Mystery Files (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - Leonardo Da Vinci - full transcript
One of history's greatest artists also invented the tank, the helicopter, and the diving suit...or did he?
He's one of the most famous
multi-taskers of all time--
the original Renaissance man.
An artist, an inventor,
whoseideas outstripped his own age.
The tank, the diving
suit, the helicopter.
But little known evidencehas
come to light that
suggests a different story.
One far less revolutionarythan
commonly believed.
He is very aware of the
knowledge of his time,
and he draws from
this knowledge.
Could it be
thatthis medieval superstar
was not, after all, a
man ahead of his time?
In an investigation,
which delves
into the actual
technological advances
of the 15th and
16th century Europe,
and uses modern tools
to peel back the layers
of this most iconic painting.
We open the mystery
fileson Leonardo da Vinci.
Italy in the 16th century.
One of the greatest
eras of innovation
in arts, engineering,
and science the world
has ever known.
And perhaps its most celebratedfigure
is Leonardo da Vinci.
In the centuries
since his death,
he has been transformed
intoan almost godlike symbol
of the Italian Renaissance.
Renaissance historian,
Monica Azzolini,
is exploring da Vinci's
elevation to the highest
ranks of Italy's great artists.
Leonardo, over time,
has become almost an icon.
So there is this romantic
ideaof the Renaissance genius,
and he has embodied that idea.
So it's very much
a kind of creation
of a myth that
represents all that
is good about the Renaissance.
The
investigationinto how Leonardo
earned cult status
beginsin 1542 in the town
of Vinci in Tuscany.
Leonardo is born the
bastard son of a peasant
girl and respected notary.
Yet despite these
humble beginnings,
Leonardo will go on to
influencethe thinking of virtually
every path of learning.
But it was only long
after his death,
that the staggering
extent of ideas
and disciplines Leonardo turnedhis
talents to becomes clear.
Leonardo's notebooks
becomeaccessible for the first time
in the late 19th century.
The German scholar, Jean
PaulRichter, starts transcribing
and then translates a
largenumber of his notebooks.
And with the publication of
hiswork in the late 19th century,
the content of hisnotebooks
becomes finally,
available and
accessible to scholars.
Astounded by
ideasand inventiveness captured
in his notebooks,
the public begins
to revere Leonardo as somekind
of supernatural genius.
The perception of
Leonardochanges because scholars
realized the vast
amount of his knowledge,
the variety of his
subjects, and therefore
the perception of Leonardoas
a polymath develops.
He begins to be seen as a man
capable of almost anything.
Yet experts are
uncovering evidence
that some of the ideas
in Leonardo's notebooks
may not, after all, have
originated in the mind
of the great man himself.
Leonardo's precocious
talent had, in fact,
brought him in direct
contactwith many of the movers
and shakers of the Renaissance.
In the late 15th
century, the great art
patron, Ludovico Sforza,
seizes the duchy of Milan
from his nephew.
He takes over the family seatin
Milan, the Sforza Castle,
and hires the leading artistsand
engineers to adorn it.
In 1482, Leonardo is invitedto
join Sforza's select circle.
He stays at the
castle for 17 years.
In 1496, Luca Pacioli,
the eminent mathematician,
moves into Sforza's court.
While teaching in Milan,
he gets to know Leonardo,
and Leonardo learns much of
hismathematics from Luca Pacioli.
So there was a sort
ofrelationship of student-pupil.
In 1499, the
French invade Italy,
and Sforza is
toppled from power.
Now without a patron,
Leonardo and Pacioli
leave Milan, but carry
on their collaboration.
Leonardohimself
then haves Pacioli.
He's credited with havingdrawn
the polyhedra, that
is to say the solids thatare
in one of Pacioli's must
distinguish works, the
De divina proportione,
on divine proportion.
The mathematical knowledge
he soaks up while with
Pacioli, underpins
much of the engineering work
hewill later become renowned for,
and maths is not
the only area where
Leonardo learns from others.
Further investigations
appear to have
uncovered the inspirationfor
some of Leonardo's
famous inventions.
The diving suit, thetank,
the flying machines.
Could it be that
thesefuturistic designs were not
conceived by Leonardo da Vinci?
Professor Paolo Galluzzi
has extensively studied
Italy's scientific heritage.
From Florence,
he is wellplaced to investigate
Leonardo's links to
otherengineers of the Renaissance.
If we want to approach
the real Leonardo,
the historical Leonardo,
we haveto put Leonardo into context.
In the
beginningof the Renaissance,
there is a flourishing
oftechnological advancement
in Sienna.
A hotbed of activity,
Sienna becomes a center
of engineering innovation.
Only 50 kilometers
separates the cities.
A new movement
emerges that tries
to combine classicaltechnology
with the development
of experimental devices.
Mariano Taccola is
at the forefront
of this new breed of engineers.
Taccola is a very important step
in is because these
manuscripts are
full of images,
hundreds andhundreds of images of machines.
It is a revolution comparedto
what we had before.
The Italian Renaissance towns
are filled with statues of
theirillustrious former residents,
but Taccola is surprisinglynot
celebrated as extensively.
In spite of this,
five surviving volumes
of this groundbreaking
artist engineer's work
serve as recognition
to his ingenuity,
and the similarities
between Taccola's
drawings and Leonardo'snotebooks
are hard to ignore.
There is even a
figure resembling
the Vitruvian Man, albeit cruderthan
Leonardo's famous drawing.
And there is documentary
evidence that Leonardo
saw Taccola's work.
Francesco di Giorgio,
anotherprominent Sienese engineer,
inherited all of
Taccola's manuscripts,
and based some of
his work on them--
improving the quality of
design and illustration,
just as Leonardo wouldlater
do with di Giorgio's.
Leonardo certainly
owned at least one
of di Giorgio's manuscripts.
One survives fromLeonardo's
personal library
that still has Leonardo'sown
notes in the margins.
I have found only
oneevidence, direct evidence,
of let's call it
quotation, of Taccola
in Leonardo's manuscripts.
But this is enough
to let us suppose--
more than suppose-- thatLeonardo
had access to Taccola.
Francesco di Giorgio inherited
all of Taccola's manuscripts,
and Leonardo owned
one of Francesco's manuscripts.
So there is atransmission of knowledge
from Taccola to Francesco
di Giorgio to Leonardo.
In the Sienese manuscripts,
there are images ofunderwater
breathing devices.
Many of which are surprisingly
similar to Leonardo's.
We have records from early15th
century text of attempts
at putting man in
conditionto go under water.
Leonardo's design seems to be
an amalgamation of all of them.
But like the Vitruvian Man,
Leonardo's drawings have
distinct differences to them.
It's very crude,
very rude drawing,
and you do notunderstand as much as you
understand from Leonardo's.
So Leonardo doesn't invent
the first underwater
diving mask,
but he does significantlyadvance
the prototype.
And it is not just
that Leonardo's
illustrations are
better, he technically
improves the operatus.
Leonardo went on perfecting
all the equipment of the diver.
He's improved the way
of keeping the pipe
for breathing
floating independently
of somebody keeping it on.
He perfected the way
in dressing the diver
with appropriate clothing,
andso he went on developing that
much better than the others.
The tank is
another famous invention
credited to da Vinci.
The discovery of a drawingof
a military siege machine,
centuries ahead of
its time, reinforces
the image of Leonardo as
an engineering genius.
But once again,
historiansthink that the world
has been too quick to credit
daVinci with this ingenious idea.
The Bellifortis is the
firstfully illustrated manual
of military technology
to have been created
in the Western hemisphere.
It is written 50
years before Leonardo
was born by Konrad
Kyeser a physician
and military engineer.
Kyeser is a soldier who triedto
write a handbook on warfare,
and is full of machinesfor
assault, for defense,
and full of drawings
for firearms.
In its pages,
thereis a device which closely
resembles Leonardo's tank.
There are unmistakable
elementsthat Leonardo incorporates,
which first appeared
in Kyeser's drawing.
Kyeser was known
in the north and they
were in touch when Francescodi
Giorgio went to Milan.
So some echoes of
that you can find.
It's not direct quotationor transmission,
but ideas spread like that.
I mean, you have a passageto
one, one goes to another,
and another to a third one.
Once again,
diGiorgio Leonardo's mentor,
would have been the
conduit along which
the information flowed.
It appears Leonardo hasbeen
declared the inventor
of a machine that
was first imagined
many years before he was born.
Although again,
Leonardo'sredesign is superior.
Again, it's not
an original idea.
But what makes the
differenceLeonardo's invention
from earlier depictionis
the quality of design.
Leonardo has also entered
popular culture as a
pioneerin the field of flight.
Allegedly the first tounderstand
aviation principles,
he is now honored
as the inventor
of countless flying devicesto
launch man through the air.
From parachutes, to hang
gliders, to helicopters.
Historian, Doctor
Tobias Capwell,
has come to the English
county of Wilcher
to investigate the life ofone
of Leonardo's forerunners,
Eilmer of Malmesbury.
Eilmer was a monk basedat
the medieval monastery
here in Malmesbury.
He was probably born
in about 980 or 985 AD,
and he probably died
shortlyafter the Norman invasion
in 1066.
His story appearsin
a 12th century manuscript,
and reveals an achievementthat challenges
Leonardo's status as
thetrailblazer of flight design.
In the early 12th century,
another monk of Malmesbury,
William, wrote a history
of England called
"The Deeds of the
English Kings,"
and it's in this
that Eilmer appears.
He was a man
learned for those times,
and in his early youth,
hazardeda deed of remarkable boldness.
He had, by some means,
fastenedwings to his hands and feet
so that he might
fly like Daedalus,
and collecting the breezeupon
the summit of a tower,
flew for more than a Furlong.
But agitated by the
violence of the wind
and the swirling of air,
hefell, broke both his legs,
and was lame ever after.
The most important
part of this story,
actually, as real
history, is the fact
that the historian,
William of Malmesbury,
is not only known to be one
ofour most reliable historians,
but he also comes from the
sameplace that Eilmer came from.
William would have talkedto
people whose grandparents
or great grandparents
had actually seen
Eilmer fly over Malmesbury.
So it's an extraordinary,
almost eyewitness account.
The tower
Eilmerlaunches himself from
is no longer standing,
but the present Abbey
is much the same height.
Peering down from
its roof, we can
appreciate just
how daring Eilmer
was to leap into thin air.
The spot where he is
said to have landed
is still known to villagers,
and is called Oliver's Lane.
Oliver, being the name
Eilmer is mistakenly
given in the 14th
centuryretelling of the story.
According to William
of Malmesbury,
Eilmer stays airborne
for over 200 meters.
That's more than half the heightof
the Empire State Building.
Plotting Eilmer's flight
pathsthrough the village today,
shows just how
impressive his feat was.
The fact that Eilmer crashedand
broke both of his legs,
mustn't at all be taken
tomean that his flight was
unsuccessful.
He started at a
height of 25 meters,
and flew for a distance
of over 200 meters.
That's a respectableflight,
even by modern hang
gliding standards.
So he hadn't quite
workedout the landing bit,
but the flying bit he seemsto
have understood quite well.
However,
the factremains that Eilmer does not
manage to stabilize his device.
Yet analyzing William
of Malmesbury's account,
it is clear that Eilmerhimself
realized his fault.
What's really interestingabout
the historical account
is that he is said
to have remarked
that the reason hisaircraft
was not more stable
was that he had forgotten
to put a tail on it.
So here we have
a medieval person
with the picture of a
modernaircraft in their minds.
So centuries
beforeLeonardo was even born,
people were beginning to
testthe principles of flight,
and it appears Eilmer
is not the only one
to make attempts at
flyingmachines before Leonardo.
Drawings of primitive
flying machines
attributed to Italian
engineerspredate Leonardo sketches.
Leonardo is believed to
haveadapted these ideas to create
his more complex devices.
But on closer examination,
noneof Leonardo's flying machines
are actually the
engineering marvels
they are supposed to be.
A lot has been made ofLeonardo
as a great scientist
and inventor.
And of course,
Leonardo'sdrawings of flying machines
are among the most
famous of his works.
But we mustn't make
the mistake of thinking
that beautiful drawings
are the same thing
as ingenious inventions.
They certainly are not.
None of his flyingmachines
would have worked.
Even his helicopter
designs are flawed.
Leonardo's famous
helicopter was probably
inspired by a flying toy
brought back from China
by European traders, and
indeed, the idea would
probably work as a model toy.
What Leonardo doesn't
seem to have understood
is that you can't just
scale something up.
So if you just made a
giantversion of this Chinese toy,
it still would never be ableto
generate the kind of lift
you would need to
lift a human pilot.
Leonardo's
advancesin the field of flight
appear neither
workable nor unique.
We can say that he copiedand
improved on devices
that were written on.
He's not that unusual
intrying to do these things.
A number of other engineers
that are much less known
to contemporaries nowadays
didtry to achieve similar results
and create similar machineries.
Ironically,
sincehis notebooks came to light,
Leonardo has been
creditedwith inventions he
never took credit for himself.
Meanwhile, the true
creators of the designs
found in the notebooks
have been overlooked.
The image of Leonardo as
anengineering genius living
in an age unprepared for
his groundbreaking ideas
is one which can no
longer be upheld.
It would be unfair, I think,
to see him as somebody who
was ahead of his time when
hewould have himself recognized
that he owed much to
the medieval tradition,
and to the Renaissancetradition
he was living in.
And yet his own contemporaries
heralded him as the man
whocould change the face of art.
Professor Martin Kemp
is a renowned world
expert who has spent
40 years studying
Leonardo and the Renaissance.
They would say thatLeonardo
is what they called
in the Renaissance an ingenue--
a genius.
And yes, he is just the
most astonishing figure.
I mean, somebody whopaints
the Mona Lisa, which
is the world's most
famous picture,
must have something
going for him.
Leonardo's artisticgenius
is recognized early on.
As a boy, he is sent
as an apprentice
to the workshop of the
eminent Verrocchio.
Verrocchio is in the
greattradition of Florentine
multi-skilled artists.
He is probably the
leadingfigure in Florence.
He trained a number
of the major artists.
So it was obviously a
placefor a young man to go.
And Leonardo'sprodigious
talent as an artist
is soon evident.
Early on
he'sknown as a rising star.
He clearly was
regarded as somebody
who was a great talent.
And nowhere
areLeonardo's extraordinary gifts
more clearly illustrated
than in his most famous
painting of all, the Mona Lisa.
Ever since it was stolen
in1911, and the media of the day
seized on the
story, it has become
part of global consciousness,
and Leonardo once again,
propelled into the limelight.
In terms of painting
the Mona Lisa,
it's probably the greatsummary
of what he could do.
Pascal Cot is
an engineer and inventor
who has designed anddeveloped
a pioneering system
of electronic imaging.
He has created a camera thatuses
a multispectral technique
to see every layer
in the evolution
of this remarkable painting.
The camera gives
you the capability
to see the sketch off Leonardo.
So you can reconstructthe
story of the painting.
Renaissance pictures
are very layered things.
They're made up layer
by layer by layer.
And Pascal Cotte's technology
isvery powerful at understanding
both what's on the
surface of the picture,
but also usingparticularly, the infrared,
to look through the surface.
Pascal was grantedrare
access to the Mona Lisa
in the Louvre in
Paris, and allowed
to use his cutting
edgetechnology to investigate
the iconic paintings evolution.
Here at Pascal's lab
inLumiere Technology in Paris,
are the results of his
scans of the Mona Lisa.
Pascal has produced
areplica of the Mona Lisa,
and recreated the scanning
setup to explain how his state
of the art technology works.
An average professional
camera records
around 20 million pixelsand
the three primary colors
or wavelengths of light.
Pascals camera records
240 million pixels
and 13 wavelengths of light.
Four of which are
outsidethe visual spectrum.
So here we have a sampleof
our filter barrel.
You can see a set of 13
filters, and each filter
allows the sensor to see onlya
narrow bandwidth of light.
The sensor
scans the entire surface
with the first filter.
When they are finished, we sweep
again with the next filter.
The visible spectrumfor
each of the 240 million
pixels is calculated
by the camera,
creating a vast level of data.
The results from Pascal'sscans
are a complicated series
of numbers and graphs.
Feeding them back into
thecomputer using software
he has specially
written, he can recreate
virtually the Mona Lisa
atevery stage of its evolution.
Pascal's technology
scientifically
illustrates the painstakingand
complex layering technique
Leonardo uses called sfumato.
He painted in a very
extraordinary way.
He would take a glaze,
that'sto say a binder made from oil,
and he put very
little pigments in it.
So you have a very thin skin oftinted
oil, and that he would
put on a white background.
So you would get this
thin veil of color.
He then put another veil ofcolor
on, another veil of color
on.
So it's almost as if
it's like stained glass.
The light goes
through the pigment,
hits the white background, then comes back.
The scans also revealhow
Leonardo intensifies color
by saturation.
They show how Leonardo does
notsimply add black or a darker
color into his painting
torepresent light and shade,
but blends layer after layerof
color to create the shadows.
This method is so
skillful, no one has
ever successfully emulated it.
It is in his painting
that Leonardo's
true genius is revealed.
And whilst he may not have
beenthe groundbreaking inventor
history has portrayed
him as, the range
of subjects found
in his notebooks
reveal the astoundingbreadth
of his knowledge.
They vary in terms
of topic from botany,
to astronomy, to medicine,
allthe way to issues of painting,
theory of color,
theory of painting,
to span a kind of
wide range of subjects
that it's almost unheard of,
even for the Renaissance.
We have the idea that Leonardois
somebody who has received
a gift possibly from God
orfrom nature that has made him
a kind of God or a magician.
Even though
pophistorians have claimed him
as their own, almost 500
years after his death,
it is Leonardo da Vinci'sartistic
brilliance which has
truly stood the test of time.
multi-taskers of all time--
the original Renaissance man.
An artist, an inventor,
whoseideas outstripped his own age.
The tank, the diving
suit, the helicopter.
But little known evidencehas
come to light that
suggests a different story.
One far less revolutionarythan
commonly believed.
He is very aware of the
knowledge of his time,
and he draws from
this knowledge.
Could it be
thatthis medieval superstar
was not, after all, a
man ahead of his time?
In an investigation,
which delves
into the actual
technological advances
of the 15th and
16th century Europe,
and uses modern tools
to peel back the layers
of this most iconic painting.
We open the mystery
fileson Leonardo da Vinci.
Italy in the 16th century.
One of the greatest
eras of innovation
in arts, engineering,
and science the world
has ever known.
And perhaps its most celebratedfigure
is Leonardo da Vinci.
In the centuries
since his death,
he has been transformed
intoan almost godlike symbol
of the Italian Renaissance.
Renaissance historian,
Monica Azzolini,
is exploring da Vinci's
elevation to the highest
ranks of Italy's great artists.
Leonardo, over time,
has become almost an icon.
So there is this romantic
ideaof the Renaissance genius,
and he has embodied that idea.
So it's very much
a kind of creation
of a myth that
represents all that
is good about the Renaissance.
The
investigationinto how Leonardo
earned cult status
beginsin 1542 in the town
of Vinci in Tuscany.
Leonardo is born the
bastard son of a peasant
girl and respected notary.
Yet despite these
humble beginnings,
Leonardo will go on to
influencethe thinking of virtually
every path of learning.
But it was only long
after his death,
that the staggering
extent of ideas
and disciplines Leonardo turnedhis
talents to becomes clear.
Leonardo's notebooks
becomeaccessible for the first time
in the late 19th century.
The German scholar, Jean
PaulRichter, starts transcribing
and then translates a
largenumber of his notebooks.
And with the publication of
hiswork in the late 19th century,
the content of hisnotebooks
becomes finally,
available and
accessible to scholars.
Astounded by
ideasand inventiveness captured
in his notebooks,
the public begins
to revere Leonardo as somekind
of supernatural genius.
The perception of
Leonardochanges because scholars
realized the vast
amount of his knowledge,
the variety of his
subjects, and therefore
the perception of Leonardoas
a polymath develops.
He begins to be seen as a man
capable of almost anything.
Yet experts are
uncovering evidence
that some of the ideas
in Leonardo's notebooks
may not, after all, have
originated in the mind
of the great man himself.
Leonardo's precocious
talent had, in fact,
brought him in direct
contactwith many of the movers
and shakers of the Renaissance.
In the late 15th
century, the great art
patron, Ludovico Sforza,
seizes the duchy of Milan
from his nephew.
He takes over the family seatin
Milan, the Sforza Castle,
and hires the leading artistsand
engineers to adorn it.
In 1482, Leonardo is invitedto
join Sforza's select circle.
He stays at the
castle for 17 years.
In 1496, Luca Pacioli,
the eminent mathematician,
moves into Sforza's court.
While teaching in Milan,
he gets to know Leonardo,
and Leonardo learns much of
hismathematics from Luca Pacioli.
So there was a sort
ofrelationship of student-pupil.
In 1499, the
French invade Italy,
and Sforza is
toppled from power.
Now without a patron,
Leonardo and Pacioli
leave Milan, but carry
on their collaboration.
Leonardohimself
then haves Pacioli.
He's credited with havingdrawn
the polyhedra, that
is to say the solids thatare
in one of Pacioli's must
distinguish works, the
De divina proportione,
on divine proportion.
The mathematical knowledge
he soaks up while with
Pacioli, underpins
much of the engineering work
hewill later become renowned for,
and maths is not
the only area where
Leonardo learns from others.
Further investigations
appear to have
uncovered the inspirationfor
some of Leonardo's
famous inventions.
The diving suit, thetank,
the flying machines.
Could it be that
thesefuturistic designs were not
conceived by Leonardo da Vinci?
Professor Paolo Galluzzi
has extensively studied
Italy's scientific heritage.
From Florence,
he is wellplaced to investigate
Leonardo's links to
otherengineers of the Renaissance.
If we want to approach
the real Leonardo,
the historical Leonardo,
we haveto put Leonardo into context.
In the
beginningof the Renaissance,
there is a flourishing
oftechnological advancement
in Sienna.
A hotbed of activity,
Sienna becomes a center
of engineering innovation.
Only 50 kilometers
separates the cities.
A new movement
emerges that tries
to combine classicaltechnology
with the development
of experimental devices.
Mariano Taccola is
at the forefront
of this new breed of engineers.
Taccola is a very important step
in is because these
manuscripts are
full of images,
hundreds andhundreds of images of machines.
It is a revolution comparedto
what we had before.
The Italian Renaissance towns
are filled with statues of
theirillustrious former residents,
but Taccola is surprisinglynot
celebrated as extensively.
In spite of this,
five surviving volumes
of this groundbreaking
artist engineer's work
serve as recognition
to his ingenuity,
and the similarities
between Taccola's
drawings and Leonardo'snotebooks
are hard to ignore.
There is even a
figure resembling
the Vitruvian Man, albeit cruderthan
Leonardo's famous drawing.
And there is documentary
evidence that Leonardo
saw Taccola's work.
Francesco di Giorgio,
anotherprominent Sienese engineer,
inherited all of
Taccola's manuscripts,
and based some of
his work on them--
improving the quality of
design and illustration,
just as Leonardo wouldlater
do with di Giorgio's.
Leonardo certainly
owned at least one
of di Giorgio's manuscripts.
One survives fromLeonardo's
personal library
that still has Leonardo'sown
notes in the margins.
I have found only
oneevidence, direct evidence,
of let's call it
quotation, of Taccola
in Leonardo's manuscripts.
But this is enough
to let us suppose--
more than suppose-- thatLeonardo
had access to Taccola.
Francesco di Giorgio inherited
all of Taccola's manuscripts,
and Leonardo owned
one of Francesco's manuscripts.
So there is atransmission of knowledge
from Taccola to Francesco
di Giorgio to Leonardo.
In the Sienese manuscripts,
there are images ofunderwater
breathing devices.
Many of which are surprisingly
similar to Leonardo's.
We have records from early15th
century text of attempts
at putting man in
conditionto go under water.
Leonardo's design seems to be
an amalgamation of all of them.
But like the Vitruvian Man,
Leonardo's drawings have
distinct differences to them.
It's very crude,
very rude drawing,
and you do notunderstand as much as you
understand from Leonardo's.
So Leonardo doesn't invent
the first underwater
diving mask,
but he does significantlyadvance
the prototype.
And it is not just
that Leonardo's
illustrations are
better, he technically
improves the operatus.
Leonardo went on perfecting
all the equipment of the diver.
He's improved the way
of keeping the pipe
for breathing
floating independently
of somebody keeping it on.
He perfected the way
in dressing the diver
with appropriate clothing,
andso he went on developing that
much better than the others.
The tank is
another famous invention
credited to da Vinci.
The discovery of a drawingof
a military siege machine,
centuries ahead of
its time, reinforces
the image of Leonardo as
an engineering genius.
But once again,
historiansthink that the world
has been too quick to credit
daVinci with this ingenious idea.
The Bellifortis is the
firstfully illustrated manual
of military technology
to have been created
in the Western hemisphere.
It is written 50
years before Leonardo
was born by Konrad
Kyeser a physician
and military engineer.
Kyeser is a soldier who triedto
write a handbook on warfare,
and is full of machinesfor
assault, for defense,
and full of drawings
for firearms.
In its pages,
thereis a device which closely
resembles Leonardo's tank.
There are unmistakable
elementsthat Leonardo incorporates,
which first appeared
in Kyeser's drawing.
Kyeser was known
in the north and they
were in touch when Francescodi
Giorgio went to Milan.
So some echoes of
that you can find.
It's not direct quotationor transmission,
but ideas spread like that.
I mean, you have a passageto
one, one goes to another,
and another to a third one.
Once again,
diGiorgio Leonardo's mentor,
would have been the
conduit along which
the information flowed.
It appears Leonardo hasbeen
declared the inventor
of a machine that
was first imagined
many years before he was born.
Although again,
Leonardo'sredesign is superior.
Again, it's not
an original idea.
But what makes the
differenceLeonardo's invention
from earlier depictionis
the quality of design.
Leonardo has also entered
popular culture as a
pioneerin the field of flight.
Allegedly the first tounderstand
aviation principles,
he is now honored
as the inventor
of countless flying devicesto
launch man through the air.
From parachutes, to hang
gliders, to helicopters.
Historian, Doctor
Tobias Capwell,
has come to the English
county of Wilcher
to investigate the life ofone
of Leonardo's forerunners,
Eilmer of Malmesbury.
Eilmer was a monk basedat
the medieval monastery
here in Malmesbury.
He was probably born
in about 980 or 985 AD,
and he probably died
shortlyafter the Norman invasion
in 1066.
His story appearsin
a 12th century manuscript,
and reveals an achievementthat challenges
Leonardo's status as
thetrailblazer of flight design.
In the early 12th century,
another monk of Malmesbury,
William, wrote a history
of England called
"The Deeds of the
English Kings,"
and it's in this
that Eilmer appears.
He was a man
learned for those times,
and in his early youth,
hazardeda deed of remarkable boldness.
He had, by some means,
fastenedwings to his hands and feet
so that he might
fly like Daedalus,
and collecting the breezeupon
the summit of a tower,
flew for more than a Furlong.
But agitated by the
violence of the wind
and the swirling of air,
hefell, broke both his legs,
and was lame ever after.
The most important
part of this story,
actually, as real
history, is the fact
that the historian,
William of Malmesbury,
is not only known to be one
ofour most reliable historians,
but he also comes from the
sameplace that Eilmer came from.
William would have talkedto
people whose grandparents
or great grandparents
had actually seen
Eilmer fly over Malmesbury.
So it's an extraordinary,
almost eyewitness account.
The tower
Eilmerlaunches himself from
is no longer standing,
but the present Abbey
is much the same height.
Peering down from
its roof, we can
appreciate just
how daring Eilmer
was to leap into thin air.
The spot where he is
said to have landed
is still known to villagers,
and is called Oliver's Lane.
Oliver, being the name
Eilmer is mistakenly
given in the 14th
centuryretelling of the story.
According to William
of Malmesbury,
Eilmer stays airborne
for over 200 meters.
That's more than half the heightof
the Empire State Building.
Plotting Eilmer's flight
pathsthrough the village today,
shows just how
impressive his feat was.
The fact that Eilmer crashedand
broke both of his legs,
mustn't at all be taken
tomean that his flight was
unsuccessful.
He started at a
height of 25 meters,
and flew for a distance
of over 200 meters.
That's a respectableflight,
even by modern hang
gliding standards.
So he hadn't quite
workedout the landing bit,
but the flying bit he seemsto
have understood quite well.
However,
the factremains that Eilmer does not
manage to stabilize his device.
Yet analyzing William
of Malmesbury's account,
it is clear that Eilmerhimself
realized his fault.
What's really interestingabout
the historical account
is that he is said
to have remarked
that the reason hisaircraft
was not more stable
was that he had forgotten
to put a tail on it.
So here we have
a medieval person
with the picture of a
modernaircraft in their minds.
So centuries
beforeLeonardo was even born,
people were beginning to
testthe principles of flight,
and it appears Eilmer
is not the only one
to make attempts at
flyingmachines before Leonardo.
Drawings of primitive
flying machines
attributed to Italian
engineerspredate Leonardo sketches.
Leonardo is believed to
haveadapted these ideas to create
his more complex devices.
But on closer examination,
noneof Leonardo's flying machines
are actually the
engineering marvels
they are supposed to be.
A lot has been made ofLeonardo
as a great scientist
and inventor.
And of course,
Leonardo'sdrawings of flying machines
are among the most
famous of his works.
But we mustn't make
the mistake of thinking
that beautiful drawings
are the same thing
as ingenious inventions.
They certainly are not.
None of his flyingmachines
would have worked.
Even his helicopter
designs are flawed.
Leonardo's famous
helicopter was probably
inspired by a flying toy
brought back from China
by European traders, and
indeed, the idea would
probably work as a model toy.
What Leonardo doesn't
seem to have understood
is that you can't just
scale something up.
So if you just made a
giantversion of this Chinese toy,
it still would never be ableto
generate the kind of lift
you would need to
lift a human pilot.
Leonardo's
advancesin the field of flight
appear neither
workable nor unique.
We can say that he copiedand
improved on devices
that were written on.
He's not that unusual
intrying to do these things.
A number of other engineers
that are much less known
to contemporaries nowadays
didtry to achieve similar results
and create similar machineries.
Ironically,
sincehis notebooks came to light,
Leonardo has been
creditedwith inventions he
never took credit for himself.
Meanwhile, the true
creators of the designs
found in the notebooks
have been overlooked.
The image of Leonardo as
anengineering genius living
in an age unprepared for
his groundbreaking ideas
is one which can no
longer be upheld.
It would be unfair, I think,
to see him as somebody who
was ahead of his time when
hewould have himself recognized
that he owed much to
the medieval tradition,
and to the Renaissancetradition
he was living in.
And yet his own contemporaries
heralded him as the man
whocould change the face of art.
Professor Martin Kemp
is a renowned world
expert who has spent
40 years studying
Leonardo and the Renaissance.
They would say thatLeonardo
is what they called
in the Renaissance an ingenue--
a genius.
And yes, he is just the
most astonishing figure.
I mean, somebody whopaints
the Mona Lisa, which
is the world's most
famous picture,
must have something
going for him.
Leonardo's artisticgenius
is recognized early on.
As a boy, he is sent
as an apprentice
to the workshop of the
eminent Verrocchio.
Verrocchio is in the
greattradition of Florentine
multi-skilled artists.
He is probably the
leadingfigure in Florence.
He trained a number
of the major artists.
So it was obviously a
placefor a young man to go.
And Leonardo'sprodigious
talent as an artist
is soon evident.
Early on
he'sknown as a rising star.
He clearly was
regarded as somebody
who was a great talent.
And nowhere
areLeonardo's extraordinary gifts
more clearly illustrated
than in his most famous
painting of all, the Mona Lisa.
Ever since it was stolen
in1911, and the media of the day
seized on the
story, it has become
part of global consciousness,
and Leonardo once again,
propelled into the limelight.
In terms of painting
the Mona Lisa,
it's probably the greatsummary
of what he could do.
Pascal Cot is
an engineer and inventor
who has designed anddeveloped
a pioneering system
of electronic imaging.
He has created a camera thatuses
a multispectral technique
to see every layer
in the evolution
of this remarkable painting.
The camera gives
you the capability
to see the sketch off Leonardo.
So you can reconstructthe
story of the painting.
Renaissance pictures
are very layered things.
They're made up layer
by layer by layer.
And Pascal Cotte's technology
isvery powerful at understanding
both what's on the
surface of the picture,
but also usingparticularly, the infrared,
to look through the surface.
Pascal was grantedrare
access to the Mona Lisa
in the Louvre in
Paris, and allowed
to use his cutting
edgetechnology to investigate
the iconic paintings evolution.
Here at Pascal's lab
inLumiere Technology in Paris,
are the results of his
scans of the Mona Lisa.
Pascal has produced
areplica of the Mona Lisa,
and recreated the scanning
setup to explain how his state
of the art technology works.
An average professional
camera records
around 20 million pixelsand
the three primary colors
or wavelengths of light.
Pascals camera records
240 million pixels
and 13 wavelengths of light.
Four of which are
outsidethe visual spectrum.
So here we have a sampleof
our filter barrel.
You can see a set of 13
filters, and each filter
allows the sensor to see onlya
narrow bandwidth of light.
The sensor
scans the entire surface
with the first filter.
When they are finished, we sweep
again with the next filter.
The visible spectrumfor
each of the 240 million
pixels is calculated
by the camera,
creating a vast level of data.
The results from Pascal'sscans
are a complicated series
of numbers and graphs.
Feeding them back into
thecomputer using software
he has specially
written, he can recreate
virtually the Mona Lisa
atevery stage of its evolution.
Pascal's technology
scientifically
illustrates the painstakingand
complex layering technique
Leonardo uses called sfumato.
He painted in a very
extraordinary way.
He would take a glaze,
that'sto say a binder made from oil,
and he put very
little pigments in it.
So you have a very thin skin oftinted
oil, and that he would
put on a white background.
So you would get this
thin veil of color.
He then put another veil ofcolor
on, another veil of color
on.
So it's almost as if
it's like stained glass.
The light goes
through the pigment,
hits the white background, then comes back.
The scans also revealhow
Leonardo intensifies color
by saturation.
They show how Leonardo does
notsimply add black or a darker
color into his painting
torepresent light and shade,
but blends layer after layerof
color to create the shadows.
This method is so
skillful, no one has
ever successfully emulated it.
It is in his painting
that Leonardo's
true genius is revealed.
And whilst he may not have
beenthe groundbreaking inventor
history has portrayed
him as, the range
of subjects found
in his notebooks
reveal the astoundingbreadth
of his knowledge.
They vary in terms
of topic from botany,
to astronomy, to medicine,
allthe way to issues of painting,
theory of color,
theory of painting,
to span a kind of
wide range of subjects
that it's almost unheard of,
even for the Renaissance.
We have the idea that Leonardois
somebody who has received
a gift possibly from God
orfrom nature that has made him
a kind of God or a magician.
Even though
pophistorians have claimed him
as their own, almost 500
years after his death,
it is Leonardo da Vinci'sartistic
brilliance which has
truly stood the test of time.