25 Fascinating Facts about Leonardo da Vinci That Were Hidden By History
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the great movers and shakers of his time. These days, though, most people only remember him for a few paintings.
The REAL life and times of Leonardo da Vinci is likely to blow your mind. Keep reading to learn all about it!
1.
Leonardo Da Vinci fully intended for his works to be published and left them to his pupil, who couldn't get through the writing and only managed to compile a treatise on painting in his lifetime, with the rest of his papers sold off by disinterested heirs.-deleted user
2.
Leonardo da Vinci designed a robotic knight operated by cables. When modern engineers built a replica based on the designs, it was functional.-u/ThePinkTeenager
3.
Leonardo Da Vinci saved 13,000+ pages of notes and drawings on anatomy, physiology, engineering, mechanics, geometry, mathematics, bird flight, flying machines, botany, proportions, topology, weaponry, musical instruments, art, and more, all in mirrored shorthand written from right to left.-u/wjbc
4.
Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli once plotted to steal the Arno River from Pisa when the city was at war with Florence.-u/video-kid
5.
Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" as it exists today is largely a modern reconstruction. The painting was already severely deteriorated within sixty years of being painted, and has since suffered flooding, bombing, French revolutionaries, a scratchy curtain and use as a prison cell.-u/Nihil-Novi
6.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote “all the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk”. In 2011 Christophe Eloy investigated and found that trees that followed Leonardo's rule would be the best at resisting wind-induced fracture.-u/jamescookenotthatone
8.
Ginevra de Benci is the only Leonardo da Vinci painting to be located in the Western Hemisphere (in Washington DC).-u/GPFlag_Guy1
9.
Leonardo da Vinci never had a last name because he was born out of wedlock, thus leading to his “last name” being da Vinci (of Vinci) because the town he was born in was called Vinci.-deleted user
10.
Leonardo Da Vinci once conducted an experiment to understand the flow of blood through the valves of the heart, by pouring hot wax into one, making a mold of thin glass from the cast, and then pumping water mixed with seeds through it. He saw how a heart actually regulates itself.-u/Tokyono
11.
Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" was sold at auction in 1958 for £45, and again in 2005 for under $10,000. In 2011, it was authenticated as a Leonardo original. It was then sold in 2013 for $75 million, sold again for $127.5 million, and later sold at auction in 2017 for $450.3 million.-u/malalatargaryen
12.
The most expensive manuscript in existence is the Codex Leicester, a notebook written by Leonardo Da Vinci. When adjusted for inflation, it is worth $53 million and is currently owned by Bill Gates.-u/famously_decent
13.
Adoration Of The Magi is an unfinished work by Leonardo da Vinci commissioned by a Florentine monastery in 1480. Consistent with his proneness to abandon projects, he eventually grew bored with it, simply left, and moved to Milan. The monastery paid Filippino Lippi to complete it instead.-u/SojourningCPA
14.
Leonardo da Vinci was a wedding planner before becoming famous as a painter. The Last Supper's table layout was originally a layout he designed for the Duke of Milan's 1491 wedding.-u/TBTabby
15.
Despite being one of the leading artists of the High Renaissance, only fifteen of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings have survived. The small number of surviving paintings is due in part to Leonardo's frequently disastrous experimentation with new techniques and his chronic procrastination.-u/jcd1974
16.
In 1998, the City of Des Moines, Iowa rejected a pedestrian bridge design for being "too modern." The design was based on plans made by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1504.-u/Rock-Hawk
17.
Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting widely attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. It is his only known male portrait painting. It shares many similarities with other paintings Leonardo executed such as the Virgin of the Rocks and the Lady with an Ermine.-u/thisCantBeBad
18.
Leonardo DiCaprio was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when he first kicked.-u/deputy_diarrhea
20.
One of the few references that Leonardo Da Vinci made to sexuality in his notebooks states: "The act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions."-u/chilledManGoneWrong
21.
Early Italian renaissance people, such as Leonardo da Vinci, never saw or tried tomatoes in their lives.-u/CTPAYC
22.
A pupil in Andrea del Verrocchio's workshop, Leonardo da Vinci was asked to paint an angel in his work, The Baptism of Christ. Verrocchio, on seeing the beauty of the angel that his young pupil had painted, never painted again.-u/lopezjessy
24.
Leonardo Da Vinci's last words were: "I have offended God and Mankind, by doing so little with my life."-u/arenorT
25.
Leonardo DaVinci used to buy caged animals at the market just to set them free.-u/thugnificent856
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