Leonardo's Inventions at the Clos Luce

Leonardo da Vinci was the true "Renaissance Man": able to do it all. Not only was he the innovative artist and painter we continue to celebrate today, 500 years after he lived, he was also a musician, mathematician, philosopher, scientist, draftsman, architect, engineer, and inventor centuries ahead of his time.

Many of Leonardo’s technological designs were so conceptually advanced that they could not be realized during his 67 years on the planet. Ideas for such machines as the helicopter, hang glider, and armored tank were only a few of Leonardo’s inventions considered impractical, even crazy, by his contemporaries. Today, at the Clos Lucé - the home given to Leonardo by French King, Francois I, and where he spent the last three years of his life - you can find three-dimensional replicas of these and many other inventions conceived by Leonardo.

Thanks to the IBM Corporation, 40 da Vinci machines are on display at the French home of the former Tuscan master. Created using Leonardo’s own plans and sketches, they reveal his intellect as a military engineer, town planner, and mechanical genius capable of conceptualizing both the nature of hydraulics as well as the possibility of human flight.

Even in his lifetime, Leonardo was valued as an engineer. He devised numerous devices for protecting and besieging enemy cities, such as moveable barricades, catapults, and repeat-action weaponry. In 1502 he designed a 720 ft (240 m) bridge for Sultan Beyazid II of the Ottoman Empire intended to span the mouth of the Bosporus River. Beyazid did not pursue the project, believing the construction to be impossible. However, 504 years later, in 2006, the Turkish government went ahead with Leonardo’s plans and built the bridge over the Golden Horn.

Leonardo died at the Clos Luce on May 2, 1519, in the arms of his friend and patron. The two had met only four years before when Francois I’s army captured Milan. The French King appreciated Leonardo’s genius right away and brought him to the Loire Valley to live out the rest of his life tinkering with his inventions. Twenty years after the Renaissance Man’s death, the King is reported to have said, “There had never been another man in the world who knew as much as Leonardo”.

Despite being the birthplace of the Renaissance, today’s Italy is not yet fully connected to the wireless world. This is the first time in eight days that I’ve been able to find a hotspot and send you a new post. Thanks for your patience with me, dear readers. I’ll be back at home and posting regularly again soon!

Images:

Engraving of Leonardo da Vinci, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Replica of Leonardo's helicopter propeler, courtesy of Anima and Wikimedia Commons.

Model of di Vinci armored tank, courtesy of Matilda and Wikimedia Commons.

The Golden Horn at sunset, courtesy of Bertilvidet and Wikimedia Commons.

Art & Architecture - Renaissance France

Easter Sunday. We rose before dawn in Paris, but didn’t breakfast until clearing the crowds of holiday travellers at Orly Airport, making our one-hour flight, renting a car, and driving to the Leaning Tower of Pisa just as the bells chimed 10:00. On the way to Florence, we passed a turn-off for the village of Vinci, prompting discussion in our miniscule baby-blue Fiat 500 about whether this had been Leonardo’s hometown. Just last year we visited his home in France, and final resting place, to view replicas of his inventions: the Clos Lucé, located in the Loire Valley town of Amboise, had been provided Leonardo by his friend and benefactor, King Francois I (1494-1547). When Leonardo died in 1519, Francois lived just down the hill at the Château d’Amboise, one of many chateaux built by the King credited with bringing the Renaissance from Italy to France.

Upon succeeding to the throne in 1515, Francois pursued a series of wars in Italy in an attempt to unseat his sworn enemy, Charles V, as Holy Roman Emperor. He failed, but he did manage to capture the city-state of Milan. He immediately fell under the spell of the city’s art and architecture. Like Florence, Milan had by then been transformed by Renaissance style and ideals. Thus, from the earliest years of his reign, Francois I strove to bring the beauty of the northern Italian states back to Paris and the Loire Valley.

He built or renovated numerous Loire Valley châteaux in Renaissance style: Amboise, Blois, as well as the magnificent Château de Chambord, which some believe Leonardo designed. Francois rebuilt the Louvre, transforming it from an imposing crenellated medieval fortress into a welcoming Renaissance palace. He financed the building of Paris’ Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), constructed the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, and refurbished the Château de St-Germain-en-Laye to the northwest of Paris. But his most extensive building project was the reconstruction and expansion of the royal Château de Fontainebleau. Luxurious both inside and out, including a central fountain said to mix wine with water, Fontainebleau became Francois’ favorite royal residence.

Francois I was also a great patron of the arts. He supported a number of period writers and developed a royal library filled with rare books and manuscripts. He also encouraged many of Italy’s great painters and to come to France to teach their French contemporaries.

By the time Leonardo da Vinci made it to France he was an elderly man and no longer painting, having earlier suffered a stroke. But he brought with him many now famous works, including the Mona Lisa, known in French as La Joconde. These works stayed in France upon his death, and along with paintings by Italian such masters as Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael – all procured during the reign of Francois I – they make up part of the royal collection now on display at the Louvre Museum.

We finished the day at a 15th century Renaissance-style Tuscan Abbey, listening to the monks chant their ritualistic prayers. Amid the Gregorian song and smell of incense, we were as transfixed by the wood-inlay perspective renderings lining the walls of the chapel choir as we were soothed by the monk-produced red wines and hazelnut liqueur that later accompanied Easter dinner.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_I_of_France
http://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Warrior-Patron-Reign-Francis/dp/052157885X
http://www.librarything.com/work/14788

Images:
All images courtesy of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.