Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 16, Episode 4 - Leonardo: The Man Who Saved Science - full transcript

Narrator:
Leonardo da Vinci is one

of the world's greatest artists.

His masterpiece,
the "Mona Lisa,"

is known to everyone.

Millions view it every year.

"The Last Supper"
is a landmark of art history.

But Leonardo was more
than a painter.

It's in the pages
of his notebooks

that we find the true Leonardo,

the man of science.

He investigated
an astounding range of subjects.



Man: Leonardo's science cannot
be understood without his art,

and his art cannot be understood
without his science.

Narrator: Leonardo drew
everything he saw

and everything he imagined.

He pushed science forward
in the fields of anatomy,

engineering, optics, geology.

Most of these disciplines didn't
even have names at the time.

His notebooks contained plans
for hundreds of technologies

common today:
machine guns, diving suits,

cranes, robots, flying machines.

His inventions have given him
the status of a towering genius,

a prophet who anticipated
the modern age.

But was he?

As researchers probe



Italy's 15th-century
technical revolution,

they're discovering
precedents for many

of Leonardo's
most remarkable innovations.

Some are from Leonardo's
contemporaries.

Others predate him
by a thousand years.

Could it be that Leonardo is not
the legendary, isolated genius

we take him for,
but has, in fact,

presented the work
of others as his own?

Is Leonardo da Vinci
truly an original?

Narrator: At his death in 1519,

Leonardo was a famous artist,

but his scientific achievements
were less well-known.

His notebooks, written
in a secretive reverse script,

went unpublished
for more than 400 years.

They provide insights
about the dynamic period

in which he lived,
but they also raise questions.

Some of his sketches
are very similar

to those of other inventors.

Did Leonardo steal their ideas?

One of the many inventions
attributed to Leonardo

is the parachute.

Bartolomeo!

[Both grunting]

You must do it.

But, Maestro Leonardo,
I'm scared!

Ludovico Sforza is
down there waiting for us.

Come on!
No, Maestro.

Ask Zoroastro!
da Vinci: No!

You tested it
and you have to do it.

No, Maestro!

My dear Bartolomeo,

surely once you've
tasted flight,

you will walk forever

with your eyes turned
skywards,

for there you have been

and there you will
always long to return.

Narrator: It's not known
for certain

if Leonardo ever used
his parachute.

His written notes are
difficult to decipher--

perhaps purposely--
and there are

no physical remains of any
of his inventions,

no way to tell for sure
if any of them passed

beyond the idea stage.

But in 1482,

he was in the service
of Ludovico Sforza,

the Duke of Milan,
a warrior prince interested

in any invention
with military application,

like swooping down
on enemies encamped

at the foot of a high cliff.

And what did you bring for us
today, Maestro Leonardo?

Duke Sforza, my lord.

Today I will demonstrate
an ingenious apparatus

by which a man can leap

from any height
without injury.

For instance,
it could be used

to escape from
a tower on fire.

Now!
[Screaming]

Look up there!

Whoo hoo!

Sforza: Maestro Leonardo,
you always amaze us.

How do you come up
with such ideas?

Narrator: But did Leonardo
really invent the parachute?

In 1968,

researchers examining
a trove of drawings

discovered sketches
from the studio

of a 15th-century inventor
that were remarkably similar

to Leonardo's study
for a parachute.

The inventor--Mariano di Jacapo,
known as Taccola.

[Man speaking Italian]

Translator: This drawing,
the design for a parachute,

is the oldest known to us,

and it is very similar
to Leonardo's.

It was found in
a manuscript conserved

at the British Library
in London.

Leonardo knew manuscripts

from the Sienese
engineering tradition,

and he even refers
to Taccola's drawings

in his manuscripts.

[Bernardoni speaking Italian]

Translator: There are
actually two drawings.

The second is a flying man
without a parachute,

although the subject is similar.

He is holding two sticks with
two fabrics, like two wings.

It is a much more
primitive design

that goes back
about 15 years,

before Leonardo's drawing.

Narrator:
Taccola was an engineer

of the early Renaissance,
70 years older than Leonardo.

He was among the first
to use drawing as a design tool.

Before him, engineers worked out
their inventions

as they built them,
through trial and error.

His manuscripts detail civil
and military machines;

some original, others copies
of ancient inventions.

And just as Leonardo copied him,

Taccola's idea is copied
from a Muslim inventor,

Abbas ibn Firnas,

who, the story goes,
leapt from the minaret

of the Córdoba Mosque
in the year 852

and suffered
only minor injuries.

Bartolomeo:
Oh, Maestro...

Narrator: So why is
Leonardo remembered

as the inventor of
the parachute?

[Man speaking Italian]

Translator: In the
"Codex Atlanticus" notebook,

we find Leonardo's parachute,

but we know it's not
really his invention.

Leonardo copied it from Taccola
and took inspiration from him.

The most incredible thing is
that Leonardo is the first

to write about the material
needed to make this object--

cloth made of waxed flax--
so that the air

doesn't come through
and it becomes waterproof,

like the feathers of birds.

For the first time, he describes
how this object has to be built.

He's the only one
to think about the dimensions.

There's another
interesting thing

on this other part of the sheet.

We find a lot more subjects.

Leonardo wrote many pages about
how to build a flying machine,

and here, we find five
or six examples of them.

In these small sketches,
Leonardo shows himself

as more than an artist
or some insane inventor.

For the first time,
we see Leonardo da Vinci

the scientist,
and this is really amazing.

Narrator: Leonardo copied dozens
of Taccola's inventions:

the screw pump,
a device to raise water...

...the life preserver,
adapted by Taccola

to float armored knights
across rivers...

...and the snorkel,

though Leonardo's version
is more developed,

with floaters to ensure air flow

and valves to counter
water pressure.

He relies on science,
Taccola on fantasy.

Taccola died the year
Leonardo was born,

but he cast a long shadow

and was a powerful inspiration.

The young Leonardo encountered
Taccola's drawings

in the course
of his artistic apprenticeship,

beginning in 1467

at 15 years old.

Man: Leonardo!

Leonardo!

Narrator:
Andrea del Verrocchio,

master of the greatest
of the many artistic workshops

in Florence,
challenged Leonardo,

fired his passion, and began
the transformation

of this uneducated country boy
from the town of Vinci.

Man: A small town
or a large village,

where nature came right up
to your door and your window,

so he was immersed
in natural forms.

He was immersed in a landscape
which one sees repeated

over and over
in his paintings and drawings.

And I think, perhaps,
the most profound legacy

of his childhood was
his supreme

mental independence.

And this independence of mind,
um, feeds on into Leonardo

as a--a thinker,
as a philosopher,

as a scientist.

Narrator: Leonardo's father paid
for his apprenticeship,

even though he was born
illegitimate.

The idea was to provide him
with a trade.

Under Verrocchio,
he studied architecture,

engineering, and mechanics,
as well as painting.

All were considered art
in the Renaissance.

Artists were trained
as craftsmen,

not intellectuals.

He never had
a formal education.

[Speaking indistinctly]

Uh, the studio
of Andrea de Verrocchio was, uh,

extraordinarily versatile

and varied in its output.

Paintings were certainly one of
its major outputs, but only one.

Verrocchio himself was
primarily a sculptor,

and one has to think, really,
of a sort of communal workspace,

full of the smells and sounds
of light industry.

[Sighs]

The workshop of Verrocchio
was not only a place

where Leonardo learned
all kinds of skills,

it was also a place
of intellectual excitement.

For one thing,
the master painters

who had left
the workshop came back

to learn the newest techniques,

to discuss the latest
about oil painting;

uh, people like Botticelli
or Ghirlandaio,

Perugino, who were
master painters,

would hang out with Verrocchio,
come in the evenings

to discuss the newest
developments.

So Leonardo had
a tremendous inspiration

in all kinds of knowledge,

and I think his tremendous
scientific curiosity

also may have been triggered
in this workshop culture.

Leonardo.

Maestro.

Nicholl: His interest
in machinery would have been

considerably quickened in 1471,

when he was probably part of
the team of Verrochio's studio,

which was entrusted
with the task of putting

the copper orb right
on the top of the lantern

above the dome
of Florence Cathedral.

So the technical problems

of getting
a two-ton ball of copper

up 300 meters to the top
of Brunelleschi's dome

required the use
of some pretty complex

and robust machinery, and it
would seem to be at that point

that Leonardo's interest in the
work of Filippo Brunelleschi--

the architect of the dome
and the great engineer

of the earlier Florentine
Renaissance--takes shape.

Narrator: For a long time,
Leonardo is credited

with inventing the construction
machines in his notebooks,

but they are actually copies
of Brunelleschi's,

invented 50 years earlier
to raise the duomo,

and used again by Verrocchio.

[Speaking French]

Translator: I think we have
to insist on the fact

that the Renaissance is
also a Renaissance of machines,

a technical Renaissance.

For example,

in Florence,

the Dome of Brunelleschi
was first of all

a highly technical achievement

which involved complex
mathematical calculations,

and many young students
came to Florence

so they could study the dome.

Narrator:
In Verrocchio's studio,

Leonardo's mind was forged

by artists and architects

who were transforming the world
through their works

and through the power
of a new intellectual movement,

humanism.

[Speaking French]

Translator: Humanism is
a cultural movement

that really takes form
and gains power

in the first three decades
of the 15th century.

Humanists believed in
a better future for humankind

and the potential
for a better man,

and perhaps this is
the fundamental break

with medieval culture
which was marked

by a sort of
fundamental pessimism.

Narrator:
Brunelleschi's dome

is one of the great
architectural achievements.

To construct it, he studied
the monumental ruins

of classical antiquity,

reviving long-forgotten
building techniques.

The rediscovery
of ancient Greece and Rome

is the foundation of humanism.

In the Middle Ages,

the ruins of imperial Rome
seemed a mystery.

Centuries of invasions,
plague, and decay

had erased the memory
of Rome's grandeur.

Even Latin had fragmented
into regional languages.

The long cultural chain leading
from Greece to Rome

was broken.

But in the 14th century,
Florence saw

a new class of merchants
and bankers prosper

as a result
of international trade.

They were drawn to the glories
of the classical world,

paying fortunes
for ancient manuscripts found

in isolated monasteries

and distant libraries.

In 1439,

the most powerful family
in Florence,

the Medici, played host

to the Byzantine emperor
and his court.

Thirteen years later,
the emperor's capital,

Constantinople, fell
to the Ottoman Turks.

Greek scholars fled to Florence.

Bringing manuscripts
from the thousand-year-old

Imperial Library, they became
teachers and translators.

The encounter between East
and West kicked

the fledgling Renaissance
into high gear.

[Speaking French]

Translator: It's at this moment

that the concept
of the Middle Ages,

the Dark Ages is invented.

And at the same time,
the concept of Renaissance,

"the return of the light,"
is born.

It's the idea
that for decades,

wisdom was somehow hidden
from humans.

But reading
the ancients directly,

rediscovered in newly
translated texts

unknown during the Middle Ages,
gives the power

to access this treasure
of knowledge.

Suddenly, they have
direct access

to the hidden understanding

somehow lost
over the last ten centuries.

Narrator: Caught up
in the humanist fervor,

Cosimo de' Medici hired
translators and scribes

to copy ancient manuscripts.

His goal was to create
a universal library

containing every written work.

[Speaking French]

Translator: Cosimo de' Medici
invited a group of humanists

to settle in his villa
outside Florence,

Villa Careggi.

Translator: They created what we
would call today an academy,

a place where humanists
would meet to talk,

to play the lyre.

It was, at heart,
a political program

to increase the power
of the family.

It starts with Cosimo
and will continue

with his grandson,

Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Narrator: Lorenzo de' Medici was
just three years older

than Leonardo,
but he was a product

of an elite humanist education.

Like his grandfather Cosimo,

he was determined
to advance humanism

and his family's power
and prestige

through the patronage
of artists and scholars.

[Indistinct chatter]

Narrator:
But for wealthy patrons

and aristocratic humanists,

artists and engineers were
little more than simple workmen.

A commission usually included
a detailed description

of the scene,
the colors, the size,

even the number of angels.

There was little room
for creativity.

de' Medici!
de' Medici!

It's Lorenzo!
He's here!

Are you sure?

Absolutely sure!
Let's go!

Nicholl: Lorenzo de' Medici
was a major client

of the Verrocchio studio,

but the evidence
that he supported Leonardo

seems to me pretty patchy.

In fact, I'd say there was
rather some opposite evidence

to show that Lorenzo
considered Leonardo,

uh, a-an unreliable sort
of character.

[Artists shouting]

Narrator: Already, Leonardo
had a reputation

as distracted and irresponsible.

He left paintings unfinished

and abandoned commissions,
even after being paid.

And it only got worse when,

after ten years
of apprenticeship,

he left Verrocchio
and set out on his own.

[Laughter]

It's a kind of obscure period
in the biography

and, uh, it's slightly clouded

by--by a couple of run-ins

with the authorities
in connection

with his homosexuality.

Uh, the officers of the night,
as they were called--

uh, what we might call
the vice squad, uh--

received a report
about a certain young man

and about other young men,
or men, who, uh,

frequented his company at night
for immoral purposes,

and Leonardo is on--
one of the men on that list.

Nicholl: I have a feeling
that Leonardo is experiencing

some uncertainty,
some self-doubt.

He realizes the limits
of his power,

the limits of his, uh, status.

He described himself
as "omo sanza lettere,"

"an unlettered man";
he meant he hadn't had

the sophisticated,
Latinate schooling.

da Vinci: They say that I,
having no literary skill,

cannot properly express that
which I desire to treat of.

But they do not know that
my subjects are to be dealt with

by experience
rather than by words.

Though I may not, like them,
be able to quote other authors,

I shall rely on that which is
much greater and more worthy--

on experience, the mistress
of their masters.

Machiavelli has a line
in one of his plays:

"If you don't have power
in Florence,

even the dogs won't bother
to bark at you."

And I think there's probably
a feeling with Leonardo,

a--a sense of exclusion
from the more sophisticated,

polished, intellectual world.

Narrator: The only way
to financial security

for an artist was
to find a patron,

a prince willing to retain
his services in his court.

Leonardo knew
that Lorenzo de' Medici

would never support him,
so he looked elsewhere,

to Milan, where the young duke
Ludovico Sforza

was assembling artists
and scholars to create

what he called "a new Athens,"

and the duke paid well.

Leonardo set out
to draft a resumé.

da Vinci:
My most illustrious lord,

I beg leave to present
myself to you

and to discover
to Your Excellence

my secrets of war.

I will make covered vehicles,

safe and unassailable,

which will penetrate the enemy
and their artillery,

and there's no host
of armed men so great

that they would not break
through it.

I have also types of cannon
most convenient

and easily portable,
with which to hurl small stones

almost like a hailstorm,

and the smoke from the cannon
will instill a great fear

in the enemy on account of
the grave damage and confusion.

Where the use of the cannon
is impracticable,

I will install catapults,
mangonels,

trebuchets,
and other instruments

of wonderful efficiency
not in general use.

[Boom, horse neighs]

Narrator: For two centuries,
the Italian peninsula

had been torn
by nearly constant warfare.

Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples,

and the Papal States
all vied for dominance,

sometimes allied
with outside powers.

Leonardo had never seen war,

but he knew the labor market.

Military engineers were
in high demand.

Still, he adds a footnote...

da Vinci: What's more,
I'm a sculptor.

I can execute figures
in bronze, marble, and clay.

Likewise, in painting,

I can do everything possible
as well as any other man,

whosoever he may be.

I'm the man you need.

[Taddei speaking Italian]

Translator:
In the "Codex Atlanticus,"

there is something very strange.

It's a resumé,
the first resumé in history

made by Leonardo da Vinci.

But Leonardo introduces himself
as a military engineer

who makes secret weapons,
incredible submarines,

assault bridges.

But the most bizarre
and incredible thing

is that Leonardo is lying.

Why is he lying?

He's still young and comes
from Verrocchio's studio.

How could he be such an expert
in military engineering?

He's not, but here is
his genius.

Leonardo is not stupid.

He does what
any intelligent person would do.

He studies.
He studies a lot.

This is the famous book
of Roberto Valturio,

printed just before Leonardo
leaves for Milan.

Leonardo uses it as a source.

It is an encyclopedia
of military weapons.

We see Leonardo's
famous scythed chariots

taken from this book.

Leonardo is inspired
by this book.

He studies every single page
and copies all these machines

and gives them to the duke
as his own inventions.

Here, we see
something beautiful,

perhaps the ancestor
of Leonardo's tank.

It is an armored tank with guns.

One can hide cannons inside.

Narrator: In 1472,

Valturio's
"On the Military Arts"

was among the first illustrated
printed books.

Leonardo turned to it
not out of curiosity,

but desperation.

He needed to sell himself
to the Duke of Milan.

But his improvements
on Valturio led to some

of his most famous inventions:

combat wagons, siege machines,

even a machine gun.

Translator: This is
a spheroidal machine gun.

Leonardo understood

that just having many cannons
is not enough.

If your enemy can run fast
or even fly,

this machine gives you the power
to chase him from left to right,

but one can also move it
like a modern gun.

Thanks to the central sphere
inside the gun,

one can follow the enemy
even if he is moving.

It's a fantastic machine.
It could even work today.

We rebuilt it for the first time
with its original dimensions,

just like Leonardo conceived it.

Nicholl: Leonardo arrived
in Milan in the spring of 1482.

He found a city
much bigger than Florence,

much less like a town
and more like a metropolis.

Um, he also found
a very cosmopolitan city;

there were a lot of influences
percolating down

from across the Alps, let's say,

so it was something of
a crossroads of trade,

and therefore also
of ideas and techniques.

Narrator: The spirit of
the city was dynamic,

entrepreneurial, practical.

Milan suited Leonardo,

and though the duke did not
immediately hire him

as a military engineer,

Leonardo set up
a studio for painting.

[Music playing]

Nicholl:
Leonardo's first commission

by--from the Duke of Milan,
Ludovico Sforza,

was a portrait
of Ludovico's mistress,

Cecilia Gallerani,

a wonderful portrait known
as "The Lady With an Ermine."

It's full of life and movement,

full of vitality,
full of that wonderful movement

of the--of the sitter
towards the painter,

as if momentarily capturing her,
uh, about to speak,

that way Leonardo has
of capturing women in particular

in a moment of suspended
or potential animation.

Narrator: In Milan, Leonardo
found a fresh atmosphere

that sparked his curiosity.

Narrator: And he found
new inspiration

in the scientific spirit
of the universities

and booming book trade.

The printing press was invented

about the time
Leonardo was born.

It was a communications
revolution,

like the Internet today.

In just 30 years,

more books were printed
than had been copied

in all the Middle Ages.

The cost of a book
dropped by 80%.

Books opened
a new world for Leonardo;

he could read
the ancients directly,

a source of inspiration

that would ignite
his scientific impulse.

Capra: These advances

of humanist science
and philosophy

would not have been possible

without this tremendous
technological breakthrough,

the invention of printing.

In fact, there were
two inventions

that--that contributed.

One was the movable type,
typography,

and the other one is--
was engraving,

where you could present pictures
in a way that could be

multiplied infinitely
without deteriorating,

and so this had
two consequences.

Dissemination was
much more rapid,

and it was much more precise.

Would you be interested
in this book?

Why, yes, certainly.

[Bell tolling]

When he arrived in Milan,

he had no books,
not a single book,

at the age of 30.

Eight years later,
he had about 35 books,

and another--I don't know--
ten years later,

he had about 200 books.

These were books
of science and philosophy

by, uh--the classical books
about mathematics,

about botany, astronomy,
anatomy, and so on.

So he had the books
of a Renaissance scholar,

and he actually became
a Renaissance scholar.

[Reading aloud
in Latin]

[Women giggling]

Narrator: But the untutored
Leonardo needed Latin.

[Women giggling]

Narrator: At the age of 35,
he began memorizing verbs

like a schoolboy.

[All giggle]

Narrator: Zoroastro,
court mechanic and magician,

came from Florence
to assist Leonardo,

who was finally appointed
ducal engineer,

responsible for everything
from canal-building

to staging royal entertainments.

Leonardo found new colleagues

attracted to the dynamic city
and the free-spending duke,

men determined to reinvent
themselves and their society:

Luca Pacioli, Leonardo's tutor
in mathematics,

whose book
"The Divine Proportion"

was illustrated by Leonardo...

Francesco di Giorgio Martini,

the most celebrated
military architect of his time

and source for some
of Leonardo's war machines...

Donato Bramante,

painter turned architect.

He brought the high
Renaissance style to Milan

and would go on to design
Saint Peter's in Rome.

His ironic fresco,
"Heraclitis and Democritus,"

is a double portrait of himself
and his friend Leonardo,

the only image of Leonardo
from the period.

He's an opportunist
in many ways, Leonardo.

He learns what he needs to learn
for a particular purpose

and for a particular
situation.

And his situation
as sort of, as it were,

entertainments manager
for the Milanese court,

uh, might not seem that
congenial put in those terms,

but it did enable him to channel
all sorts of interests--

technical, scientific,
engineering interests--

as well as the pictorial,
sort of poetic interests

that he has as an artist.

[Music playing]

Narrator: For the men and women
of the Renaissance,

there was little difference
between technology and magic.

Seemingly controlled
by unknown forces

and hidden powers,

Leonardo's spectacles
filled people

with curiosity and wonder.

He went so far as to invent
a prototype robot

just for the duke's
entertainment.

[Taddei speaking Italian]

Translator: Leonardo is said
to have invented the car,

but it's not a car.

He studied
in Verrocchio's studio,

where, in addition
to paintings and sculptures,

they made theatrical objects,
and this is probably

a magical theatrical device--

Leonardo's robot.

Why a robot?

Because it is programmable.

Leonardo invented these systems.

These simple rods
already existed,

but Leonardo conceived them
as something new.

If I put these rods
in this position--

one, none, or many--

these two levers will touch
the pedals from time to time,

and the cart will move
from right to left.

[Taddei speaking Italian]

Translator: For the first time,
he creates a robot

with its own internal energy,

a robot that does what
Leonardo wants it to do.

[Wheels creaking]

[People murmur]

[Applause continues]

[Applause abates]

[Taddei speaking Italian]

Translator: This is a dream
that takes us back

to Leonardo's predecessors;

people like Heron of Alexandria,

who created magical objects
for the fun and wonder

of making things
that never existed before.

Narrator: Leonardo's robots
copy inventions made

a thousand years earlier,

during a Greek scientific
revolution in Alexandria.

There, the first-century
engineer Heron

compiled a book
of temple magic...

the world's first
vending machine for holy water,

and a self-propelled cart.

Leonardo had a summary
of Heron in his library.

The 12th-century Arab Golden Age

preserved and advanced
the science of Alexandria.

Inventor and engineer
Ibn al-Jazari updated Heron

with Indian and Chinese
technologies encountered

with the spread of Islam.

His ingenious clockworks
and automatons

used control devices like those
in Leonardo's cart.

Advanced Arabic works
on mechanics, astronomy,

mathematics, and optics made
their way to Europe

through Muslim Spain
or through Medici's agents,

sent to Persia and Syria
in search of manuscripts.

Man: Leonardo had
actually referred

to the "Book of Optics,"
Alhazen, Ibn al-Haytham.

Now, he is a guy who had come--

faced two philosophical,

two theoretical explanations
of how we see,

and what he did is he
carried out experiments

to verify what he
thought how we see

and developed what we call
the dark room or dark box,

which became the pinhole camera

and then we refer to
as the camera obscura.

Now, he says that you should
always doubt what you read,

even if you have
to doubt yourself,

but you must prove things
by experiment,

so experimentation began
to take, uh,

a lot of, uh, interest
in that society.

Narrator: Leonardo's notes show
he was familiar

with al-Haytham's "Optics,"

written in 1021.

It's the source of his interest
in the camera obscura,

where a small hole acts
as a lens

to project
a brightly lit exterior

on the opposite wall
in a darkened room.

Narrator: Leonardo was not
a prophet of the future.

He discovered a distant past,

where a much more advanced
technology had existed,

lost to the West
with the fall of Rome.

Ibn al-Haytham arranged
three candles

in a row in
a dark room.

He put a screen
with a small hole

between the candles
on the wall

and noted that
images were formed.

Capra: Leonardo certainly
was very influenced

by, uh, Arabic scholars.

His experimental method,

his empirical method, uh,

somehow came from his reading
of these texts

because these,
uh, uh, Arab scholars

were not bound by--
by religious doctrine.

Uh, Islam left them
complete freedom

to--to do the science,
the philosophy,

their reinterpretations
of Aristotle.

Narrator: In reinventing
an ancient technology,

Leonardo also reinvented
something that had been lost

for centuries--

the scientific experiment.

His detailed observations
and carefully drawn results

paved the way
for modern research methods.

Books start to mean
something to him,

and it's hard to know exactly
what this change of attitude,

uh, signals, but I suppose
it's the desire to--

it--it goes with that
newly encyclopedic idea

that Leonardo has for himself,
that all branches of knowledge

are within his reach,
and that he--as what he calls

the painter/philosopher--must
acquire knowledge of all sorts.

And indeed, there is a sort
of bewildering multiplication

of his interests around
about the same time

as he starts to acquire
and collect books.

[Insects chirping]

Although nature begins with
reason and ends with experience,

we must do the opposite--
to begin with experience,

and from this,
to investigate the reason.

Narrator: In 1482,

a translation of Ptolemy
was printed

from a newly discovered
Greek manuscript.

The second-century mathematician

created the Earth-centered model
of the universe held

by Alexandria, Islam,
and Europe

for over 1,200 years.

Leonardo turned his attention
to the geometry of the night.

Ptolemy held that the moon
and planets shine

with their own light.

As a test, Leonardo embarked
on an imaginary voyage.

He placed himself
outside the earth.

He realized that moonlight

is really reflected sunlight,

and that the dim light
that makes the body of the moon

just visible at crescent is
reflected from the earth--

earthshine.

Anyone standing on the moon
when it and the sun

are both beneath us
would see our earth

and the element
of water upon it,

just as we see the moon,

and the earth would light it,
as the moon lights us.

The earth is not the center
of the sun's orbit,

nor at the center
of the universe,

but in the center
of its companion elements

and united with them.

Narrator:
"The sun does not move."

His cryptic phrase was written
a hundred years before Galileo,

but never developed further
in his notebooks.

A theory of the heavens?

Notes for a spectacle?

Impossible to say.

Leonardo believed
that the same force

that moved the heavens
moved the body;

as above, so below.

The form of the cosmos
was reflected in the human form.

And just as
the map of the heavens

went unchanged for centuries,

so too did the map of the body.

Doctors relied
on illustrations inherited

from ancient Greece and Persia.

Leonardo would conduct
his own medical examinations.

First sign of Leonardo's,
uh, actual practical involvement

in anatomy and dissection

is some wonderful, slightly
eerie drawings of a skull,

uh, dateable to about 1489.

One of the drawings
makes it clear

that at least one
of his interests is

to establish by a sort
of grid-referencing

the particular location

of the sensus communis, which is
an Aristotelian concept,

the communal sense, where all
the sensory impressions

go into the brain and was where

a man's soul could be found.

Narrator:
Leonardo's first dissections

were in search of the soul.

Narrator: His guide, a newly
published manual of anatomy

by Mondino de Liuzzi,
would remain the authority

for 250 years.

Capra: Even though he was
a mechanical genius,

he never treated the body
as a machine.

He said that nature
has given the body

or has given animals
mechanical instruments,

but the source of the movement
comes from the soul--

which is not mechanical,
which is spiritual--

and by that,
he meant immaterial,

and he actually traced back
the sensory nerves

to the center of the brain,

which he considered
to be the seat of the soul.

Narrator:
In the center of the brain,

he found three small cavities--
the ventricles--

the site, he was certain,
of Aristotle's sensus communis.

[Zoroastro reading aloud
in Italian]

The soul appears to reside in
the judicial part,

and the judicial part
seems to be the place

where all the senses
come together,

the sensus communis,

and the sensus communis
is the seat of the soul.

[Zoroastro continues reading]

Narrator: While Leonardo's proof
of Aristotle's theories

has not stood the test of time,

his anatomical drawings
have never been surpassed.

Sequential views suggest
a cinematic animation,

and views from multiple angles

provide a true
three-dimensional understanding

of the body's form.

His images are never static,
but animated by a dynamic energy

and seem just on the verge
of moving on their own.

Leonardo's illustrations,
as precise

as his technical drawings
of machines,

were unequaled in accuracy

until the photographic
techniques of the 19th century,

but they were never published
in his lifetime.

They remained unknown
and unpublished

for more than 300 years.

Leonardo, like his
fellow humanists,

was very eager to read
classical texts,

but there was a big difference.

He would examine them

in the light of his
observation of nature,

in the light
of his own experience,

and he would never hesitate
to correct the classical texts,

even of the greatest
authorities.

When he made progress
in one area,

he immediately applied it
to a related area

so that you can
actually see his progress

as a kind of spiral that--
that goes higher and higher

but always touches
several fields.

Capra: Dealing with a problem
or understanding a phenomenon,

for him, meant to see how it is
related to other phenomena.

In this way, I think

he generated what we now call
the scientific method,

and he singlehandedly
created the scientific method.

Narrator: Leonardo wanted
to understand

underlying principles.

Just his study
of spirals in water,

flights of birds, plant growth,

even hair patterns,
led him to explore

the fields
of geology, botany,

topology, and more.

For him, everything was
deeply connected,

a great system
in continual movement,

with human beings at its center.

And there is an image that seems
to summarize all of his work--

the "Vitruvian Man."

Man: Everybody knows
this picture.

It's become
a kind of icon, even,

like an emblem of
the human spirit.

Leonardo drew it in about 1490,

um, and he did it
as a kind of answer to a riddle.

Um, the architect, uh,
Vitruvius, from ancient Rome,

had proposed a man
could fit inside a square

and inside a circle,
and for centuries after that,

people had wondered
about how that might work

at a literal and at
a metaphorical level.

The height of a man
equals four cubits.

Narrator: Vitruvius' book,
printed in 1486,

stated that to achieve harmony,

buildings must reflect
ideal human proportions.

Before scientific standards,

all measurements were
taken from the body--

the foot, the digit, the step.

But to build something,
the proportions must be known:

how many thumbs in a palm,
how many palms to a step.

Architects hoped
to find the answer

in Vitruvius' ideal proportions,

to unlock secrets
of ancient buildings.

Forty at the dial
and...

19 at the rod.

Narrator: But the book
wasn't illustrated.

How could a human body
fit proportionally

inside a circle and a square?

The image of a human
at the center of a circle is

an ancient way of relating
individual existence

to the infinite universe.

It proposes a linking
between the two.

The individual is a microcosm,

a miniature reflection
in all its parts

of the universe, or macrocosm;

as above, so below.

Vitruvius' square represents
the material world.

His figure has a dual nature,

inscribed in both
the heavens and the earth.

His idea was appealing
to humanists' values,

but without illustrations,
the question of how to fit

the body in a square
and a circle

without distorting
its proportions became

an obsession for architects.

Those who tried failed.

Narrator: Leonardo
was fascinated with proportion.

During the Renaissance,

the goal of art was
the expression of harmony,

and harmony is a matter
of proportion.

Vitruvius gave complex
measurements for the ideal body,

but Leonardo needed to verify
everything for himself,

and then he too undertook
the quest for "Vitruvian Man."

[Speaking Italian]

It's a matter
of proportions.

Come. I want
to show you my work.

Narrator: In 1490,

Leonardo met
a young architect,

also hard at work
on the "Vitruvius" problem.

Lester: Discovery recently
suggests that there was

another person who also drew
a "Vitruvian Man."

It comes in a manuscript by an
architect named Giacomo Andrea,

who was from Ferrara,
but who worked in Milan

at the time
that Leonardo was there,

and it turns out the two
of them were good friends.

Look at this.

"I have all measures
inside me,

"the divine ones,
as well as the ones coming

from earth and hell."

You see...

the man is called
"Little World,"

who contains in himself

all the general perfections
of the entire world.

Lester: If you look at this
manuscript of Giacomo Andrea's,

which seems to date
to around 1490 as well,

possibly a little bit earlier,

you'll find in it
a--a vision of "Vitruvian Man"

that is eerily like Leonardo's

and seems to be a predecessor.

It's a tentative effort
that you can see erasures on.

You can superimpose them and get
almost an identical image.

Again, Leonardo's image doesn't
appear out of the blue.

Uh, it's part of a progression,
and it may have been part

of a very close collaboration
with Giacomo Andrea.

Narrator: Giacomo Andrea
de-centered the circle

in the square.

The spiritual realm
of the circle

is centered on the navel,

the earthly realm of the square
on the genitals.

No one else had thought
to do that.

The same solution is found
in Leonardo's famous drawing,

but as always,
he takes it much further.

Andrea's figure is
almost Christ-like,

a throwback to the Middle Ages.

Leonardo's is
unquestionably human,

bold and ambitious.

"Vitruvian Man" is
a pure expression

of the Renaissance,
a secular, almost carnal figure

whose reach extends
to the very limit of the cosmos

and whose face, staring out
with absolute confidence,

might be that
of Leonardo himself,

38 years old
and at the height of his powers.

There might seem to be
some arrogance

in the idea that he is
putting his own face

into this, uh, central,

iconic sort of a figure.

I think it's appropriate,
though, because who better

to encapsulate this knowledge

that he is imparting
than the painter,

philosopher, anatomist
Leonardo da Vinci,

who finds all
these different avenues

to his knowledge
of the human condition,

of what it is to be a man?

Narrator: Leonardo's great dream
was to write a series of books

which would unify
and transmit the vision

he developed
over years of research.

That, for him,
would cement his posterity

in a way his fragile
paintings could not;

he would join the timeless
human chorus of the book.

There would be a manual
of painting,

a detailed book of anatomy,
a book of mathematics,

astronomy, geometry,

but he never really seemed able
to stop and look backwards.

New subjects called to him:

the movement of water,
the flight of birds.

This project, like so many,
went unrealized.

Leonardo was the perfect man
for his time,

and his time was
perfect for him.

Leonardo was opposed
to any kind of imitation.

If he copied the work of others,
it was to learn from it,

transform it, enhance it,

and send it forward
to us as a great gift.

Human ingenuity will never

discover an invention

more beautiful, easier,

or more economical than nature's

because in her inventions,

nothing is wanting
and nothing is superfluous.