Talk:Leonardo da Vinci

Turkish bridge

The article states "On May 17, 2006, the Turkish government decided to construct Leonardo's bridge to span the Golden Horn.[97]" However, if one follows the citation, it mentions nothing about this decision and google searches seem to produce nothing but links to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.184.192.50 (talk) 00:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

A number of sources indicate that the project was announced in 2006, by the Prime Minister, but I cannot find any evidence that it is actually proceeding. When the Turkish Govt. indicates it is near completion, we can put it back in the article. Amandajm (talk) 12:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

" We have enough examples of of ideas that were never realised. The bicycle is sheer nonsense. It PLAINLY wasn't draw by Leonardo " """ Amandajm """

"Professor" Amandajm,

More beguiling than the Mona Lisa, at least to me, is the sketch of a bicycle in one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. It probably was drawn about 1493, almost 400 years before the bicycle was actually invented. Historians say no chain-driven, pedal-powered two-wheeler was built with the tools and materials of Leonardo's time, but it is possible Leonardo envisioned such a vehicle. He had drawn other gear and chain mechanisms, and his spring-driven wagon was a forerunner of the modern automobile.

" Professor " Amandajm,

" We have enough examples of of ideas that were never realised "

Leonardo da Vinci, polymath, him as supreme example of Renaissance genius. Its machines (designed first parachute, hang gliding, helicopter, bicycle, automobile, excavator, air conditioner, oil lamp, alarm clock, printing press, odometer, machine gun, tanks, scuba outfits and life preserver among others) reveal one aspect of the multi-faceted ingenuity of Leonardo. AHAHA

See also

Leonardo Da Vinci machines [1] --PoseidonAndMedusa (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The reasons why it isn't Leonardo's.

• The drawings on the bicycle page are of a badly-drawn bicycle, a very badly-drawn figure, a very badly drawn penis approaching an anus which is described as "Salai's bum" and a diagram similar in it's basic form to some diagrams that Leonardo drew as optical studies.
• It is plain that none of the drawings are by Leonardo himself, because although Leonardo often drew in a sketchy manner, he never drew anything badly. To imagine that he could draw a figure in a manner that was exceptionally amateurish, and a penis that was even worse is to misunderstand not just his genius, but the nature of his training.

How can we be absolutely sure that Leonardo didn't draw the bicycle? Because the pedals go down lower than the wheels. Leonardo could not possibly draw a mechanical diagram in a manner that defied the basic mechanics of the simple machines. And the manner in which the drawing implement has been used is so crude and untrained that Leonardo's hand could not have done it.

• The drawings are all by someone who has no training whatsoever in drawing. Any pupil, even a ten year old pupil, who was with Leonardo for a week, would have been taught to draw in a more disciplined manner than these drawings reveal. They are all extraordinarily amateurish.
• The chance that an inexperienced pupil spent a very brief time in the workshop (so brief that they had not learnt anything about drawing) but had comprehended another person's (i.e. Leonardo's) plan for a bicycle so well that they could draw it is not feasible.

This means that we have to accept a scenario in which Leonardo managed to convey the whole concept of a bicycle, with its gear and chain, to a young person who had never seen anything even remotely like it, so well that they could draw a diagram, which is exceptionally crude artistically, but has all the right parts. This is not convincing.

• The bicycle is typical of the drawing of someone who knows just how a thing looks, and what its main parts are, but is very poor at drawing it. In other words, it is the way that a boy who owned a bicycle, or a person familiar with bicycles but is poor at drawing would draw it. It is the drawing of someone who knows and has seen bikes, not the drawing of someone who has invented one, or someone who has simply had the idea described.

So this means that the drawing was done sometime after 1900, perhaps not until the 1960s when it was discovered. The person who drew on the sheet included several of the sorts of elements that one might find in a Leonardo manuscript: a face, an invention, a diagram and an anatomical drawing. Note that there are not just one, but two provocative images on the page. The penis and words referring to Salai's bum suggest a pederast relationship between Leonardo and his pupil. This has been speculated, but never confirmed.

Whoever drew these images was a real stirrer! My opinion is that someone has been having a very good laugh about taking everyone in. Just remember Van Meergeren.

Amandajm (talk) 17:24, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

BTW, You may certainly refer to me as "Professor", if that is the way that you wish to address me, but it is customary, and courtesy to do it without the inverted commas. Amandajm (talk) 17:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok. " Professor " Amandajm.

The history of the bicycle became rather messy in 1974, when Italian historian Augusto Marinoni (1) announced that Leonardo da Vinci invented modern bicycle in the fifteenth century. Monks from the Grottaferra Abbey near Rome, charged with restoring one of the Vatican's obscure Leonardo da Vinci notebooks in the late 1960s, unwittingly revealed a blockbuster scribble that had been, according to Marinoni, locked away for several hundred years. In the restoration process, the monks separated two sheets that had been glued together since the early 1600s and found out the likely reason why those pages had been sealed up in the first place. On the revealed pages, dated from 1493, were the doodles of one of Leonardo's more restless students: a few obscene cartoons of walking penises — check for yourself if you don't believe — and a nasty, perhaps jealous, caricature of a young man named Salai, who is known to have been Leonardo's prized pupil. But there was also a crude sketch of what is, unmistakably, a bicycle, up in the corner away from the cartoons.

See also book :

Augusto Marinoni, " Leonardo da Vinci: l’automobile et la bicicletta. " Arcadia (Milan), 1981 (expanded version of a former lecture:). Augusto Marinoni, “L’automobile et la bicicletta di Leonardo,” in: Atti della Societe Leonardo da Vinci (Florence) a.73, vol. 6 (1975), pp. 285–292.

(1) Augusto Marinoni is a university professor and noted authority on Leonardo Da Vinci. He has written many books on Da Vinci, heads an enterprise collecting all of his works, and is the advisor to England's Queen Elizabeth.

I have this book in my home. Hi ! """ Professor """ --PoseidonAndMedusa (talk) 09:39, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Response

You don't take in what you read very well. Read what I wrote above. It explains about the figure and the penises, and Salai. Did you miss that?

Here is some of the information from the rest of the article that you cut and pasted from:

• Carlo Pedretti said that when he first looked at the pages, they were still glued together. He held the pages up to the light and saw two circles drawn with a compass, and connected by some lines. The bicycle, according to Pedretti, was not there. Pedretti believed that the sketchy drawing in a different colour that turned the two circles into a bicycle was done later and is fraudulent. Pedretti made notes, but somebody stole his notebook.
• According to Pedretti, the so-called "restoration" was total chaos. In the course of the restoration, it is known that several pages went missing for a time. Marinoni denies that the missing pages could have been the ones that now have a bicycle drawn on them. He says that it was other pages that went missing. According to Pedretti the whole so-called restoration was so badly done that several pages were ruined.

So, you see, a number of people could have had the opportunity to interfere with an almost blank page and turn the two circles (the beginnings of a diagram) into a bicycle.

I have explained to you, in what I wrote above, that it is almost impossible that a student from Leonardo's studio did any of the drawings on that page. They are all much too badly drawn to have been done by someone in Leonardo's studio.

They have plainly been drawn by someone who had access to those sheets of paper just shortly before Marinoni found the bicycle. In other words, they are a successful hoax.

One thing we know for absolute certain is that Leonardo da Vinci himself did not draw that bicycle. There is not the tiniest bit of doubt about that, even in Marinoni's mind.

Amandajm (talk) 11:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Too nice?

Is there nothing critical to say about him? Is this article truly objective and encyclopedic?

IceDragon64 (talk) 23:50, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of what exactly? You don't like the man's hair? Aranea Mortem ^{(talk to me)} 00:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

• The criticism is made that he rarely delivered on time.
• The criticism is made that his lack of ability to paint fresco caused his two major works to self destruct.
• The fact that he was charged with "sodomy" is stated.
• The fact that he designed war machines (none of which has been made to work) has been stated.
• The fact that during the 16th century an author (who had never met him) wrote a book of sexual fantasies which had an imaginary conversation in which Leonardo said he liked fifteen-year-old boys has been dealt with in a companion article on his personal life.

His artworks are regarded as sublime, and were imitated from the day he created them. They are very hard to criticise.

We actually know nothing whatsoever about his personal life except:

• He was a child prodigy
• He was handsome, strong and athletic
• He bought caged birds at the market and set them free
• He was vegetarian
• He got 30 bodies from the morgue and dissected them
• He took care of his mother
• He took in a really anti-social child that no-one else could handle and turned him into a decent painter, despite the fact that the kid pinched everything that wasn't nailed down including the other students pencils.
• His numerous step-brothers tried to rob him of his inheritance, because he was the eldest and illegitimate.
• He gave his share of payment for an altarpiece to the wife and children of a frame-gilder who had died.
• His pupil wrote that he was like the dearest father to them, and that there would never be another person to equal him.
• From the time of his baptism to the time of his death (when he received the Last Rites) he gave no indication of his religious beliefs, so we can only speculate.
• He wrote thousands of words, but never a bad word about any specific person. (he criticised greed, gluttony, brutality and hypocrisy)
• No-one, except Michelangelo, seemed to dislike or resent him, and since Micky-baby had a chip on his shoulder large enough to pave the piazza, it is not a matter of great account.
• On his death, he left money and land to his servants, and a sum of money to pay 60 of the town's poorest people to walk in procession with his coffin.

What do you suggest we criticise?

Amandajm (talk) 08:07, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Amandajm. Criticisms ? Perhaps no one in history achieved so much in so many different fields as did Leonardo da Vinci. He invented the diving bell and tank, and — though they could not be built with the materials of the time — flying machines. He made important discoveries about the structure of the human body. Leonardo da Vinci is the personification of the Renaissance man. He has been called "the universal genius par excellence". --Aries no Mur (talk) 12:27, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion

Amanda, I'm bored. Would you like me to totally rewrite the article, just for something to do? PiCo (talk) 11:06, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Pip, you are being provocative. If you don't give over, I will write you into my next novel.

Amandajm (talk) 11:35, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing myself :)PiCo (talk) 07:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for placing this here, but it is not quite grammar, and is a suggestion: The second sentence in the section about Leonardo as legend contains the phrase "writers like Vasari continue to marvel at his genius" which sounds to my ear a bit like Vasari having lived a very long time indeed, so long that he continues to marvel at Leonardo today. Could this be rephrased? Perhaps "writers continue to marvel at his genius, as Vasari did in his day" or something along those lines. 76.169.228.99 (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC) Sarvi, Sept 22, 2012

Thank you! It's fixed. Amandajm (talk) 02:51, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

More discoveries about Leonardo's interests and hobbies

It might be worth to note, as an upmost example of Leonardo's genius about so different fields, a never published book of jokes and satires which was written by Leonardo and amongst other things,like the "Facezie". Than, a book of receipts of fruits cocktails , in which Leonardo gives some formula how to mix juices of different fruits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxcrc (talk • contribs) 19:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

This article is already very large. There is another article called Leonardo da Vinci's personal life where things like his collection of jokes could go. You would need to find references before the material was added. Amandajm (talk) 04:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

LGBT Christians

This page should not go in the category "Category:LGBT Christians"? --186.182.145.201 (talk) 14:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

No.

The article is currently listed under Category:LGBT history prior to the 19th century and Category:People prosecuted under anti-homosexuality laws. Both these categorisations are correct.

• With Leonardo, we have just one formally recorded and dated event. We know for sure that he was, along with some other young men, charged with sodomy in 1479. We also know that the charges were dropped.
• There is no other solid evidence that Leonardo was homosexual. People have tried to prove his homosexuality on the grounds of one painting in which a young John the Baptists has an alluring expression, and on the grounds of a single drawing of a young man with an erection. Note that the erection has been drawn onto the picture in a different colour suggesting it's not part of the original.
• Leonardo did hundreds of drawings. Only one suggests homosexual interest. It is known that some drawings were later destroyed because of their content, but these may have been detailed anatomical studies, not erotica.
• Leonardo, like other artists, took student apprentices at a young age. His pupil/servant Salai was a rascal, a thief, and very badly behaved. Vasari wrote that Leonardo loved Salai's beautiful long blonde curls. Some people have chosen to interpret this as a pederast interest in the boy. However, as a practising artist, I can assure you that admiring a person's hair or eyes or body structure or perfect profile does not equate with either love or lust.
• When this wild lad was approaching adulthood, the nobleman, Count Melzi, apprenticed his son to Leonardo. If there had been any scandal about Leonardo's relationship with his young pupils, this wouldn't have happened. Young Melzi remained in Leonardo's household until the day of his death, when Melzi became executor of his estate.
• One of Melzi's first jobs was to write to Leonardo's younger half-brothers (who had previously tried to diddle him out of his share of their father's estate). Melzi wrote to the brothers that Leonardo was like the dearest father to his pupils and that he loved them with a burning and "gut-felt" love. (This translates into English as "heart-felt"). He went on to say that there would never be another man like Leonardo.

People who want to prove that Leonardo had pederast relationships with these two boys hone in on the "burning and gut-felt love" and ignore the context: a) leonardo was "like the dearest father", b) Italian 16th century writers use passionate language. c) There is no way in the world that Melzi would have blackened Leonardo's reputation by telling his cheating brothers that Leonardo had sex with boys.

So the bottom line is, there is no evidence that Leonardo was actually gay, except for the charge against him which was dismissed.

The other issue that you raise is Christianity.

And , once again, we draw a blank. There is no evidence whatsoever that Leonardo had Christian convictions. I have dealt with this matter further up the page, so I suggest that you look for it.

Amandajm (talk) 03:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. --186.182.145.201 (talk) 05:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Just where are the remains of Leonardo actually interred?

It seems funny that anyone has to ask such a question concerning such a famous person! But the real facts seem to be that "NO ONE" knows for sure! Please see; http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/01/31/italians_seek_access_and_clues_in_da_vinci_remains/

In reality, it seems that a lot of the famous people of the past seem to have the same problem!!!

Regards, 96.19.147.40 (talk) 02:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC) Ronald L. Hughes

What language did he write in?

Nowhere does it say in the article what language he wrote in (in his "mirror-writing"). Most of the intellectual books at the time were written in Latin. You might guess from the article that since Leonardo apparently didn't learn Latin perfectly, that that means he wrote in Italian - but that is just leaving the reader to guess. It should be stated specifically what language he wrote in. Did he write anything in Latin? Was it all in Italian?Jimhoward72 (talk) 02:30, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

He wrote everything in Italian. He had a rudimentary grasp of Latin but did not write in it. Any Latin words or phrases would have been copied from elsewhere. It is possible, that as you suggest since many intellectual books at the time were written in Latin, that Leonardo failed to publish his writings because he didn't know enough Latin, not because he was a procrastinator. Everyone assumes the latter but there may have been more to it than that. Regarding inclusion of his written language in the article - yes, everyone assumes that because he was Italian then he must have written in Italian. In this case everyone's assumption is correct. This can still be added but I would like other people to have an opinion on whether to include it in the article or not. Jodon1971 (talk) 13:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

This needs a serious rewrite

His inventions weren't feasible in his or anyone's lifetime - the most ridiculous is his "machine" gun. Let's face it, he knew nothing more than anyone of his time could have known, made no real contributions, and invented things which would never have worked. His flying machine could never work, no matter what materials it could be made of today, likewise his design for a helicopter. He was obviously highly intelligent but outside of art not a genius. 69.158.165.32 (talk) 03:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

These far-sighted ideas are the ones that receive attention in the 21st century, whether they were feasible or not. He came up with the concepts, rather than the practical invention. On the other hand, his studies of anatomy, water, geology, optics etc were ground-breaking. This article focuses on his real source of fame, his art..... or haven't you noticed?Amandajm (talk) 19:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Leonardo's lack of a prime mover in his day (such as a combustion engine) prevented him from taking many of his inventions (such as a horseless cart, which instead used levers, springs, and various rotor mechanisms) off the drawing board. Leonardo experimented ceaselessly with the materials and knowledge he had available at the time. That's all any of can do. It is said that all inventions are either improvements or adaptions from existing designs. Nobody could have been more frustrated than Leonardo to have so many ideas and still know they could never work in his day because his designs were too far-reaching for the day in terms of practicality. Actually there have been a number of documentaries showing various inventions of Leonardo (such as his pyramidal parachute, his scuba diving apparatus, and one of his flying "flapping wing" machines) that have been constructed in modern factories by Leonardo scholars that have worked. In any event "invention" doesn't necessarily apply only to machines, and Leonardo "invented" many techniques that assisted him in his experimentation in various fields. These can be considered "contributions". Jodon1971 (talk) 15:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Category: LGBT history

User:Arch8887 has repeatedly removed this category from the article.

I have attempted to explain on this person's talk page that the charge of sodomy against Leonardo is a documented part of LGBT history, and is not the same as categorising Leonardo as an LGBT person.

My explanations appear to have no impact. I think if it happens again we have to start treating the matter as vandalism.

Amandajm (talk) 09:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)