Leonardo da Vinci - a man ahead of his time.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, near Florence in the family of a wealthy notary. He emerged as a master, being trained at Andrea del Verrocchio in the 1467-1472 years. Work methods in the Florentine workshop of the time, where the work of the artist has been closely interfaced to technical experiments, as well as familiarity with the astronomer Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli encouraged the birth of scientific interests of young Leonardo.

Leonardo was the first major order: write an altarpiece in the chapel of the town hall, the Palazzo Vecchio (the altarpiece for the chapel of St. Bernard in the palace of the Signoria). Then have Leonardo as later produced preliminary experiments with colors, made numerous sketches. As a result, the work has not been completed, and in 1483 the order was given to another person. The plot is unknown.

Who was Leonardo? Judging by his abilities and capabilities - that clearly superhuman. For example, the outline of the flight of birds in his "Diary" moth only be performed in the presence of a slow-motion. Diaries Leonardo hit his strange phrase: to himself "you", he gives himself orders and instructions as a slave or servant, "Command the show itself ...", "you are in his work is to show ...».

It seems that Leonardo simultaneously coexisted two personalities: one of them was known to all for its friendly, had some human weakness, and the other was very strange, secretive, obscure, and it is this second dispose of all his actions, giving orders. < br />
Being the genius of the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo however, was so strange that causes Scientists do not even amazement and awe and bewilderment. Even a cursory glance at its potential leads a person into a state of shock: not a mere mortal, even as a particularly talented, to be both an artist and a brilliant engineer, and sculptor and chemist, and inventor and physicist and scientist and philologist, and visionary, musician, and architect, and swordsman, and swimmer, and rider, and many others. Looks Leonardo also did not remain indifferent: He was very tall, slim and beautiful enough to face that he was nicknamed "angel", while he was still very strong: being left-handed, he could easily crush a horseshoe with his right hand.

Our contemporaries Leonardo is known primarily as a painter. In addition, it is possible that Da Vinci could be a sculptor: Researchers at the University of Perugia - Giancarlo Gentilini and Carlo Sisi - claim that they found in 1990 terracotta head is the only extant sculptural works by Leonardo da Vinci. However, the Da Vinci in different periods of his life considered himself first and foremost as an engineer or scientist. He gave the visual arts are not a lot of time and work slowly. Therefore, the artistic legacy of Leonardo not quantitatively large and the number of his works has been lost or severely damaged. However, its contribution to world culture is extremely important, even against the background of a cohort of geniuses who gave the Italian Renaissance. Thanks to his work the art of painting passed to a new stage of its development. Prior Renaissance artists Leonardo resolutely refused many of the conventions of medieval art. It was a movement towards realism and a lot has been achieved in the study of perspective, anatomy, more freedom in composite solutions. But in terms of scenic beauty, with paint, painters were still rather tentative and stiffness. Line painting is clearly delineated on the subject, and the image looked like a painted picture. Most conditional was a landscape which played a secondary role. Leonardo realized and embodied a new painting technique. His line has the right to blur, because the way we see it. He realized the phenomenon of light scattering in the air and the occurrence of sfumato - haze between the viewer and the image of the object, which softens the contrasts of color and line. As a result, the realism in painting went to a qualitatively new level.

His contemporaries said that Leonardo was also a great magician and sorcerer. He could create out of the boiling liquid flames, pouring wine into a liquid; one blow could break the cane, it does not break the glass on which was put the cane; slobber end of the pen and writing on paper in black. All that went through da Vinci, so impressed his contemporaries, that they thought that he is "black magic", especially since around him were constantly quite strange and dubious figures such as Giovanni Tommaso Masini, who called himself Zoroaster de Peretola, which was both an adept of secret science, and mechanics, and a jeweler.

Among other possibilities, the Leonardo da Vinci had the foresight and it seems that this ability even surpassed his prophetic gift of the famous Nostradamus. In 1494, the year he made a series of records that paint a picture of the future of the world, many of them have come true, and others are now coming true.

Judge for yourself:

"People will talk to each other from the most distant countries, and to respond to each other" - it is, of course, talking about the phone.

"People will go, and will not move, will talk to those who do not, will hear the one who does not speak" - TV, record on tape, audio playback.

"People ... will own particular instantly disperse to different parts of the world without moving" - the transfer of television image.

"You see yourself falling from great heights without any harm to you" - apparently parachuting.

Leonardo even foresees travel into space: "And many terrestrial and aquatic animals will rise among the stars ..." - start living creatures into space.

Leonardo, to sharpen his perception of the world and develop the imagination, practicing special exercises psycho. He seemed to have the keys to the mysteries of the human psyche, many of which are not open yet so far. For example, he used a special formula of sleep: sleep every 4 hours to 15 minutes, thereby reducing their daily sleep up to six hours instead of the usual eight.

Made da Vinci inventions and discoveries cover all areas of knowledge, fully anticipating the direction of development of modern civilization. In 1499, Leonardo for a meeting of the French King Louis XII constructed a wooden mechanical lion, which, after a few steps, flung open his chest and showed the insides, "filled with lilies." The scientist is the inventor of the suit, submarine, ship, flippers. He has a manuscript, which shows the ability to dive to great depths without a spacesuit through the use of a special gas mixture (a secret which he deliberately destroyed). In order to invent, it had a good understanding of the biochemical processes of the human body, which do not have known at the time! It was he who first proposed to be installed on armored vehicles battery of firearms (gave the idea of ​​a battleship!), Invented the helicopter, bicycle, glider, parachute, tank, gun, poison gas, a smoke screen for troops, a magnifying glass (100 years before Galileo!). Da Vinci invented textile machines, weaving machines, machines for the manufacture of needles, powerful cranes, drainage of wetlands through the system of pipes, arched bridges. He created drawings collars, levers and screws designed to raise enormous gravity - a mechanism that has not been in his time. It is amazing that Leonardo describes in detail the machinery, although they could not do at the time, due to the fact that the ball did not know (but Leonardo himself knew it - Save the corresponding figure). Sometimes it seems that the Da Vinci just wanted to know more about the world by collecting information. Why is it he needed in such form and in such numbers? Answer he left.

Leonardo da Vinci is unique! Never, neither before nor after the more history does not know such a versatile and around a man of genius! So who was the great Leonardo? ...