I had an opportunity to work on several full size Da Vinci recreations several years ago and I couldn’t help but notice that while parts of his inventions seemed brilliant other aspects seemed totally out of touch. It raised suspicions in me that he had copied these ideas from someone else. As usual I may not have a lot to contribute here but am curious as to others thoughts on this.
In the first place, his name wasn’t Da Vinci. It was Leonardo. da Vinci means he was from a place named Vinci. Using da Vinci as a stand-alone surname (particularly with a capital D), betrays some presentist misconceptions that makes you seem uncomfortably like Dan Brown, an impression I am sure you do not wish encourage.
In the second place, what inventions are you referring to? What aspects seemed “out of touch,” and why? Whom do you suspect Leonardo of copying?
My impression is that he had the sort of mind that saw mechanism, invention and opportunity in everything he laid eyes upon - the disparate nature of his writings (if such is indeed true) seems to me more the product of a mind brimming over with ideas, and limited time/resources to document them all fully.
Another thing is we shouldn’t give Leonardo too much credit. He didn’t actually build the things he drew pictures of. All he did was come up with concepts. He was essentially doing science fiction not science. Claiming Leonardo da Vinci invented the helicopter is like claiming Gene Roddenberry invented the transporter.
Without knowing much about the subject im guessing the answer is no. Its a bit like the argument that Shakespeare did not write his Plays. There seems a modern determined effort(I dont mean by you necessarily) to demean such great figures. It is rarely 2nd rate figures being picked on in such a way, invariably it is the most famous of them. I dont think this is coincidence.
I still believe Leonardo to be a genius in his own right. My impression was that working for the king he had the opportunity to entertain the king with far out ideas that were not particularly well thought out. From a mechanical standpoint most of the projects I worked on were basicaly sound needing some fine tuning. His knowledge of material properties when it came to wood were way out of touch. He grossly over estimated the power he could harness from bending wood.
I’d have to disagree: it’s quite conventional. A quick Google finds it used by National Geographic, Scientific American, and other respectable popular sources.
We don’t insist on George Washington and Thomas Jefferson; we often speak of Washington and Jefferson. Excessive formalism is the sign of shallow scholasticism.
Excellent. So, you are going to refer to “of the United Kingdom” as a surname for Queen Elizabeth now?
As far as the OP is concerned, Leonardo’s biggest problem was that many of his designs needed materials which did not exist in his time or were very expensive. Aluminium for one.
He was a noted gunsmith and made several studies of ballistics and the cannons he designed were actually built and used.
Washington and Jefferson were their last names.
Would you go up to Joan of Arc and say “Miss Arc, your skirt’s on fire?”
ETA: Actually I should have said “Miss of Arc.”
If he meant to plagiarize things he would have published them and taken the credit. Most of what we know about Leonardo’s never-built inventions and scientific research comes from his unpublished notebooks – apparently he didn’t dare publish them, for fear of angering the Church or the mob. His public face was that of an artist and military/civil engineer. Even there he was cagy – I think Mythbusters once tried building Leonardo’s hand-cranked battle-tank, according to his diagrams, and found they couldn’t make it go – until they changed the arrangement of one of the gears or something and then it worked perfectly; he seems to have designed the tank as a purely conceptual exercise, and included a crippling design flaw for fear somebody might actually build and use the thing.
By the way, she was not called Joan of Arc, there is no such place in France as Arc (though there are two rivers named Arc); her name was Jehanne Darc and someone mistakenly interpolated an apostrophe after the “D.”
The crew I was with was building full size versions of his models and we were to build them exactly as drawn with no engineering touch ups. The cannons worked great. I was only involved in the designs that needed bending wood for power. But helpe out here and there with the others. The tank could have worked but would have been difficult to transport. The bridge was the same if memory serves me right. Most of the shows have never been shown on TV yet. The wood powered catapults could have worked for throwing small bombs but not for heavy stones. We also built a self loading crossbow machine where one man simply walked on a giant hampster wheel and another man sat inside putting arrows in the right place. This could have also worked. The helicopter was a disaster.
I’ve tried arguing this one before. It’s a surname as much as many other surnames are based on location extraction - it’s just a retrofitted surname.
If calling him ‘Da Vinci’ is wrong (and I am not about to insist otherwise), calling him ‘Leonardo’ is vague and potentially confusing until the context is made clearer.
ETA: What I mean, I think, is that the careful writer should first name him as Leonardo da Vinci, then it’s OK just to subsequently say Leonardo
Interesting. Kind of like the incorrect name Homer of Oh.
Remind me to bake you a pie of some sort.
HBDC, why do you think they were copied, instead of mistakes or conceptual drawings. He certainly may have followed up on existing ideas, there’s nothing wrong with that. Are you aware of something he actually produced or claimed to have originated that was someone else’s work?
These were notes and drawings he made, not necessarily blueprints for actual construction. I’ve built things that couldn’t have worked based on my initial sketches, Da Vinci* worked on some of his ideas and developed them further.
*If you’re confused, who did you think I was referring to? Fred Da Vinci?
I was not unclear on whom was meant by either Of Torrance nor by Of rhode island.
There is no doubt that Leo was influenced by others (don’t want to get into the name tangent, and really he and I always were on an informal name basis :p). He had no formal education early on, but because of his artistic talents was apprenticed as a sculptor, getting at least part of a classical education in the arts at least. I think some of the seeming contradiction between his brilliance and out of touch with reality, however, is that a lot of the things he wrote about and drew/sketched never actually got built, and no matter how brilliant you are there is always a disconnect between conceptual drawings and actual, physical engineering. There is a big difference between sketching something on paper and actually building it. Also, since his early life had him as a sort of itinerant (military/city defense) engineer, painter, sculptor and all around talent, some of his stuff was designed more to be his portfolio to impress the various princes and powerful families that they should hire him because, well, he had all these cool drawings that look martial and, you know, cool, so he’s probably really good. They weren’t necessarily meant to every be built in reality (or, if someone would pay him, he’s work out the engineering and reality from the basic conceptual drawing after the check cleared).
I don’t object to the Leonardo da Vinci styling; just Da Vinci alone.
No, he just thought “out of the box.”