Read Online Leonardo Da Vinci by Kathleen Krull - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kathleen Krull
Tags: Fiction, General, Juvenile Nonfiction, History, Biography & Autobiography, Medieval, Science & Technology
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so he gladly occupied himself with science. The Vatican had exotic gardens that were perfect for his botanical studies.
Best of all, he was able to use his position to get church permission to do autopsies at San Spirito Hospital. He said they were necessary in the cause of improving his art. He continued doing dissections until an appalled assistant assigned by the pope accused him of conjuring spirits of the dead for evil purposes. Not wanting bad publicity, the pope banned Leonardo from the hospital.
Leonardo was bitter. By this time his eyesight was fading, he wore glasses (of his own design), and he suffered from arthritis in at least one of his hands. There may have been other, unnamed ailments. He probably was treating himself; doctors knew so little that Leonardo always advised people to stay healthy and avoid these “destroyers of lives.”
The newest pages in his notebooks were different. Now he was drawing violent end-of-the-world scenarios: huge uncontrollable surges of water, full of corpses and uprooted trees. The nightmarish images were perhaps his way of confronting his own death, his own doomed race against time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I Will Continue”
IN 1517, LEONARDO made his last journey. To France.
King Francis I of France was obsessed with Italian Renaissance culture and art, and with Leonardo as well. The twenty-year-old new king had met the scientist-artist in 1515 when Leonardo had created a marvelous mechanical lion that actually walked a few steps. It may have been the world’s first robot.
In France, Leonardo’s pleasant new title was Premier Painter, Engineer, and Architect of the King. His chief duty was to chat with the king. It was a cushy job, including a generous salary as well as an elegant manor house called Clos Lucé near the king’s summer palace in Amboise, about a hundred miles outside Paris. On the property were gardens, a fishing stream, vineyards, and a little house just for pigeons. Against the wall of his fully equipped studio, the Mona Lisa stayed propped.
Francis, a great supporter of the arts, considered Leonardo the smartest man alive and gave him the respect due a wise old grandfather. An underground tunnel connected his residence to Leonardo’s, and Francis would drop in often, for long nights of stimulating conversation.
Here was the perfect patron—at last.
By this time, Leonardo’s beard was long and white, and all his teeth were lost. His right hand seems to have gone numb, perhaps from a stroke. But he did not slow down. “I will continue,” he wrote at age sixty-six.
He spent little time on painting or designing contraptions for warfare. He poured all his energy into science, trying to show how the universe operated under orderly laws. The world was rational, not magical; it could be understood.
“That science is the most useful whose results can be communicated,” he reminded himself. He seemed aware that by keeping his work under wraps, he was failing to provide “shoulders” for others to stand on. But he could see that the task of sorting through thirty years of scientific notes was hopeless.
He decided to give it his best shot—to focus on organizing the information on water, painting, optics, and anatomy.
He worked in between visits from distinguished figures. One of his last visitors got a privileged viewing of presentable parts of the notebooks. The pages had to be turned for Leonardo, since his arm was now paralyzed. The visitor raved, “All these books . . . will be a source of pleasure and profit when they appear,” even though, unfortunately, they were written in that “vulgar” tongue, Italian.
Leonardo listed chapter titles—some 120 just for anatomy alone—and gave himself deadlines. He scolded himself for not sticking to the task at hand: “The mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.”
At the same time, he was thinking more about his faith. Certain church practices had
Best of all, he was able to use his position to get church permission to do autopsies at San Spirito Hospital. He said they were necessary in the cause of improving his art. He continued doing dissections until an appalled assistant assigned by the pope accused him of conjuring spirits of the dead for evil purposes. Not wanting bad publicity, the pope banned Leonardo from the hospital.
Leonardo was bitter. By this time his eyesight was fading, he wore glasses (of his own design), and he suffered from arthritis in at least one of his hands. There may have been other, unnamed ailments. He probably was treating himself; doctors knew so little that Leonardo always advised people to stay healthy and avoid these “destroyers of lives.”
The newest pages in his notebooks were different. Now he was drawing violent end-of-the-world scenarios: huge uncontrollable surges of water, full of corpses and uprooted trees. The nightmarish images were perhaps his way of confronting his own death, his own doomed race against time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I Will Continue”
IN 1517, LEONARDO made his last journey. To France.
King Francis I of France was obsessed with Italian Renaissance culture and art, and with Leonardo as well. The twenty-year-old new king had met the scientist-artist in 1515 when Leonardo had created a marvelous mechanical lion that actually walked a few steps. It may have been the world’s first robot.
In France, Leonardo’s pleasant new title was Premier Painter, Engineer, and Architect of the King. His chief duty was to chat with the king. It was a cushy job, including a generous salary as well as an elegant manor house called Clos Lucé near the king’s summer palace in Amboise, about a hundred miles outside Paris. On the property were gardens, a fishing stream, vineyards, and a little house just for pigeons. Against the wall of his fully equipped studio, the Mona Lisa stayed propped.
Francis, a great supporter of the arts, considered Leonardo the smartest man alive and gave him the respect due a wise old grandfather. An underground tunnel connected his residence to Leonardo’s, and Francis would drop in often, for long nights of stimulating conversation.
Here was the perfect patron—at last.
By this time, Leonardo’s beard was long and white, and all his teeth were lost. His right hand seems to have gone numb, perhaps from a stroke. But he did not slow down. “I will continue,” he wrote at age sixty-six.
He spent little time on painting or designing contraptions for warfare. He poured all his energy into science, trying to show how the universe operated under orderly laws. The world was rational, not magical; it could be understood.
“That science is the most useful whose results can be communicated,” he reminded himself. He seemed aware that by keeping his work under wraps, he was failing to provide “shoulders” for others to stand on. But he could see that the task of sorting through thirty years of scientific notes was hopeless.
He decided to give it his best shot—to focus on organizing the information on water, painting, optics, and anatomy.
He worked in between visits from distinguished figures. One of his last visitors got a privileged viewing of presentable parts of the notebooks. The pages had to be turned for Leonardo, since his arm was now paralyzed. The visitor raved, “All these books . . . will be a source of pleasure and profit when they appear,” even though, unfortunately, they were written in that “vulgar” tongue, Italian.
Leonardo listed chapter titles—some 120 just for anatomy alone—and gave himself deadlines. He scolded himself for not sticking to the task at hand: “The mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.”
At the same time, he was thinking more about his faith. Certain church practices had
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