I’m fascinated by language, etymology and the history of how we use language — and this one’s up there.
At the age of 30, Leonardo Da Vinci had lived his whole life in and around Florence. His apprenticeship with his master, Andrea del Verrocchio, was complete and the intense competition among painters in Florence may have prompted Da Vinci to seek employment elsewhere.
Da Vinci was himself, while talented, was not of the aristocracy, and needed to make an impression on Ludovico Sforza, the Prince of Milan also known as Il Moro.
With lavish but enlightened patronage of artists and scholars, Sforza was making the court of Milan the most splendid not just in Italy, but in all of Europe. Franceso Sforza, Ludovico’s father, had already sought capable artists to come and make an equestrian statue.
Ludovico Sforza was also known for his love of war, a fact which led Leonardo Da Vinci to woo the nobleman in an attempt to enter the service of the ruling Sforza family.
Da Vinci himself was known to be a pacifist and some speculate that he designed a lot of his machines with flaws, others think he never intended for most of them to be built.
One of the first items in this show is a gargantuan crossbow, standing upright like a sinister crucifix, designed to propel flaming balls at enemy ranks. The model is alarming, but the real thing would have been the height of a three-storey house, its bow stretching 25 metres across. There’s no evidence it was ever built, but it reveals Leonardo’s understanding of the psychology of war: that the fear a menacing contraption could instil was as important as the damage it could inflict.
— Oliver Wainwright, “Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius review — an eye for destruction”
Even if his most devastating contraptions remained on the drawing board, they were a means by which Da Vinci voraciously forayed into other fields. He was always seeking to automate manual processes or improve designs of his fellow engineers.
For example, Da Vinci’s intense study of crossbow mechanics led to a proposal for a self-propelled vehicle, driven by a complex matrix of pre-tensioned crossbows, springs and toothed wheels.
Five hundred years on, scientific breakthroughs are still fostered by the military industry, innovation forever fuelled by man’s ravenous appetite for destruction.
— Oliver Wainwright, “Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius review — an eye for destruction”
The success of Da Vinci’s letter.
Fully aware that Sforza was looking to employ military engineers, Da Vinci put his seemingly endless engineering talents front and centre. He merely hinted at his artistic genius towards the very end.
When Il Moro didn’t engage the polymath straight away in the early 1480s, Da Vinci moved to Milan and worked as an independent painter there. It is believed that the final document was penned, not in Leonardo’s hand, but by a professional writer. The effort paid off, and he was eventually employed by Il Moro around 1487.
The exact dates of Da Vinci’s service and to what extent his letter impressed the Duke of Milan is unknown. But the letter must have seemed to the Duke more like the application of an engineer in the tradition of Archimedes, rather than an application of a court artist.
Da Vinci stayed in the Sforza court for about 16 years, until the French invaded, destroying the horse sculpture he had been working on, and turning Da Vinci into a refugee. After that, he went from patron to patron, until, he was appointed painter, engineer and philosopher to the King of France, Francois I for the last three years of his life.
Da Vinci’s letter to Sforza:
My Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently seen and considered the achievements of all those who count themselves masters and artificers of instruments of war, and having noted that the invention and performance of the said instruments is in no way different from that in common usage, I shall endeavour, while intending no discredit to anyone else, to make myself understood to Your Excellency for the purpose of unfolding to you my secrets, and thereafter offering them at your complete disposal, and when the time is right bringing into effective operation all those things which are in part briefly listed below: 1. I have plans for very light, strong and easily portable bridges with which to pursue and, on some occasions, flee the enemy, and others, sturdy and indestructible either by fire or in battle, easy and convenient to lift and place in position. Also means of burning and destroying those of the enemy. 2. I know how, in the course of the siege of a terrain, to remove water from the moats and how to make an infinite number of bridges, mantlets and scaling ladders and other instruments necessary to such an enterprise. 3. Also, if one cannot, when besieging a terrain, proceed by bombardment either because of the height of the glacis [bank] or the strength of its situation and location, I have methods for destroying every fortress or other stranglehold unless it has been founded upon a rock or so forth. 4. I have also types of cannon, most convenient and easily portable, with which to hurl small stones almost like a hail-storm; and the smoke from the cannon will instil a great fear in the enemy on account of the grave damage and confusion. 5. Also, I have means of arriving at a designated spot through mines and secret winding passages constructed completely without noise, even if it should be necessary to pass underneath moats or any river. 6. Also, I will make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable, which will penetrate the enemy and their artillery, and there is no host of armed men so great that they would not break through it. And behind these the infantry will be able to follow, quite uninjured and unimpeded. 7. Also, should the need arise, I will make cannon, mortar and light ordnance of very beautiful and functional design that are quite out of the ordinary. 8. Where the use of cannon is impracticable, I will assemble catapults, mangonels, trebuckets and other instruments of wonderful efficiency not in general use. In short, as the variety of circumstances dictate, I will make an infinite number of items for attack and defence. 9. And should a sea battle be occasioned, I have examples of many instruments which are highly suitable either in attack or defence, and craft which will resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon and powder and smoke. 10. In time of peace I believe I can give as complete satisfaction as any other in the field of architecture, and the construction of both public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another. Also I can execute sculpture in marble, bronze and clay. Likewise in painting, I can do everything possible as well as any other, whosoever he may be. Moreover, work could be undertaken on the bronze horse which will be to the immortal glory and eternal honour of the auspicious memory of His Lordship your father, and of the illustrious house of Sforza. And if any of the above-mentioned things seem impossible or impracticable to anyone, I am most readily disposed to demonstrate them in your park or in whatsoever place shall please Your Excellency, to whom I commend myself with all possible humility.
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