the
crucial part. The sources point out the extreme
smoothness of the application of oils. They're
blended so perfectly that the brush strokes are
virtually invisible. Vasari, in awe, said the
quality of the painting would make even the most
confident master despair and lose heart. Yet
perhaps the greatest irony of his entire painting
career is that the most famous work in the world
may have been left technically unfinished due
to a physical disability. This is one of the
most important biographical details confirmed
by the sources. Leonardo kept working on the
Mona Lisa for years. He carried it with him to
France. But crucially, we have a medical record
from October 1517 confirming a paralysis of his
right hand at age 65. And this is why he stopped
painting major commissions. The sources explicitly
suggest this is the reason. It's why pieces like
the Mona Lisa were left technically incomplete.
While he remained perfected with his left hand
for writing, the fine motor skills required for
that invisible blend, that perfect sfumato, they
were compromised. From the meticulous perfection
of the Mona Lisa, we pivot to the sheer, magnificent
mess of his mind as captured in his drawings.
These journals aren't just art. They're the complete
visual index of his intellectual life. He was
a prolific draftsman to an almost unbelievable
degree. I mean, he amassed a staggering 13 ,000
pages of surviving notes and drawings. And just
think how much must have been lost. Exactly.
The total volume of his recorded thought is unimaginable.
And these journals contain everything from grocery
lists to detailed designs for war machines, philosophy,
optical studies, and of course, anatomy. And
among these thousands of pages, we find iconic
works that are known globally. Yes. The instantly
recognizable Vitruvian Man. which is a study
of human proportions based on the Roman architect
Vitruvius' theories and his thousands of detailed
anatomical studies, including the scientific
drawing of a fetus in utero. These aren't just
art or science, are they? They're a fusion. They're
the fusion of both disciplines. He used the perfection
of artistic technique to serve the accuracy of
scientific observation. And sometimes that observational
impulse took a very dark, detached turn, which
is exemplified by that macabre sketch of the
hanged man. That sketch is a chilling illustration
of his purely clinical eye. In 1479, after the
Pazzi conspiracy, an attempt by the Pazzi family
to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici, a man named
Bernardo Barancelli was hanged in Florence. And
Leonardo went to watch. He went and meticulously
documented the body. He recorded every detail
of the man's appearance, including the precise
colors and condition of the robes the condemned
man wore when he died. It was pure, detached,
scientific record keeping. He was treating a
fresh corpse as just another object to be drawn
and cataloged. That cold, clinical eye he used
for artistic realism, even when observing a hanged
criminal, leads us directly into the core of
our paradox. Leonardo, the unrecognized scientist
and engineer. This is the part of the deep dive
that requires the most attention, because while
the world worships the painter, the scientist
was truly centuries ahead of his time. If we
look at his scientific methodology, one characteristic
is paramount. His approach was purely empirical
and observational. He believed only in what he
could see, describe and accurately depict. He
was driven by a burning desire to, well, to reverse
engineer creation. And this is where his earlier
lack of formal education becomes a major liability
that stifled the dissemination of his work. Precisely.
Because he lacked formal education in Latin and
advanced mathematics, the requisite languages
for scholarly communication in the Renaissance,
his scientific work was largely dismissed or
simply unreadable by contemporary academics.
They judged the language of the messenger, not
the brilliance of the message. And the sheer
magnitude of his intellectual leap is confirmed
by this stunning statement found in his notes.
Il sole non si move. The sun does not move. That
is profound. He was anticipating the heliocentric
model, which wouldn't gain wide acceptance until
decades after Copernicus's death and decades
after Leonardo wrote that down. It confirms he
was thinking radically beyond the established
Ptolemaic Earth -centric view. But nowhere, nowhere
was his scientific genius more revolutionary
than in anatomy. Let's just contextualize this
for you listening. What was the accepted state
of medical knowledge in Europe around 1500? Medicine
was still overwhelmingly dominated by Galenic
theory. This was based on the writings of Galen,
a Roman physician who lived over 1 ,300 years
earlier. And Galen's work was based largely on
the dissection of animals, like pigs and monkeys,
because human dissection was often taboo. So
it was based on faulty data, and the prevailing
theory was the four humors. Yes, the system of
the four humors, blood, phlegm, yellow bile,
and black bile. Disease was seen as an imbalance
of these. So when Leonardo began dissecting human
corpses, he wasn't just drawing. He was tearing
down the foundations of 1 ,300 years of accepted
medical practice. Absolutely. He was granted
permission to dissect human corpses at hospitals
in Florence, Milan, and Rome, and he ultimately
examined around 30 bodies in great detail. He
even collaborated with the anatomy professor
Marcantonio della Torre around 1510. His goal
was to publish an anatomical treatise. And the
scale of his output is astounding, even if it
was never published. He generated over 240 incredibly
detailed drawings and wrote roughly 13 ,000 words
toward this treatise. These weren't sketches.
These were blueprints of the human body. They
provided a view of internal organs, muscles,
and bones that had never before been accurately
rendered. Okay, let's dive into the groundbreaking,
crucial medical discoveries he made that went
completely unrecognized for centuries. Well,
he fundamentally redefined several branches of
medicine. For instance, he prefigured the entire
field of biomechanics by studying the body as
a machine. A machine of levers and pulleys? Exactly.
He analyzed the skeletal structure not just as
a static frame, but as a system of levers, pulleys,
and forces. He studied the forces exerted by
specific muscles in movement. And what about
specific diseases? He was able to identify them.
This is where he truly leaps ahead. He was the
first person to accurately define both atherosclerosis,
the hardening and narrowing of arteries, due
to plaque buildup and liver cirrhosis. You have
to remember, in the 1500s, illness was understood
through this vague imbalance of humors. And Leonardo
was observing and accurately documenting the
pathology of specific organ failures. He was
recognizing the physical changes that defined
a disease, not just the symptoms. He also directly
refuted the ancient wisdom of Galen and the whole
humor theory. He did. Galenic medicine believed
that the cerebral spaces and major organs contained
these theoretical humors. Leonardo's detailed
documentation, based on actual human dissection,
proved that the humors were not contained in
the cerebral ventricles or major organs as they
believed. He established the true structure of
the cerebral ventricles. And that leads us to
his experimental techniques, which are really
the hallmark of modern science. He didn't just
look. He built models to prove his concepts.
His experimental ingenuity is just phenomenal.
To map the true geometry of the cerebral ventricles,
he wasn't satisfied with simple drawings. What
did he do? He injected melted wax into the brain's
internal cavities, the ventricles, and then allowed
the wax to solidify. It created a perfect, exact,
three -dimensional cast of those structures.
So he could literally hold the internal architecture
of the human brain in his hands. That's an enormous
leap in visualization. His visualization married
to proof. And he did the same thing with the
circulatory system. He made the groundbreaking
observation that the heart... define the circulatory
system. So to study the aortic valve, which controls
blood flow out of the heart, he built a working
model. A model of an aorta. He constructed a
transparent glass aorta and then used water mixed
with grass seed to visually observe the circulation
patterns as the water passed through the valve.
He was using water flow and seed particles to
replicate and study hemodynamics hundreds of
years before anyone else. This is pure physics
applied to biology. And that application of physics
brings us to his engineering ingenuity. He's
credited with producing the first form of modern
technical drawing. He innovated the exploded
view technique to represent complex internal
components by showing them separated but aligned.
A standard practice in engineering today. Absolutely.
He generated over 5 ,000 pages of these precise
technical designs in his codices. We often hear
about his most fantastical ideas, the things
that were truly impossible in the 15th century.
The visionary designs, yes. He sketched several
concepts for flying machines. One was the ornithopter,
designed to mimic the flapping motion of a bird's
wings. Another was the helical rotor, often called
the aerial screw. The forerunner to the helicopter?
The concept is similar, yes, a rapidly turning
coil. But the sources note that while the principles
were sound, the necessary materials science,
the lightweight engines, the metallurgy... They
were centuries away. But he also designed functional
military and civil technology. Absolutely. He
designed an armored fighting vehicle, a forerunner
of the tank, which was powered by men pushing
cranks. He designed complex hydraulic pumps and
various reversible crank mechanisms. He even
designed a steam cannon. And some very practical,
unheralded inventions. Yes, things that likely
entered manufacturing. without his name attached,
an automated bobbin winder for textile production,
for example, and a specialized machine for testing
the tensile strength of wire. He wasn't just
dreaming big. He was improving manufacturing
efficiency. His civil and military engineering
was highly sought after, especially when he was
serving Cesare Borgia. In 1502, he was hired
as Borgia's chief military engineer and architect.
And he didn't just design machines. He mapped
terrain strategically. He created these incredibly
sophisticated, accurate town plans and strategic
maps, like the famous plan of Imola. Which gave
Borgia a comprehensive, modern, strategic overlay
of the territory. It was reconnaissance elevated
to an art form. Later, in Florence, he worked
on a major infrastructure scheme with none other
than Niccolo Machiavelli to divert the flow of
the Arno River, though that project ultimately
failed. Okay, now let's address the most jarring
example of this whole paradox, the laws of friction.
This is foundational physics that he wrote down
in a notebook in 1493, only for the world to
ignore it for 200 years. This is the ultimate
example of lost intellectual capital. The study
of friction, wear, and lubrication is called
tribology, and it is fundamental to all mechanical
engineering. You cannot build a reliable machine
without understanding friction. Leonardo first
articulated the core laws of sliding friction
in 1493. So what conceptually did he figure out?
He discovered two major laws. First, that the
force of friction is proportional to the load
pressing the two surfaces together. Simple enough.
But second, and this is the counterintuitive
part for his time, he realized that the friction
force is largely independent of the apparent
area of contact between the two surfaces. So
if you have a heavy block, whether it's resting
on its wide side or its narrow side, the force
needed to slide it horizontally is the same.
Exactly. It defies common sense. And it was a
revolutionary insight that stemmed directly from
his engineering design work and his attempt to
prove that perpetual motion was impossible, which
he also correctly dismissed. He provided detailed
drawings and calculations. But because they were
locked in his private notes, written in mirror
script, they had zero impact on the progression
of mechanics. 200 years later, they were independently
rediscovered. Yes. The laws were independently
rediscovered and codified in 1699 by a French
physicist, Guillaume Amonton, whose name is usually
associated with them today. Leonardo was retrospectively
named the first of the men of tribology, but
that recognition came hundreds of years too late
to help the Renaissance. Just think about the
entire epoch of the scientific revolution that
could have been accelerated if that fundamental
knowledge of mechanics had been available in
1500. It's staggering to contemplate. Moving
on to section four. The final years of Leonardo's
life saw him transition from the constantly hustling,
struggling court artist and engineer, who was
often paid late into a life of comfortable, internationally
recognized genius. That's right. After the French
overthrew Ludvico Sforza in 1500, Leonardo fled
Milan. And after a brief stint serving Cesar
Borgia, his final major move came in 1516. He
was invited to France by the young King Francis
I. Who was a great admirer. A huge admirer. Francis
I offered him the use of the manor house Colsluset
near the royal residence. And the patronage was
substantial. He was finally rewarded appropriately.
He was given a massive pension, right? An enormous
pension, 10 ,000 scudi annually. It made him
immensely wealthy and secure. And Francis I treated
him not just as an employee, but as a friend,
a national trophy. He said he considered himself
honored to converse with such a great man and
frequently visited him at Colsluset. That close
relationship led to one last major demonstration
of his engineering flair, didn't it? The mechanical
lion. It's a spectacular tale. It fuses art,
spectacle, and mechanics. For a pageant honoring
Francis I, Leonardo engineered a complex mechanical
lion. The lion walked toward the king. On its
own. On its own. And upon being struck by a wand,
its chest cavity opened to reveal a cluster of
fleur -de -lis, the symbol of the French monarchy.
It was engineering used for pure theatrical.
delight. It's fascinating how his public life
was full of spectacle and patronage, yet his
personal life remains largely veiled in ambiguity.
We only really glimpse it through his relationships
with the students. His voluminous notebooks scarcely
touch on his private life, but we do know he
had these intense lifelong relationships with
his pupils. Francesco Melzi was his favorite
student and the principal heir to his artistic
and scientific legacy. He treated him like a
son. And Melzi was the one who tried to organize
all the notes after he died. He was. He collected
and organized and treasured the thousands of
scattered pages after Leonardo's death. And then
there was Salai. The sources portray him as a
complete menace, yet he stayed for 30 years.
Ah, Salai. His real name was Gian Giacomo Caproti
d 'Oreno. He was Leonardo's apprentice for three
decades, and the records are hilarious. Leonardo
kept a detailed list of Salai's misdemeanors,
labeling him a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a
glutton. What did he do? He stole money, pigments,
expensive silks. Yet Leonardo remained profoundly
attached to him. Talk about a high -maintenance
apprentice. That deep, complex attachment to
both the faithful Melzi and the rogue Salai is
telling. It also brings us to the historical
discussion surrounding his sexuality. It has
been a subject of historical speculation since
the 16th century, though it's definitively unknowable.
We know of the sodomy charges brought against
him in 1476 in Florence, which were ultimately
dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence. And
his relationships with his pupils were described
as very close. Melzi himself described his relationship
with Leonardo in a letter to Leonardo's brothers
as loving and passionate. Furthermore, art historians
have often noted the pervasive themes of androgyny
and delicate beauty. in some of his later works,
like St. John the Baptist. Turning to his final
end, we mentioned the paralysis earlier. He died
in France in 1519. Leonardo died at Clos Luce
on May 2, 1519, at age 67, likely from a stroke.
While the famous image of King Francis I holding
him in his arms as he died has been immortalized
by artists, it's generally considered a romantic
legend invented by Vasari. Why is that? Francis
I's movements were documented elsewhere that
day. It's a nice story, but probably not true.
But the clinical fact of the right -hand paralysis
remains crucial to understanding his final artistic
output. It's absolutely essential. That record
from October 1517 confirming the paralysis explains
the cessation of his major painting projects.
It explains why masterpieces like the Mona Lisa
may have been left technically unfinished. He
remained left -handed for writing, which explains
his famous mirror image cursive. But the specific
fine motor skills needed for that enviable blending
were gone. And his death didn't bring quiet repose.
Thanks to the subsequent turmoil of the French
Revolution, his remains became part of an enduring
mystery. He was buried in 1519 in the collegiate
church of St. Florentine at the Chateau d 'Amboise.
But tragically, the church was almost completely
demolished during the French Revolution, and
the site was looted, scattering the contents
of the graves. However, there was a concerted
effort in the mid -19th century to find and identify
his remains. Yes, in 1863, an excavation was
led by Arsène Hussey. They found a partially
complete skeleton presumed to be his. Presumed
based on what? A few small clues. A bronze ring,
fragments of white hair, and stone fragments
bearing inscriptions that formed Leonardo's Vinci.
While the identification is still debated, the
height, 5 .7 feet, was questioned, but later
deemed appropriate. There is one compelling detail
related to his physical limitation. What's that?
The skeleton's right arm was found folded over
the head, a posture that some experts speculate
might correspond to his documented right -hand
paralysis, suggesting a physical habit or deformity
caused by the stroke. And the effort to conclusively
identify those bones continues into the modern
era using genetics. Exactly. Modern science is
attempting to achieve authentication through
DNA testing. They're comparing samples from his
work, from descendants of his half -brother,
and from the remains themselves. And crucially,
in 2021, researchers successfully located and
documented 14 living male relatives, which provides
a key genetic link to aid in the authentication
of those disputed bones. It's amazing. Even 500
years later, the world's fascination has never
diminished. He remains, without question, the
universal genius. Unquestionably. I mean, crowds
still queue in the Louvre and droves to see the
Mona Lisa. The museum famously refused to move
it for their massive 2019 retrospective because
of visitor demand and the value of his work.
Just look at the staggering $450 .3 million for
the Salvatore Mundi in 2017. It shows his enduring
cultural power. We are still studying, translating,
and analyzing his writings today. That brings
us to the close of this incredible deep dive
into the mind of Leonardo da Vinci. We've explored
his early genius in Verrocchio's workshop, his
mastery of the psychological realism in The Last
Supper and Mona Lisa, and his absolutely revolutionary
scientific work in anatomy, engineering, and
physics. And the key takeaway, the paradox we
set out to explore, is that profound contrast
between the world -famous painter and the scientific
pioneer who is virtually unknown to his contemporaries
in his non -artistic pursuits. He was the first
to define specific diseases like atherosclerosis
and liver cirrhosis. The first to use physical
models like wax ventricles and glaciortas to
understand human function. The first to articulate
the physical laws of sliding friction. And yet,
all of that knowledge was locked away in mirrored
cursive in those 13 ,000 pages of notes. Many
intended for a great encyclopedia, but they were
never organized or published. The potential acceleration
of the history of science and engineering was
completely lost to the world for two full centuries.
His knowledge was arguably the greatest single
collection of discovery in Europe at the time,
but its immediate impact on civilization was
negligible. It was negligible because he, or
those who inherited his work, kept it locked
away, hidden from the world of academia. So here
is our final provocative thought for you to take
away. If 13 ,000 pages of epic -making discovery,
from the laws of friction to the true nature
of the circulatory system, can disappear for
200 years, what major scientific or engineering
revolutions are locked away today, waiting for
the right person to simply open the drawer and
publish? Does genius truly depend only on creation?
Or does the real value of revolutionary knowledge
ultimately rest entirely upon its communication
and its dissemination? It forces us to confront
the fact that having the greatest possible knowledge,
if it's isolated, is useless to humanity. And
the paradox of Leonardo is that the genius who
saw farther than anyone was perhaps the worst
communicator of his own vision. An incredible
mind and an incredibly dense deep dive. Thank
you for joining us. We'll see you next time.