leonardo da vinci painted by himself. drawn and engraved by charles townley
as the artist responsible for painting “the mona lisa”, da vinci’s fame could have and likely would have been secured by that single contribution. however, his extraordinary legacy is actually much greater as da vinci was in fact a creative genius whose mind wandered widely over the landscape of invention.
here is one of my favourite examples. a spring powered automobile . . . . the mechanical elements of its design are familiar to most children, consisting as it does of a spring whose capacity to store energy when coiled is released thereby driving the vehicle. da vinci made plans to employ the coiled energy of a spring in several other machines, notably a flying machine.
history's first self-propelled vehicle was sketched by leonardo around 1478.
(photo: institute and museum of the history of science in florence)this cutaway image reveals the simple yet purposeful design of the vehicle.
© 2004 - Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (testi e fotografie) © 2004 - Studioddm (modelli 3d ed immagini digitali)
the vehicle was supposedly developed as an amusement for the royal court rather than as a serious means of transportation but i have to wonder, given da vinci’s adroit sense of personal and political survival, whether he couched his presentation of such objects in terms that made them more palatable to his benefactors. many of his incredible inventions were presented as toys or having some military benefit.
here is some video footage of a wonderful model of what is considered to be the first truly self-propelled vehicle. this particular version of da vinci’s vehicle is a one-third scale model and as such is 1.68m long and 1.49m wide. the springs are wound up by rotating the wheels in the opposite direction to the one in which it is meant to go.
a lovely and informative gallery of leonardo’s other inventions is maintained at the samuel c. williams library.
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