Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind - pages 349-379

From Charles Nicholl’s book, Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind, I read pages 349-379. These pages were particularly interesting because they dealt with Leonardo da Vinci’s time with Il Valentino, the bridge from Constantinople to Pera, the canal project on the Arno River, and the beginning of the Mona Lisa.

Cesare Borgia, commonly known as Il Valentino, was Leonardo da Vinci’s patron from 1501 to 1502. Leonardo was Borgia’s military engineer. Borgia became intrigued with Leonardo when Borgia set his eyes on the new Turkish threat. Leonardo was to design a machine that could attack the Turks from underneath the water. In other words, a submarine. It was in 1501, when Borgia established his court in Imola. For the year of 1502, Leonard focused on making details maps of Imola and the surrounding area. The notebooks from the year 1502 are filled with maps of every kind. As 1502 turned into 1503, Borgia and Leonardo moved toward Rome, where Leonardo left Borgia’s service.

 

Sometime in 1503, Leonardo designed a bridge that would traverse from Constantinople to Pera. He even sent a letter with his designs to Constantinople to be considered. We don’t know the response Leonardo’s bridge had in Constantinople. However, on October 31, 2001 Venjørn Sand unveiled an 100 yard version of Leonardo’s original design. Sand’s bridge is a pedestrian bridge that spans over a motorway in the town of Aas, 20 miles south of Oslo, Norway. The bridge cost £1 million. It is one of many designs of Leonardo’s designs that have traveled through time into the modern age.

 

 

 

Leonardo’s canal project on the Arno River was a relatively short lived project that ended when disaster struck; the Arno River flooded and killed 80 people.

It is after this disastrous canal project that Leonardo started on his most famous project, the Mona Lisa. Very little is known about this famous painting. Today, the Mona Lisa is at the Louvre in Paris, France. The Mona Lisa is also called La Joconde (France) and La Gioconda (Italy). It is from the Italian name that many historian believe the identity of the Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo. Another theory on the translation of the name is Playful Woman or the Joker Lady. However, most believe the identity of the Mona Lisa is Lisa del Giocondo. Lisa del Giocondo was born Lisa di Antonmaria Gherardini to a wealthy Florentine. She married Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo when she was fifteen. The woman depicted in Leonardo’s painting is believed to be in her 20s. While most of the evidence points to Lisa del Giocondo, no one truly knows the identity of the woman Leonardo painted. Not only is the Mona Lisa surrounded in mystery because of unknown woman’s identity, but the painting itself has a unique history has well. The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Perugia and wasn’t seen again until 1913 when Vincenzo Perugia tried to return the painting to Italy. Vincenzo Perugia was arrested later that year.

 

While the Mona Lisa is an interesting and diverse subject, what I really enjoyed about these 30 pages was how diverse Leonardo’s projects were. The brief history of 1501 to 1503 was diverse in terms of projects and locations. Leonardo traveled from Imola to Siena to Florence. It shows that Leonardo was advanced way beyond the 16^th century. However, it was amazing that powerful people were commissioning Leonardo for many of these projects. This shows that people of the 16^th century were truly interested in the ideas of Leonardo. Many times when a person is advance beyond their time, the leaders tend to ignore or ridicule them. That does not seem to be the case for Leonardo. These 30 pages prove that. He has a man with many interests and he proudly followed those interests, even when the solution to those interests wouldn’t be realized for 500 years.