Ep. 70: Leonardo Da Vinci – Top 6 Inventions
Intro
Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.
Today's episode is going to be a good one, because it’s on a true genius, Leonardo da Vinci, who I think is generally one of the most rounded geniuses of all time. He had a plethora of interests ranging from anatomy, astronomy, botany, painting and palaeontology, which is just to name a few.
The astonishing thing is, that he was absolutely brilliant in all of his endeavours as illustrated by his art. There are less than 20 surviving paintings from Da Vinci, yet he is still regarded as one of the greatest artists in history.
His inventions were so far ahead of their time, that most were economically unviable to build, with engineering technology and materials not yet developed sufficiently.
Today’s mnemonic is on Da Vinci’s top 6 inventions.
With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_Da_Vinci_and_Mona_Lisa_Smile.jpg
Wikipedia Summary
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci[b] (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.[3] While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he also became known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal,[4] and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary, Michelangelo.[3][4]
Born out of wedlock to a successful notary and a lower-class woman in, or near, Vinci, he was educated in Florence by the Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. He began his career in the city, but then spent much time in the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Later, he worked in Florence and Milan again, as well as briefly in Rome, all while attracting a large following of imitators and students. Upon the invitation of Francis I, he spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519. Since his death, there has not been a time where his achievements, diverse interests, personal life, and empirical thinking have failed to incite interest and admiration,[3][4] making him a frequent namesake and subject in culture.
Leonardo is identified as one of the greatest painters in the history of art and is often credited as the founder of the High Renaissance.[3] Despite having many lost works and fewer than 25 attributed major works—including numerous unfinished works—he created some of the most influential paintings in Western art.[3] His magnum opus, the Mona Lisa, is his best known work and often regarded as the world's most famous painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon. In 2017, Salvator Mundi, attributed in whole or part to Leonardo,[5] was sold at auction for US$450.3 million, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.
Revered for his technological ingenuity, he conceptualized flying machines, a type of armored fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, a ratio machine that could be used in an adding machine,[6][7] and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were 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 made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, hydrodynamics, geology, optics, and tribology, but he did not publish his findings and they had little to no direct influence on subsequent science.[8]
Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour.jpg
Mnemonic
Leonardo da Vinci – Top 6 Inventions Mnemonic – ADAPT Cannon
(Picture Leonardo da Vinci adapting a single cannon into a cannon with 33 barrels, which he actually did)
1. Aerial Screw (helicopter)
2. Diving Suit
3. Automobile (precursor)
4. Parachute
5. Tank
6. Cannon (multiple barrels)
Five Fun Facts
1. Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, writer, anatomist, geologist, astronomer, botanist, inventor, engineer and scientist. Hang on, I think I left out a few. He was also a polymath, wunderkind, philomath, omniscient and apparently and most importantly, generous, kind and loved. The whole package!
2. Leonardo da Vinci is another one of those examples that suggests school is not the be-all and end-all. He never went to school, though he was taught to read and write and basic mathematics.
3. The next fact could suggest he was a serial killer, but Da Vinci loved to dissect both animals and humans to understand how everything worked. He would then illustrate these findings in some of the first anatomical drawings.
4. Da Vinci left around 6,000 pages of journal. Interestingly many pages were written in reverse. Two theories for this are, firstly, it was a type of code which could only be read using a mirror and secondly, it was because he was left-handed and did not want to smudge the ink.
5. Though there are less than 20 surviving paintings Da Vinci is still regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. His most famous works are the ‘Mona Lisa’, ‘The Last Supper’ and the ‘Vitruvian Man’.
And apparently, he really impressed the girls with his very realistic pictures of trucks. Yeah trucks; he was a real pick-up artist!
6. Bonus Fact: Not only was Da Vinci uneducated but he was also an illegitimate child. His father Ser Piero, was a wealthy Florentine notary and his mother was a peasant woman named Caterina. He was their only child together, however, collectively they had 12 children to other partners.
_-_The_Last_Supper_(1495-1498).jpg){kind=link}
Three Question Quiz
Q.1. Which billionaire bought Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook known as the “Codex Leicester” in 1994 for a record $30.8 million?
Q.2. Where was Leonardo da Vinci born? Options are Florence, Italy or Vinci, Italy
Q.3. How many times was Leonardo da Vinci married?
Bonus Q. French soldiers used Da Vinci’s sculpture called “Gran Cavallo” which was his biggest project, 17 years in the making, as target practice? True or False
Mnemonic Recap
Leonardo da Vinci – Top 6 Inventions Mnemonic – ADAPT Cannon
(Picture Leonardo da Vinci adapting a single cannon into a cannon with 33 barrels, which he actually did)
1. Aerial Screw (helicopter)
2. Diving Suit
3. Automobile (precursor)
4. Parachute
5. Tank
6. Cannon (multiple barrels)
Three Question Quiz Answers
Q.1. Which billionaire bought Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook known as the “Codex Leicester” in 1994 for a record $30.8 million?
A. Bill Gates
Q.2. Where was Leonardo da Vinci born? Options are Florence, Italy or Vinci, Italy
A. Vinci, Italy
Q.3. How many times was Leonardo da Vinci married?
A. Zero. Da Vinci never married and it was suspected he was homosexual and there was also the fact that he was arrested for sodomy at the age of 24
Bonus Q. French soldiers used Da Vinci’s sculpture called “Gran Cavallo” which was his biggest project, 17 years in the making, as target practice? True or False
A. True. French forces had invaded Milan in 1499 and victorious soldiers shot it to pieces
Word of the Week
areology
[ air-ee-ol-uh-jee ]
the observation and study of the planet Mars.
Example
Areology was the mission of the Curiosity Rover, however, it also contained digital copies of both the portrait and Codex of Leonardo da Vinci
Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]
Website: https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-mnemonic-tree-podcast/id1591795132
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3T0LdIJ9PBQMXM3cdKd42Q?si=WQ1SnHo5QgOawX-mxS6yUA
References
https://www.historyhit.com/facts-you-might-not-know-about-leonardo-da-vinci/
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/areology
https://www.littledayout.com/70-funny-art-jokes-puns-amuse-laughter/