Leonardo Da Vinci
You probably know Leonardo da Vinci as a Renaissance artist.
He painted what is quite possibly the most well-known portrait in the world,
the Mona Lisa, as well as creating The Last Supper and Vitruvian Man.
But he was so much more than just one of the world's greatest artists.
Leonardo da Vinci was an anatomist who drew and catalogued the entire human body.
He was an architect who designed grand cities and buildings that were revolutionary for his time.
He was an astronomer who studied the night sky and created designs for one of the first telescopes.
He was a botanist who examined and documented plants.
He was a cartographer who created some of the first contemporary maps.
He was an engineer who designed countless amazing machines and structures.
He was a geologist who studied the Earth, discovering and theorising the origins of fossils.
He was a hydrodynamicist, dedicated to understanding the forces and flows of fluids.
He was a mathematician who incorporated his calculations into the core of his art.
He was a musician who played and taught instruments, even designing several of his own.
He was a theatre producer who created immersive sets and props that blew away audiences.
He was a scientist who theorised, tested and discovered many new groundbreaking ideas.
He was an inventor, pushing the boundaries of what was technologically possible at the time.
And he did all of this over 500 years ago.
In this video, we'll be taking a look at the marvellous life of Leonardo da Vinci,
exploring his amazing creations and ideas,
and asking the question, how did Leonardo da Vinci change the world?
This story starts in the year 1452, on the 15th of April at 10.30pm.
On the outskirts of Florence, Italy, in a small village called Vinci, a boy named Leonardo was born.
His father, Sir Piero, was a wealthy Florentine notary, and his mother a 14-year-old peasant girl named Caterina.
His parents were not married, making Leonardo an illegitimate child.
Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense.
Da Vinci, meaning of Vinci, the town he was born in.
Leonardo did not receive a formal school education,
but the basics of reading, writing and mathematics were taught to him by tutors.
He reportedly struggled to read as a child, often getting distracted,
abandoning tasks for the latest thing to catch his attention.
Leonardo's grandfather and uncle Francesco saw how Leonardo struggled to concentrate,
but instead of punishing him, they encouraged his curious mind and power of observation to flourish,
sending the young boy off into the fields and vineyards that surrounded their home
to study their lizards, glowworms, wild animals and plants.
We see this curious mind and power of observation that was developed here
being the driving force behind so many of Leonardo da Vinci's great discoveries and inventions.
Around 1464, Leonardo moved from the small town of Vinci, where he was born, to Florence with his dad.
Had he been a legitimate child, Leonardo would have been expected to become a notary, just like his father was.
But luckily for us, because of his illegitimacy, he was free to pursue whatever career his heart desired.
And around this time, he started to show a real talent for art.
Leonardo created many drawings and sketches throughout his childhood,
and his father was so impressed by Leonardo's talent that he took a portfolio of his son's work to a family friend, Andrea del Verrocchio.
Verrocchio ran one of the most famous art workshops in all of Florence.
When Verrocchio saw Leonardo's work, he was astonished and urged his father to make sure Leonardo pursued the arts.
Around four years later, in 1468, Leonardo da Vinci became an apprentice at Verrocchio's studio,
working and studying alongside some of the best artists in Florence at the time.
It's important to understand that at this time and place in history, Florence was at the centre of an intellectual and artistic revolution,
largely enabled by the ruling Medici clan.
The House of Medici were a banking and political dynasty that had great control and influence over Florence during this period.
Many historians theorise that without the patronage of the Medici's, the Renaissance may never have started in Florence.
They helped create a political and cultural environment where artists like Leonardo, Botticelli and Michelangelo could reach their full potential.
During Leonardo da Vinci's time as an apprentice, he studied much of Verrocchio's work and helped to complete many pieces of art.
It's also thought that Leonardo modelled for a number of statues created by Verrocchio, including a bronze statue of David.
This statue gives us an idea of what Leonardo might have looked like in his teenage years, with his curly hair and lean build.
In Verrocchio's workshop, apprentices were encouraged to study both the theoretical and technical skills involved to produce art at the time.
From chemistry, metalwork, plaster casting, leatherwork, mechanics and woodwork, to drawing, painting, sculpting and modelling.
Much of the work done in Verrocchio's workshop was completed as a collaborative effort, with artists and apprentices all contributing.
A great example of this is the painting, The Baptism of Christ.
Much of this painting is attributed to Verrocchio himself, with Leonardo da Vinci painting the left angel and some of the background.
Many believe Leonardo's angel totally outshines the rest of Verrocchio's work in terms of realism and technique.
In 1472, aged 20, Leonardo started painting The Annunciation, which is thought to be his first solo painting.
It took him three years to complete, and despite some flawed perspectives, you can see the magic and pure craft of Leonardo coming through.
Around 1473, Leonardo da Vinci became a member of the Painters' Guild.
Despite his father generously setting him up with his own workshop, Leonardo remained attached to Verrocchio, continuing to collaborate and live with him for many more years.
Court records from 1476 show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy in an incident involving a well-known male prostitute.
The charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence.
There has been much speculation that since one of the men accused, Leonardo Torbuni, was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of Florence at the time,
the Medici family used its influence and power to secure a dismissal of the charges against the four men.
From what we now understand, many biographers of Leonardo think he was gay.
There is certainly no evidence of him ever having a sexual relationship with a woman.
He definitely had very close relationships with two of his male assistants over the years, Sullai and Melzi, that were possibly sexual.
Couple that with the charge of sodomy with a male prostitute, and many have concluded that Leonardo da Vinci was gay.
In 1478, Leonardo finished a painting of Ginevra da Vinci, daughter of a wealthy Florentine merchant.
This painting is currently housed by the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and is the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on view to the public in the Americas.
That same year, 1478, Leonardo started to receive his first independent commissions, an indication that he was no longer working for Verrocchio's studio.
Around 1480, Leonardo da Vinci started keeping his famous notebooks.
Leonardo was not a prolific painter, taking a long time to complete just one painting.
Only 24 finished or unfinished paintings by Leonardo da Vinci are still around for us to see today.
However, he was an incredibly prolific note-keeper, churning out over 13,000 pages of notes and drawings in his lifetime.
Around 7,000 of those pages still survive today, with Leonardo's own writing and drawings on full display.
A fascinating thing about Leonardo's notebooks is that almost all of his writing is in mirror script.
He wrote from right to left instead of left to right.
To a normal eye, it almost looks like some kind of strange code, but it's perfectly legible, viewed through a mirror.
Some believe he did this to keep his work secret, but as soon as you realise it's written backwards, it's easy to understand and read.
There is a more simple explanation. Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed, and in those days, the ink used was very easily smudged.
So to avoid constantly smearing his work, Leonardo devised a way of writing in mirror script.
He only wrote this way in his personal notebooks.
Whenever he wrote something for other people to read, like a letter, it was in a normal left-to-right fashion, and perfectly readable.
His huge collection of notes has helped to form a great deal of what we now know and understand about Leonardo da Vinci.
And many of these collections of notes have become just as valuable and famous as his paintings.
In 1994, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, paid $30,802,500 for the Codex Lester,
which is a leather-bound notebook containing just 36 sheets of some of Leonardo's most impressive scientific writing, drawings and theories.
Leonardo rarely wrote about himself or his personal life in his notebooks, but on the few occasions he did, it reveals a great deal about him.
Some think that when he was around 28 to 30 years old, he suffered from depression.
On a page in his notebook that includes a drawing of a water clock and a sundial, he writes,
We do not lack devices for measuring these miserable days of ours,
in which it should be our pleasure that they not be footed away without leaving behind any memory of ourselves in the mind of men.
And on another page, he writes,
What I thought I was learning how to live, I was learning how to die.
This idea of a depressed Leonardo correlates with a poem written by a friend about him around this time.
One of the lines from that poem goes,
Leonardo, why so troubled?
We like to believe that great people from history, people who change the world and impact our lives, are different from us,
almost as if they don't suffer from the same problems we do.
But that's just not true.
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most celebrated artists in the world,
someone who created one of the most famous pieces of art in human history
and left behind a legacy of innovation and scientific discovery that we're still learning from and admiring today.
Yet despite such achievements and such talent,
Leonardo still battled with the same emotional and distinctly human problems we face today.
He questioned the meaning of his life and sometimes struggled to find a place in the world.
He was human, just like the rest of us.
In 1481, Leonardo was commissioned to paint The Adoration of the Magi
by Augustine monks from the monastery of San Donato in Florence.
Sadly, he would never complete this painting, leaving it unfinished when he left Florence a year later.
Failing to complete works of commissioned art became a bad habit for Leonardo
and was something he gained a reputation for doing.
In that same year, 1481, Leonardo wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.
It's a strange letter.
It barely mentions his artistic skills, instead focusing on his military ideas and designs,
something Leonardo had no experience in at the time.
He wrote how he could produce light and portable bridges, perfect for battle.
How he could remove water from moats and create a special cannon that fires a hailstorm of stones.
How he has devised a way of designing and constructing secret passageways,
completely without noise, that can pass under moats and rivers.
A special vehicle that is covered, safe and unassailable, which can penetrate the enemy and their artillery.
How he can create cannons, mortars and light ordnance of a very beautiful and functional design,
along with catapults, mangonels and trebuchets.
And he even talks about being able to create instruments of war for sea battles,
that are highly effective and suitable for attack or defence.
And how in times of peace he can be an architect, designing both public and private buildings
and conducting water from one place to another.
And then only at the end of this very long letter to the Duke of Milan
does Leonardo mention his skill of sculpting and painting.
A strange thing for such a talented artist to do.
He was trained by some of the best artists in Florence and easily matched and often outshone their skill.
Yet here he is, eager to play down his brilliant talent for art.
Perhaps this can give us an insight into Leonardo's mind at the time.
Maybe he viewed art and painting as just a job, something he did for money,
and his true passion lied with using his curious mind and powerful observational skills
to discover, invent and design new ideas.
In 1482 Leonardo da Vinci moved to Milan from Florence.
Not to work as a military engineer as he had hoped, but as an artist, musician and theatre producer.
Leonardo was a skilled musician, playing a stringed instrument similar to a violin called a lino di braccio.
He would perform for the court of Milan and teach others how to play.
In his later life he would even design his own very unique instruments.
He was also employed as what we might see today as a theatre producer,
designing props, costumes, backgrounds and special machines for plays and pageants.
His creations helping to bring alive the story and celebrate the occasion.
Many believe the theatre was where Leonardo first conceived some of his ideas and inventions.
For example, one of the pageants required a bird as a prop,
and Leonardo decided to create a mechanical bird made from wood that flapped its wings and gave the illusion of flight.
This then led him down a rabbit hole with his curious mind running away with itself.
He became fascinated with how birds managed to fly, observing and studying them in great detail.
Over the course of his life he created many designs for human powered flying machines that he would go on to test in later years.
In 1483 Leonardo was commissioned to paint Virgin of the Rocks.
Due to a dispute about payment, Leonardo would actually create two almost identical Virgin of the Rock paintings.
One in 1483 and another that was finished around 1508, that was painted with the help of an assistant, Ambrogio di Petrus.
Both paintings are still around today, with the first being on view in the Louvre in Paris,
and the second on display at the National Gallery in London.
Around 1485 Leonardo drew a design for what some believe is the first ever parachute.
This pyramid shape with a man hanging beneath was Leonardo's attempt at designing something to slow the fall of a man from a great height.
Its cumbersome design led many to believe it would never actually work.
However in June of the year 2000 a man named Adrian Nicholas proved everyone wrong.
From a hot air balloon at the height of 3,000 meters or 10,000 feet,
he fell to the earth with a parachute that was created by following Leonardo da Vinci's designs.
It was entirely constructed using only materials that would have been available in the late 15th century.
And it was a success. Adrian even said it was a smoother descent than many modern parachutes he'd used in the past.
Around this time, 1485, Leonardo was drawing designs for a wide range of machines.
One of which was an aerial screw, which today we recognize as something similar to a helicopter.
Keep in mind that this was over 500 years ago.
And here Leonardo da Vinci is, imagining and designing an aerial screw that would provide lift to enable man to fly.
Leonardo had a much deeper understanding of scientific principles than you would presume for a man living in the 15th century.
He realized that friction would play a major role in preventing the machine from rotating at a sufficient speed to gain lift.
As a result, he designed what might be one of the first modern ball bearings to lower the friction between the rotating blades.
He also drew designs for a giant crossbow.
The standard crossbow had been around for many years at this point.
But Leonardo took it to the next level.
Using his understandings of mathematics and science, he made a giant crossbow.
Far more precise and powerful than any other that had been designed before.
In 1487, da Vinci designed what he called a fighting vehicle.
This was an armored vehicle inspired by a turtle's shell.
It was covered in thick wood, reinforced with metal plates that were at a slanted angle to deflect enemy fire.
Inside were two large cranks that would have been operated by four strong men.
This vehicle was to be equipped with at least eight cannons placed around the perimeter.
Many describe this as a prototype for modern tanks and was a totally revolutionary idea in the 15th century.
This design never made it onto the battlefield as it was too heavy to be powered by men turning a crank inside.
But it is an example of Leonardo's designs and imagination being far more advanced than the technology available to him at the time.
Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century Italian painter, architect, writer and historian.
Best known for his book, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects.
Wrote a great deal about Leonardo da Vinci.
He talked about how Leonardo became well known whilst living in Milan.
Not only for his great intellect and artistic talent, but also for his good looks, muscular build and gentle style.
Vasari said Leonardo da Vinci was a man of outstanding beauty and grace.
His presence brought comfort to the most troubled soul.
Leonardo was charming, attractive and had many friends.
In 1488 we see some of Leonardo da Vinci's first studies of human anatomy in his notebooks.
The study of the human body would become a lifelong obsession for Leonardo.
He would go on to dissect many human corpses and attempt to draw, categorise and understand every part of the human body.
His studies of anatomy were not just scientific, but he used the information to improve his art.
Always striving to make his paintings as realistic and lifelike as possible.
Leonardo was one of the most curious people, perhaps, ever to live.
His desire to learn, discover and understand how every aspect of our world worked,
drove him to ask questions and seek answers to things most of us would simply never even contemplate.
Every week he would write a long list of things he wanted to learn or questions he wanted to find an answer to.
From questions like, why is the sky blue?
To, describe the tongue of a woodpecker.
His curiosity pushed him to discover and conceive of ideas that almost no other human at this time would even dream of, let alone intellectually pursue.
Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian.
He didn't eat any meat.
He preferred to wear colourful linen for his clothing instead of leather.
Not wanting to wear the dead skin of another animal.
There's also a record of him buying caged birds from the market and then setting them free, restoring their lost liberty.
You've got to keep in mind that in the 15th century animal rights were not at the top of anyone's agenda.
Yet here Leonardo da Vinci is, 500 years ago, recognising the sentience of animals.
Realising that the creatures we eat for food experience the world in a similar way to us.
He wrote, if you are, as you've described yourself, the king of the animals,
why do you help other animals only so they may be able to give you their young in order to gratify your palate?
He viewed a vegetable diet as simple food that provided everything a man needed and urged its adoption.
His rationale for avoiding meat derived from a morality based on science.
He spent a great deal of time studying plants and animals and came to the conclusion that unlike plants,
animals could feel pain just like us.
This incredibly compassionate and thoughtful Leonardo contrasts quite starkly with the same man that designed countless war machines.
Clearly there was some kind of conflict within Leonardo.
His desire to create great machines of war not really aligning with his desire to not inflict any unnecessary harm on other living creatures.
Almost all of Leonardo's war machines were never built, mainly due to two factors.
Many of his designs were simply too advanced for the technology that existed at the time.
And secondly, by the time he had finished designing one of these machines,
he had moved on to the next thing that caught his attention and curiosity.
In 1489, we see Leonardo exploring architecture.
He drew plans to totally redesign Milan.
He envisioned a new Milanese city based around aesthetics and cleanliness,
designed to stop the spread of diseases like the plague that devastated life at the time.
He thought about every detail, from sewer systems, underground areas for carts and deliveries,
gently sloping streets to drain off any waste,
and unique spiralled staircases linking the underground to the surface.
In that year of 1489, Leonardo was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza
to cast a giant bronze statue of Francesco Sforza, a previous ruler of Milan, riding a horse.
Leonardo would quickly forget about the man riding the horse and become captivated by the beauty of the city.
He was captivated with the horse itself, trying to make it as lifelike and as magnificent as possible.
His plans would have created the largest bronze horse statue in all the world at this time.
Sadly, in 1494, after years of Leonardo designing and trying to perfect this great statue,
Ludovico Sforza gave all 66 tonnes of bronze that was set aside for the statue's production to his brother-in-law,
so he could make cannons to defend the city from a French invasion.
In 1490, Leonardo da Vinci presents his Vitruvian Man sketch to the public.
This sketch goes on to be one of Leonardo's most famous pieces of work,
captivating people's imaginations for hundreds of years.
We see a male figure, perfectly drawn in a circle and a square,
with the belly button at the centre of the circle and the genitals being at the centre of the square.
It's meant to represent what Leonardo believed to be a divine connection between the human form and the universe.
It is based upon a passage written 1,500 years before Leonardo was born
by a Roman architect, author and engineer named Vitruvius.
Vitruvius wrote about a man's body perfectly fitting inside a circle,
which represented divinity, and a square, which represented the earth.
It's Leonardo's attempt to visualise the perfect man, according to Vitruvius' writings.
A geometric drawing of the ancient idea that man is a miniature embodiment of the universe,
a microcosm.
Leonardo was not the only one to attempt to draw this.
Giacomo Andrea, an architect who was one of Leonardo's friends,
drew his own version of the Vitruvian Man, possibly before Leonardo created his.
You can clearly see the similarities.
Many believe Leonardo's Vitruvian Man was almost a self-portrait,
but the man we see at the centre looks very similar to how Leonardo is described at the time,
with long curly hair, a muscular build and defining facial features.
Perhaps a rare glimpse of what the great Leonardo da Vinci looked like through his own eyes.
In that same year, 1490, Gian Giacomo Cabrotti d'Arrino,
better known by his nickname Salai, which roughly translates to Little Devil,
came to live with Leonardo.
Salai was just 10 years old at the time, and Leonardo almost 40.
But a young apprentice coming to live with their new artistic master was not uncommon for those times.
Salai earned his nickname of the Little Devil.
Leonardo wrote in one of his notebooks a list of Salai's misdemeanours.
Calling him a thief, a liar, stubborn and a glutton.
Salai stole money from Leonardo on at least five occasions.
Despite all this, Leonardo indulged him,
and Salai would remain part of Leonardo's household for 30 years, until Leonardo's death.
It's thought that many of Leonardo's drawings and even two of his paintings are based on Salai.
St John the Baptist painted 1513 to 1516, and Bacchus painted 1510 to 1515.
This gives us a good idea of what Salai looked like.
Around 1491, Leonardo drew designs for a telescope,
writing in his notebook that it was to magnify the moon.
He wrote detailed notes about its design,
down to the thickness of the glass that would be required to produce the correct magnification.
Leonardo da Vinci is not often thought about for his contribution to astronomy.
Mainly because many of his findings and observations turned out to be incorrect or inaccurate in later years.
But here he is, 100 years before Galileo,
with a telescope designed to magnify the moon and peer into the night sky.
1492 Leonardo da Vinci finishes painting Lady with an Ermine.
The painting is of Cecilia Gallarini, who at the time was a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.
1494 King Charles VIII of France invades Italy, bringing city-states like Milan to war.
This is the war that caused the 1660s to become a period of great turmoil.
It caused the 66 tons of bronze set aside for Leonardo's giant horse statue to be used for cannons instead.
In 1495 Leonardo da Vinci started painting The Last Supper, one of his most famous pieces of work.
He painted the mural on a wall in the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria del Grazi in Milan, Italy.
The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper, of Jesus with his apostles, as told in the Gospel of John.
Leonardo captures the moment just after Jesus announces that one of the twelve apostles would betray him.
It is a brilliant piece of drama, capturing the emotion of the moment perfectly.
Leonardo da Vinci preferred to use oil-based paints, a medium that allows artists to work slowly,
creating layers, making changes with ease.
Oil paints were not traditionally used for painting on walls, as the paint often did not last.
However, Leonardo thought he had a new method to overcome this.
Sadly, though, it did not work.
Due to a mix of the building's construction methods and Leonardo's new paint,
the image began to fade and crumble within 20 years of completion.
Over the years, many artists tried to restore the huge wall painting, often with mixed results.
During the French Revolution, French troops used the refectory as an armoury in the stable,
with soldiers throwing stones at the painting and scratching out the eyes of the apostles.
During World War II, an Allied bomb struck the refectory,
but luckily a protective sandbag structure managed to keep the painting largely undamaged.
Between 1978 and 1999, a major restoration took place, stabilising the painting,
removing much of the unoriginal paintwork added by other restorations
and largely restoring what's left of the original work by Leonardo da Vinci.
In 1496, Leonardo da Vinci collaborated with his friend Luca Pacioli,
illustrating one of Luca's books on mathematics.
Leonardo was a great collaborator.
He loved to discuss ideas with other people and often quizzed experts for everything they knew.
He and his friends would reportedly spend hours debating and exploring new ideas,
1498. Leonardo da Vinci tests one of his designs for a flying machine.
Leonardo was extremely interested in flight,
spending huge amounts of time studying and observing birds and trying to work out how they flew.
At that time in history, many believed birds flew through the air
in a similar way to how boats float through the air.
At that time in history, many believed birds flew through the air
in a similar way to how boats float on water.
But Leonardo realised that was not the case and set to work studying creatures that flew
in order to figure out how humans might achieve flight themselves.
In that same year, 1498, Leonardo started to make plans to publish some of his notebooks.
Sadly, he would never get around to doing this.
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the world's greatest thinkers.
He made discoveries in such a wide range of subjects,
yet because he never published his notebooks,
the world never knew about his discoveries and ideas until many, many years after his death.
Had Leonardo's notebooks been published within his time,
many believe his discoveries, inventions and ideas
would have fundamentally changed the world far beyond just art and culture.
A great example of Leonardo's genius at work
that probably would have changed the world in some capacity if published earlier
was his work on dentistry.
As far as we know, Leonardo was the first person in history
to accurately draw and depict the four types of human teeth, including their roots,
noting that a human typically has 32, including wisdom teeth.
As if there was not already so much to celebrate Leonardo for,
being a pioneer of dentistry can be added to the long list.
Leonardo da Vinci did not pursue money,
despite being someone that could have easily made a fair amount if he had wished.
Many powerful and rich people in his time sought him out to paint pictures for them,
offering a lot of money.
Yet Leonardo was not interested,
only pursuing things that truly captivated him.
He actually came up with a machine
that would have totally revolutionized the textile industry at the time
and even calculated how much money he would have been able to make from it a year.
6,000 gold ducats, which today would be around 6 million dollars.
But just conceiving the idea was enough for him.
The intellectual pursuit was what he really cherished, not money.
Leonardo talked about how those that only pursued money and wealth
lacked life's great treasure, which for him was knowledge.
In 1499, Louis XII of France invaded Milan, seizing control of the city.
Reportedly the King of France was a fan of Leonardo's work and held him in high regard,
but Leonardo decided to leave the city with his friends and followers.
They first traveled to Venice, where Leonardo found work as an engineer,
devising a system of movable barricades that would protect Venice from a sea-borne invasion.
It was here, in Venice, that Leonardo had his idea for a diving suit
that would enable someone to breathe underwater.
In 1502, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer and architect.
Cesare Borgia was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI.
He was an Italian politician, warlord and strategist,
whose fight for power was a major inspiration for the famous book, The Prince, by Machiavelli.
Whilst working for Cesare Borgia, Leonardo created a map of Imola
that was so accurate you can still use it to navigate the city today.
At this time, most maps were symbolic, hillside views,
that highlighted key features in cities like churches, palaces and military forts,
but were almost useless for detailed navigation.
Leonardo da Vinci decided to create something different,
a map that was accurate and could actually be used for navigation and planning.
Using detailed measurements, he recorded the distance and angles of every street, building and wall in Imola,
creating something that is closer to a modern satellite map,
500 years ago, using only equipment he designed and made himself.
Just another example of Leonardo's brilliant intellect and ingenuity at work.
His curious mind, pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible at the time,
and his marvellous observational skills, helping to bring his ideas into reality.
Whilst working for Cesare Borgia in 1502, Leonardo met a young Niccolò Machiavelli.
Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher and writer, best known for his book, The Prince.
He is often described as the father of modern political philosophy and science.
Together, Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli plotted to divert the River Arno.
At the time, Florence had been fighting a seven-year war with Pisa,
and Leonardo and Machiavelli thought that by diverting the River Arno,
they could end the war by taking away Pisa's source of water, crippling the city.
Leonardo created detailed plans, harnessing all of his scientific skills and knowledge
on water movement, geology and engineering.
It was a huge project, with Leonardo calculating it would take 54,000 man-days of labouring to complete.
Here, you can see Leonardo's drawing of the plan for the diversion.
This is the River Arno, and here is Leonardo's planned diversion.
It would take many years until the Florentine government approved the final project,
and to save costs, they did not follow Leonardo's plans, ultimately leading to the project's failure.
In 1503, Leonardo da Vinci returned to Florence and began painting the Mona Lisa,
which he would continue to work on for the rest of his life.
The Mona Lisa is quite possibly the most famous piece of art in human history.
The painting is believed to be of Lisa del Giocondo,
who was an Italian noblewoman and wife to Francesco del Giocondo,
a silk merchant and Florentine official.
Mona Lisa's eyes fix upon the audience no matter where you stand.
She is a figure of light, following you around the room,
whilst her enigmatic smile seizes anyone that gazes upon her.
Leonardo was a pioneer of the sfumato painting technique,
with the Mona Lisa being the most famous example of its use.
He described sfumato as without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane.
Sfumato is basically a painting technique for softening the transition between colours,
making an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on.
You can see this technique on full display around Mona Lisa's eyes and mouth.
Sfumato helps to bring alive paintings, mimicking the realities of light and life.
An analysis of the Mona Lisa reveals that Leonardo never stopped adding to it,
applying layer after layer of tiny brushstrokes to create the sfumato effect.
The base alone has up to 35 layers of paint that were slowly added over many years.
The Mona Lisa is undoubtedly a masterpiece that still holds its beauty and elegance today.
But there are many artistic masterpieces in the world, yet none are as famous as the Mona Lisa.
So why is this piece of art so beloved, so well-known?
Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?
After Leonardo's death, we think the Mona Lisa passed to his assistant and lifelong companion,
Salai, who then sold it to the King of France.
The painting stayed in the hands of French royalty until the French Revolution in 1789.
After the Revolution, the Mona Lisa went on display in the Louvre in Paris, where it still resides today.
The painting was not widely known outside of the art world and certainly not popular with the public.
That was until the year 1911.
On the 21st of August of that year, the Mona Lisa was stolen.
It took a whole day for people to even realise it was gone.
The painting would remain missing for over two years.
Its time of absence from public viewing is what really made the Mona Lisa famous.
Before it was stolen, it was just one of many masterpieces on show.
But during the two years it was gone, the press published countless articles speculating about the missing painting
and always referring to it as a masterpiece and one of the best paintings in the world.
With wild theories popping up all over the place, accusing many different people of committing the crime.
At one point, a young Pablo Picasso was even arrested and brought in for questioning for stealing the Mona Lisa,
although he was later cleared of any involvement in the painting's disappearance.
The mystery around the theft created a global news story that went on for several years,
thrusting the Mona Lisa into the public eye all over the world.
The real culprit, a man named Vincenzo Paruggia, was a former Louvre employee
who helped construct the painting's glass case.
He carried out the theft simply by entering the building during regular hours,
hiding in a broom closet and then walking out with the painting hidden under his coat after the museum had closed.
Vincenzo was an Italian patriot who believed Leonardo da Vinci's paintings should be returned to Italian museums.
Having kept the Mona Lisa hidden in his apartment for two years,
Mr Paruggia grew impatient and was caught trying to sell it to Giovanni Poggi,
the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The Mona Lisa was then exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery for two weeks
before being returned to the Louvre on 4 January 1914.
Paruggia served six months in prison and was hailed by Italians when he was released for his patriotism.
When the painting finally returned to the Louvre,
crowds of people came to see the painting they had heard so much about,
and ever since then, they have never stopped coming.
Today, reportedly 80% of visitors to the Louvre in Paris come solely to see the Mona Lisa.
In 1505, Leonardo continued to study flight, observing birds and insects
and trying unsuccessfully for the second time to test one of his flying machines.
In that same year, he was commissioned to paint the Battle of Angari in the Hall of 500
in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
Leonardo had envisioned a dynamically fluid composition,
depicting four men riding horses engaged in a vicious battle.
Leonardo struggled to complete this work, and the painting deteriorated rapidly.
All we have to go on today is this drawing of the painting by Peter Paul Rubens,
which was made in 1603, about 100 years later.
Whilst living in Florence, Leonardo da Vinci became somewhat of a local celebrity.
At this time in history, artists were largely viewed as craftsmen,
in the same way you might view a carpenter or a bricklayer.
But Leonardo was one of the first to break this mould.
His artistic creations earned him a reputation,
and he was well known around Florence, with people eager to see his work.
In 1506, Leonardo moved back to Milan,
where he largely stayed for seven years,
only returning to Florence to sort out a dispute between his brothers
over the estate of his father, who had died in 1504.
At this time in Milan, Leonardo would meet Francesco Melzi,
who was the son of an aristocrat from Lombardy.
Melzi would become Leonardo's favourite student,
and he would follow Leonardo until his death.
In 1509, Leonardo continued his study of anatomy,
spending time in a local hospital, speaking with and observing the patients,
then later dissecting the dead in order to study anatomy.
It's believed that Leonardo dissected over 30 bodies
in his quest to find out everything he could about the human form.
He made over 240 detailed drawings of the human anatomy,
almost perfectly detailing every part,
something very few people had done at this point in history.
As a well-known and successful artist,
Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses
by a number of hospitals in Florence, Milan and Rome.
Artists at this time would often study the human form,
but Leonardo took it to the next level.
He would spend so much time dissecting, analysing and sketching human bodies
and their parts, they often would start to decompose
before he could finish a full autopsy.
It's now believed that if Leonardo da Vinci had published his anatomical studies
within his lifetime, he would have totally changed medical history.
Some of the things he discovered, theorised and observed
would not be replicated or rediscovered for hundreds of years after his death.
He was a pioneer of anatomy, but we didn't know about it until recently
because he never published his work.
He created a method of mapping the internal structure of the brain
by injecting hot wax into it, creating the first known solidifying medium
to define the shape and size of an internal body structure.
It would take over 200 years for this technique to be replicated by someone else.
He expertly modelled and theorised how the human heart worked,
even creating a working glass model to replicate blood flow,
with some of Leonardo's predictions of systolic blood flow vortices
only being proved correct in 2014.
He didn't limit himself to just humans, dissecting horses, cows, birds, monkeys and frogs,
comparing and contrasting their anatomical structures to that of humans.
He also focused on human emotion, trying to figure out what caused it,
dissecting face after face, trying to work out which parts of the face
caused which emotions to present themselves.
His studies of the human body and anatomy originally began to serve his art,
as a way of making his paintings more lifelike and real.
But this studying quickly became a passion and real interest for Leonardo in and of itself.
His work on the human body and anatomy was momentous.
Once again, if there was not already so much to celebrate Leonardo da Vinci for,
his work on anatomy alone would grant him a place in history.
In 1513, Leonardo moved to Rome by invitation of the Pope's brother.
It is here that Leonardo is said to have drawn this portrait of himself at around the age of 60.
We see an old man with a tired face, long hair and beard.
This drawing has largely defined how we view Leonardo da Vinci's appearance,
as it's thought to be the only verified self-portrait we still have of him.
Between 1513 and 1516, whilst in Rome, Leonardo painted Saint John the Baptist.
Around this time, he was described by someone as one of the world's finest painters,
who despises the art for which he has so rare a talent.
In 1517, Leonardo da Vinci moved to Amboise in France,
as a guest of the French king Francis I,
being granted the title of first painter, engineer and architect of the king.
Whilst in France, Leonardo did very little painting, instead focusing on his other passions.
He designed an entire city, which the king briefly planned to build.
Francis I was a big fan of Leonardo and his work, as was his father,
and the king spent a lot of time with Leonardo, learning everything he could from the master.
On a sheet of geometrical notes, on one of the last pages from Leonardo's notebooks,
he abruptly stops his theorising and writes,
The soup is getting cold.
Many think this is Leonardo da Vinci's final notebook entry.
His mind is still ticking away, trying to solve problems and discover new ideas,
but then he's reminded that the soup is waiting for him downstairs,
along with his friends, and it's time to stop.
On the 2nd of May, in the year 1519, aged 67, Leonardo da Vinci died.
This moment was immortalised in a painting 300 years later.
We see Leonardo lying in bed, dying,
with king Francis I holding his head and staring into Leonardo's eyes,
capturing the final moment of the great Leonardo da Vinci.
So, how did Leonardo da Vinci change the world?
His artwork has inspired and captivated people all over our planet now for over 500 years.
He managed to capture and portray life in a way no other has managed since.
There is a reason his artwork, like the Mona Lisa, resonates with so many people,
and Leonardo's brilliance as an artist, a scientist and a human lies at its core.
Despite Leonardo's huge influence and impact on our world through art and culture,
I think the most interesting part is the change that never happened.
He discovered and invented things that would take other humans hundreds of years to come across on their own.
But no one really knew about his huge body of work.
If his notebooks had been published within his lifetime,
his discoveries, theories and inventions would have most likely
thoroughly changed the face of our planet and society.
Leonardo is also not finished changing the world.
He left behind a legacy that still ripples through time.
As we continue to learn more and more about him, he teaches us to be more curious and observant,
to ask more questions and to seek more answers.
Our world has produced far smarter people that have outperformed Leonardo in almost every field.
But rarely do you come across someone so universally talented,
someone that can apply their brilliance to such a wide array of subjects
and with their curious mind and observant eye,
come away with so many new interesting ideas, answers and questions.
He was a genius, but he wasn't born that way.
His curiosity drove him to learn, discover and master so much that made him so great.
Sure, we will probably never be as brilliant as Leonardo da Vinci was,
but we can channel the spirit that made him so great.
Imagine a world where everyone was more curious and observant,
where everyone tried to ask more questions and seek more answers.
A world more like Leonardo da Vinci.
Now that's a place I want to live.
Leonardo did so much in his life and I simply couldn't fit it all into just one video.
So if you want to learn more about him, I highly recommend reading the book Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.
It's the best book about Leonardo I read whilst doing research for this video
and I'll leave a link to it in the description if anyone is interested.
The audio book is particularly good.
Thanks for watching.
