Leonardo da Vinci, Pathfinder of Science

by Henry S. Gillette

The young, robust King Francis was everywhere at once. He gloried in knightly tournaments, hunts, and sports of all kinds. Always restless, he might appear at any place unannounced. Frequently there would be a clamor at the gates of Leonardo’s home and the king would ride in with one or two of his nobles. With a great jingling of spurs he would bound up the stairs of the manor house calling for Leonardo. He delighted in long talks with the old man, and would listen respectfully as Leonardo, his deep-set eyes brooding over his notes, would demonstrate some scientific point on a blank sheet of paper.

At this time, Leonardo was engaged on three projects which demanded his immediate attention. One was the entertainment for a banquet that Francis was giving for his sister, Marguerite de Valois, and her husband. Another was a new design for the king’s castle at Amboise, and the third was a design for making a navigable waterway from Amboise to Romorantin. Although these three projects were the main ones that occupied Leonardo’s time, there was always the supervising of his pupils’ painting on the walls in the little chapel of the manor house, his own work on a painting of St. John the Baptist, and the continual ordering and revising of his notes.

The banquet took place in October of 1517, and the mechanical lion Leonardo had made was an immediate success. It “walked” by means of a spring motor, into the hall, opening and closing its fierce mouth while swaying its head from side to side. With a wand that he had been given, Francis I stepped down from his seat and tapped the lion three times. The toy fell apart and from it a cascade of white lilies poured out at the king’s feet.

Also at this time there was a distinguished guest at the castle of Amboise. He was a fellow-countryman of Leonardo and his name was Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona. With him was his secretary Antonio de’ Beatis. As Leonardo was now a famous member of King Francis’ court, the cardinal paid him a visit accompanied by Antonio. The extraordinary anatomy drawings and all his notes were shown to the cardinal; he and his secretary were deeply impressed. They were also surprised to learn that Leonardo had never been accorded the same recognition by his own countrymen. Antonio de’ Beatis wrote home that “This gentleman has written a treatise on anatomy, showing by illustrations the members, muscles, nerves, veins, joints, intestines and whatever else is to discuss in the bodies of men and women, in a way that has never yet been done by anyone else. All this we have seen with our own eyes; and he said that he had dissected more than thirty bodies, both of men and women of all ages. He has also written of the nature of water, and of divers machines, and of other matters which he has set down in an endless number of volumes, all in the vulgar tongue [meaning Italian not Latin], which, if they be published, will be profitable and delightful.”

By now Leonardo had accumulated thousands of pages of notes, and they lay stacked in all manner of chests and boxes. Often now, as Leonardo surveyed the work of his lifetime, he realized that he would never see the day of their publication. Time was slipping through his fingers. Already summer had come and gone and now the sharp winds of fall were lifting the leaves from the ground in dancing whirls. Fortunately these were years of peace and for the first time in a long while the people were free of wars. The scheme to canalize the waterway to Romorantin had grown to a vast idea for making a thoroughfare of water from the Loire river all the way down France to Lyons and then into Italy! Leonardo, old and ailing as he was, had surveyed parts of the rivers Loire and Cher, braving the rough roads and crude accommodations.

In addition, Leonardo had designed a castle for Francis I’s widowed mother in Romorantin. This castle was never built, but many of the ideas that Leonardo had incorporated in its design were used in the gigantic and magnificent castle of Chambord. Also, at Francis’ request, he had reviewed the work being done at the castle in Blois and there is reason to think that the beautiful outside stairwell that spirals from left to right might have been designed by Leonardo.

In February of 1517, a son had been born to Queen Claude and Francis I. The king decided to postpone the baptism of the dauphin (the title given to the eldest son of a French King) until May of the following year. At that time there would be a double celebration at Amboise, for a nephew of Pope Leo X, the young Lorenzo de’ Medici, was being married to Madelaine d’Auvergne. As usual, Leonardo was given the assignment of preparing the festivities. Although he was fond of preparing these entertainments, Leonardo now felt the pressure of time; for indeed, the interruptions of this eager young king were sometimes a hardship. He felt that his years were drawing to an end. His notes were unfinished and his dreams of extending man’s knowledge of his world and of himself were hindered not only by such petty chores but also by the limits of his own physical endurance.

As Leonardo was sketching one day from the window of his room where he could see the castle walls and the chapel of Saint-Hubert, he set aside the drawing for a moment to write a memorandum to himself. “Write of the quality of time as distinct from its mathematical divisions.” Was this extraordinary man sensing the road down which Einstein—in his studies of relativity—was to travel hundreds of years later?

Spring arrived again and with it came the first wild flowers and roses, the songs of the birds in the woods and the blossoming of the chestnut trees. The time for the double celebration came, too, and Leonardo was seen busily preparing the decorations and mechanical delights for the large crowds already assembling. In addition to the tournaments-at-arms that so delighted the king, there was to be a mock battle with a besieged city, and for this Leonardo had had constructed imposing castle walls of wood with a backdrop of a city’s spires and towers. The party lasted for weeks, and the climax was performed on the lawns of Leonardo’s house where a great ballroom had been set up. Here he repeated an earlier success, the one that had so enchanted Ludovico’s guests so many years ago in the Sforza castle at Milan. There was again a dome over the ballroom across which the stars moved mechanically and artificial figures representing various gods and goddesses spoke and sang by means of a hidden choir, while the sun and moon shone in their own lights.

This display ended the festivities. It was already late June and Leonardo was anxious to return to his plans for the water route to Italy. There was the area near Sologne which, when flooded, would make the surrounding countryside a marshland. This would have to be drained by the same method as he had planned for the Piombino and the Pontine marshes. Francis I was interested, too, in the improvements Leonardo had suggested for his own castle, and he would have to talk with the castle superintendent about them. As always, there seemed to be so many things to do, to plan, to work on. Then Leonardo wrote in his notes: “On the 24th of June, the day of St. John, 1518, at Amboise, in the palace of Cloux....” and underneath, “I will continue—”