Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

In February of 1517, a son had been born to Queen Claude and Francis I. The king decided to postpone the baptism of the dauphin (the title given to the eldest son of a French King) until May of the following year. At that time there would be a double celebration at Amboise, for a nephew of Pope Leo X, the young Lorenzo de’ Medici, was being married to Madelaine d’Auvergne. As usual, Leonardo was given the assignment of preparing the festivities. Although he was fond of preparing these entertainments, Leonardo now felt the pressure of time; for indeed, the interruptions of this eager young king were sometimes a hardship. He felt that his years were drawing to an end. His notes were unfinished and his dreams of extending man’s knowledge of his world and of himself were hindered not only by such petty chores but also by the limits of his own physical endurance.

As Leonardo was sketching one day from the window of his room where he could see the castle walls and the chapel of Saint-Hubert, he set aside the drawing for a moment to write a memorandum to himself. “Write of the quality of time as distinct from its mathematical divisions.” Was this extraordinary man sensing the road down which Einstein—in his studies of relativity—was to travel hundreds of years later?

Spring arrived again and with it came the first wild flowers and roses, the songs of the birds in the woods and the blossoming of the chestnut trees. The time for the double celebration came, too, and Leonardo was seen busily preparing the decorations and mechanical delights for the large crowds already assembling. In addition to the tournaments-at-arms that so delighted the king, there was to be a mock battle with a besieged city, and for this Leonardo had had constructed imposing castle walls of wood with a backdrop of a city’s spires and towers. The party lasted for weeks, and the climax was performed on the lawns of Leonardo’s house where a great ballroom had been set up. Here he repeated an earlier success, the one that had so enchanted Ludovico’s guests so many years ago in the Sforza castle at Milan. There was again a dome over the ballroom across which the stars moved mechanically and artificial figures representing various gods and goddesses spoke and sang by means of a hidden choir, while the sun and moon shone in their own lights.

This display ended the festivities. It was already late June and Leonardo was anxious to return to his plans for the water route to Italy. There was the area near Sologne which, when flooded, would make the surrounding countryside a marshland. This would have to be drained by the same method as he had planned for the Piombino and the Pontine marshes. Francis I was interested, too, in the improvements Leonardo had suggested for his own castle, and he would have to talk with the castle superintendent about them. As always, there seemed to be so many things to do, to plan, to work on. Then Leonardo wrote in his notes: “On the 24th of June, the day of St. John, 1518, at Amboise, in the palace of Cloux....” and underneath, “I will continue—”

“_I will continue_—” It was almost a note of defiance against the obstacles of advancing age and sickness and the interruptions of the practical world.

The sound of jingling spurs and bridle chains and the snorting of many horses announced another surprise visit from the young king. Leonardo could hear him below shouting something to Battista, the servant who had come to Amboise with Leonardo. Now, as usual, Francis was running up the stairs with all the energy of youth shouting for “le maître” (the master). Resignedly and with patient humor, Leonardo stepped out to greet the king. The gold chains around Francis’ thick neck and over his broad chest glinted in the semi-light of the hall, and he was holding his plumed hat at his side and mopping his forehead with a dainty embroidered handkerchief.

“Master Leonardo! We are going on a tour of the river and I want you to look at the place that I told you about. Where I want to put that bridge. You remember?”

“Sire, give me but a moment to gather some material together.”

A chest was made ready and soon Leonardo was at the door, calling to Francesco and Battista to help him into the saddle of his horse, while the king’s servants hoisted the chest onto one of the carts already piled high with tents and provisions.

When Francis was restless—which was often—a “tour” could mean many hours or many days of travel. Wagons were always kept ready with all the equipment for a long journey and Leonardo, himself, had learned to accept these sudden whims and kept chests of his own ready for any such trip. Now, as always, the king kept his horse reined back out of regard for this tall, stooped man with the long beard and simple clothes.

Yet when Leonardo returned from this “tour” he realized that he could no longer make such trips. The hardships of sleeping in tents, riding over the hot roads, and the necessary work involved in surveying the possible sites for a bridge had left him almost exhausted. He had made one suggestion, however, and that was to build houses that could be carried and then assembled with a few wooden locking devices, then just as quickly taken down and moved to the next place. They could also be left standing where the country people could use them while the court was away. Indeed, such structures would seem to be the ancestors of our own prefabricated houses.

The winter of 1519 was a bitter one. When the cold fog spread over the valley shrouding the bare trees it chilled the big, white-washed rooms of Cloux. The wind blew down from the north sending blasts down the chimneys and scattering ashes and sparks. Leonardo, huddled against the huge fireplace with its roof projecting into the room, pulled his black cloak lined in soft leather around him and reminded himself to include it in his will for Mathurine, the faithful domestic who cooked for him and took care of his house.

The aged Leonardo, who had observed and analyzed so much of man and nature, knew now that his own days were numbered. When the first, pale sunlight of March shone through the small leaded-glass windows of his house, he applied to the king for permission to make out his own will. French law demanded that the property of any foreigner dying in France went to the Crown. The permission was granted, and on April 23, 1519, Guillaume Boureau, the Royal Notary of Amboise was summoned with witnesses.

To his half-brothers in Florence Leonardo left his property at Fiesole and four hundred ducats. To his faithful friend and companion, Francesco de’ Melzi, nobleman of Milan, Leonardo willed his notes, drawings, and paintings. Battista was given the income that Louis XII had granted Leonardo from the tolls of the canal at San Cristoforo near Milan. Mathurine was granted the “good black cloth, trimmed with leather” and two ducats. Moreover, Leonardo outlined in detail the plans for his own funeral, right down to the use of ten pounds of candles.

Too weak now to stand any more, Leonardo was confined to his big four-poster bed with the canopy. From it he could see the tracery of the Chapel of Saint-Hubert against the pale, foreign sky through the little window in the corner. The vicar of the church of Saint-Denis was called, with two priests and two Franciscan friars, and Leonardo received the last sacraments at his bedside.

An entry in his notes reads, “While I thought I was learning to live, I have been learning how to die.” But death was not easy for him. With tears rolling down his sunken cheeks for “his wasted life,” he died on May 2, 1519—fighting even this final interruption to all his work.

King Francis I, who was at St. Germain-en-Laye with his court, wept when the news was brought to him. Francesco de’ Melzi was so overcome with grief that he waited until June before writing to the half-brothers of Leonardo of the Master’s death. He wrote, in part, “He was to me the best of fathers, and it is impossible for me to express the grief that his death has caused me. Until the day when my body is laid under the ground, I shall experience perpetual sorrow, and not without reason, for he daily showed me the most devoted and warmest affection.”

And in a closing paragraph Francesco added these words: “His loss is a grief to everyone, for it is not in the power of nature to reproduce another such man.”

14
_Mankind’s Debt to Leonardo_

When Leonardo died his notebooks began their separate journeys into obscurity. They traveled to different lands and became parts of widely disparate collections. It has only been within the last fifty years that efforts were made to bring them all together between the covers of one volume—a dream that Leonardo himself entertained but never realized. As the manuscripts and drawings were brought to light, translated and published, the extraordinary scope of Leonardo’s scientific explorations was revealed.

Mathematician, anatomist, botanist, astronomer and geologist form only part of the long list of his accomplishments and give the clue to the man who considered all the natural world within his province of study. Because of the universality of Leonardo’s scientific thought he has been frequently mentioned as the forerunner of such men as Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, James Watt, Francis Bacon and William Harvey. Although Leonardo cannot be credited with the actual discoveries that these men made, his methods of investigation pointed the way down the paths that they would follow.

The key to Leonardo’s methods lies in a quotation from his notes on vision. He wrote of vision as _saper vedere_—“to know how to see”—and he referred to the eye as “the window of the soul.” Again and again, he stressed the importance of observation and personal experience. Although he himself was well read, he emphasized that “science comes by observation not by authority.” His supreme talent for drawing underlines his credo and is inseparable from his science. What he saw in the natural world about him needed investigating. The results of these investigations were transformed into drawings as the most certain method for passing this knowledge along to others. The best example of this attitude is represented by his anatomical studies. To merely draw the living figure in front of him was not sufficient—it was imperative to know what he was drawing. He turned to the dissecting room and after intensive study produced some of the finest anatomical drawings in the world—and among the easiest for others to understand.

What Walter Pater wrote of the Renaissance—“in many things great rather by what it designed or aspired to than by what it actually achieved”—could be a summation of Leonardo’s own lifetime of effort in science. He labored to bring mankind from the morass of medieval superstitions onto the firm ground of natural facts. With an insatiable curiosity Leonardo attempted the impossible task of encompassing all knowledge. Thus he established his right to immortality—for it was an attempt that shone like a beacon in a world dark with ignorance.

_Significant Dates in Leonardo’s Life_

1452 April 15. Birth of Leonardo.
1467 Commences apprenticeship with Verrochio in Florence.
1478 Commissioned for altarpiece in the Palace of the
Signoria.
1481 Commissioned to paint an altarpiece for Convent of San
Donato.
1482-83(?) Leonardo leaves Florence for the court of Ludovico
Sforza in Milan.
1483 Begins equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza for
Ludovico.
1484-86 Plague in Milan.
1490 April 23. Recommences equestrian monument and starts
book on light and shade.
1496 Meets with Fra Luca Pacioli, professor of mathematics.
1498 _The Last Supper_ completed.
1499 Apr. Land awarded to Leonardo near Porta Vercellina.
Oct. French occupy Milan. Dec. Leonardo leaves Milan
with Pacioli.
1500 Leonardo arrives in Mantua. Travels to Venice and
returns to Florence.
1502 In the service of Cesare Borgia.
1503 Returns to Florence, commences work on a canal to sea.
1504 Begins the painting of battle of Anghiari. Father dies.
Attempt at flight (?).
1506 May. Leaves Florence for Milan at summons of Charles
d’Amboise, French military governor.
1507 Sept. Goes to Florence to settle father’s will.
1508 July. Returns to Milan.
1511 Works with Marc Antonio della Torre on anatomical
research.
1512 French lose Milan.
1513 Leonardo leaves Milan for Rome. Serves Giuliano de’
Medici, brother of Pope Leo X.
1516 Leonardo leaves Rome for France to serve King Francis I.
1519 May 2. Death of Leonardo.

_Index_

A
Abbaco, Benedetto dell’, 5
Adda river, 124
“Adoration of the Magi,” 29, 30
Adriatic, the, 62, 93
“Air conditioner,” 69
Air, study of, 65, 66, 99
“Alarm clock,” 57
Albert of Saxony, 81
Alessandria, fortress of, 83
Alfonso of Calabria, 38
Alps, the, 37, 67
Amadeo, Antonio, 58
Amadori, Albiera di Giovanni, 2
Amadori, Alessandro, 3, 111
Amboise, _see_ Chateau d’Amboise
Amontons, 134
Anatomy, human, 52, 53, 107, 109, 119, 125-127, 138
Anchiano, 2
Anemometer, 65, 66
Anemoscope, 65
Anghiari, battle of, 103, 110, 113
Aquadello, 124
Aquila, Battista dell’, 139
Arabs, the, 54
Archimedes, 41, 67, 81, 134
Architecture, 50, 58
Argyropoulos, John, 17
Aristotle, 17, 23, 42, 48, 81, 89
Arithmetic, 77
Arithmetico, Benedetto, 16
Armored vehicle, 39, 40
Arno river, 25, 31, 96, 100-106, 109
Arrezzo, 93
Ascanio, Cardinal, 83
Astronomy, 80-82, 104, 105
Atlantic Ocean, 19
“Automobile,” 32, 33
Autopsies, 107
Avicenna, 53

B
Bacon, Francis, 160
Bacon, Roger, 120
Badia, the, 7
Battista, 155, 157
Bayzid II, 94
Beatis, Antonio de’, 151
Bianca Maria, 64
Bible, the, 62, 104, 141
Birds, flight of, 24, 65, 66, 76, 99, 119
Black Death, _see_ Bubonic plague
Blois, 152
Bologna, 144
Bombard, 26
Bombs, 39
Borgia, Cesare, 82, 86-97, 102, 139
Borgias, the, 102
Botticelli, Sandro, 33
Boureau, Guillaume, 156
Bramante, 68, 131
Bridge building, 95
Bubonic plague, 45-47
Buonarroti, Michelangelo, _see_ Michelangelo