Leonardo da Vinci, Pathfinder of Science

[Illustration: _Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, after a woodcut
    published in_ Lives of the Painters, _by Vasari. The Latin
    inscription reads_
    LIONARDO DA VINCI PITT. E SCVLTOR FIOR.
    _Leonardo da Vinci, Painter & Sculptor of Florence._]




                         _Immortals of Science_




                                LEONARDO
                                DA VINCI
                        _Pathfinder of Science_


                          _Henry S. Gillette_

                         PICTURES BY THE AUTHOR


              _Franklin Watts, Inc., 575 Lexington Avenue
                         New York 22, New York_


                           _To my wife Trudy_

                             FIRST PRINTING

           _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-8426_
                Copyright © 1962 by Franklin Watts, Inc.
             _Manufactured in the United States of America_

                       DESIGNED BY BERNARD KLEIN


AUTHOR’S NOTE

It is natural that, within the confines of these few pages, many facets
of Leonardo’s extraordinary personality will be missing. That he was an
artist, a man of letters, a poet and a philosopher are well known. That
he was also a man of humor, as well as a prophet whose vision extended
far beyond his times, are facts that I have also tried to include in
this biography. There are many gaps in our knowledge of his life, and
these I have sometimes filled with my own imagination to give some
continuity to his story. Little is known of his early days, his period
of travels after leaving Milan and his years in Rome. There is, too, a
certain mystery in his relations to those around him, since our
descriptions of him derive mostly from his often cryptic, personal notes
and from biographers who wrote of him many years after he had died.

This book is about Leonardo the scientist, and to fully write of his
many accomplishments would require an encyclopedic mind. My intent has
been to extract the essence of his story in the hopes that it would
arouse the enthusiasm of a reader to further his interest in those
other, more fully documented books—and, above all, in the notebooks that
Leonardo himself wrote.

                                                               —H. S. G.

                                                     _Rome, August 1961_




                               _Contents_


  1 _The Shield_                                                        1
  2 _Florence_                                                          9
  3 _A Studio of His Own_                                              20
  4 _Years of Frustration_                                             28
  5 _Milan_                                                            37
  6 _The Monument_                                                     49
  7 _Success_                                                          60
  8 _The French_                                                       73
  9 _Cesare Borgia_                                                    86
  10 _Shattered Hopes_                                                 98
  11 _The Return to Milan_                                            114
  12 _Rome_                                                           129
  13 _The Last Years_                                                 147
  14 _Mankind’s Debt to Leonardo_                                     159
    _Significant Dates in Leonardo’s Life_                            162
    _Index_                                                           164




                                   1
                              _The Shield_


Dusk was beginning to gather in the valley at the foot of Monte Albano
as young Leonardo turned toward home. Stopping by a rushing stream to
wash the dust of the day’s explorations from his face, he laid aside his
cap and his leather pouch and plunged his hands into the cold mountain
water. He felt the force of the current and watched the whirl and flow
of bubbles around his bare arms. There was the same feeling, he thought,
to the flow of air he had experienced blowing around the rocky crags of
the mountains.

This evening, however, there was no time to sit awhile and think. He was
in a hurry to get home. Hastily scooping the water in his cupped palms,
he splashed it over his head and face, then shaking the water from his
hair he rose and picked up his cap. He took a satisfied look in his
pouch, slung it over his shoulder and headed down the stony trail to the
village of Vinci.

Vinci was a small hill town situated on a spur of Monte Albano. Its
castle and the bell tower above the houses seemed like sentinels
guarding the slopes of vineyards and olive groves spreading down into
the valley.

Leonardo da Vinci, which means “Leonardo from the town of Vinci,”
thought about his home. He knew that he had been born in Anchiano, near
Vinci, on April 15 of the year 1452, to a peasant girl named Caterina.
At the age of five, he had been sent for by his natural father, Piero da
Vinci, to come and live at his family’s house in Vinci, a comfortable
and roomy place with a spacious garden.