Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Florentine Renaissance man, genius, artist in all media, architect, military engineer. Possibly the most brilliantly creative man in European history, he advertised himself, first of all, as a military engineer. In a famous letter dated about 1481 to Ludovico Sforza, of which a copy survives in the Codice Atlantico in Milan, Leonardo asks for employment in that capacity. He had plans for bridges, very light and strong, and plans for destroying those of the enemy. He knew how to cut off water to besieged fortifications, and how to construct bridges, mantlets, scaling ladders, and other instruments. He designed cannon, very convenient and easy of transport, designed to fire small stones, almost in the manner of hail??grape- or case-shot (see ammunition, artillery). He offered cannon of very beautiful and useful shapes, quite different from those in common use and, where it is not possible to employ cannon ?? catapults, mangonels and trabocchi and other engines of wonderful efficacy not in general use. And he said he made armoured cars, safe and unassailable, which will enter the serried ranks of the enemy with their artillery ?? and behind them the infantry will be able to follow quite unharmed, and without any opposition. He also offered to design ships which can resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon, and powder and smoke. The large number of surviving drawings and notes on military art show that Leonardo claims were not without foundation, although most date from after the Sforza letter. Most of the drawings, including giant crossbows (see bows), appear to be improvements on existing machines rather than new inventions. One exception is the drawing of a tank dating from 1485-8 now in the British Museum??a flattened cone, propelled from inside by crankshafts, firing guns. Another design in the British Museum, for a machine with scythes revolving in the horizontal plane, dismembering bodies as it goes, is gruesomely fanciful. Most of the other drawings are in the Codice Atlantico in Milan but some are in the Royal Libraries at Windsor and Turin, in Venice, or the Louvre and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Two ingenious machines for continuously firing arrows, machine-gun style, powered by a treadmill are shown in the Codice Atlantico. A number of other sketches of bridges, water pumps, and canals could be for military or civil purposes: dual use technology. Leonardo lived at a time when the first artillery fortifications were appearing and the Codice Atlantico contains sketches of ingenious fortifications combining bastions, round towers, and truncated cones. Models constructed from the drawings and photographed in Calvi works reveal forts which would have looked strikingly modern in the 19th century, and might even feature in science fiction films today. On 18 August 1502 Cesare Borgia appointed Leonardo as his Military Engineer General, although no known building by Leonardo exists. Leonardo was also fascinated by flight. Thirteen pages with drawings for man-powered aeroplanes survive and there is one design for a helicoidal helicopter. Leonardo later realized the inadequacy of the power a man could generate and turned his attention to aerofoils. Had his enormous abilities been concentrated on one thing, he might have invented the modern glider.   Related Paintings of LEONARDO da Vinci :. | Mona Lisa (detail) dhu | Profile of an old man | Studies of children | Landscape in the Arnotal | Virgin of the Rocks,completed (mk08) |
Related Artists:
Owen, William
English, 1769-1825 English painter. The son of a bookseller, he was educated at the grammar school in Ludlow and was sent to London in 1786 to study under Charles Catton the elder (1728-98), coach painter to George III and founder-member of the Royal Academy. Owen's copy of a work by Reynolds, made soon after his arrival, attracted the latter's attention. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1791 and exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year. From then on he exhibited there every year, apart from 1823 and 1825, and was elected ARA in 1804 and RA in 1806. He painted a number of rural scenes but specialized in portrait painting. Although his reputation was eclipsed by that of Thomas Lawrence, he was sought after by many of the eminent figures of the day, producing portraits of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr William Howley (1813), and of the politician and essayist John Wilson Croker (exh. 1812; both London, N.P.G.); other of his sitters were William Pitt the younger and John Soane. In 1810 he was appointed portrait painter to the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and in 1813 principal portrait painter to the Prince when the latter became Prince Regent. The Prince Regent does not seem to have sat to him but nonetheless he offered Owen a knighthood, which the painter refused. From c. 1820 Owen's health deteriorated until a disease of the spine confined him to his room and finally rendered him incapable of painting. He died after accidentally taking a bottle of opium that had been wrongly labelled.
Philip Charles Hardwick
English architect , (1822-1892), was a notable English architect of the 19th century who was once described as "a careful and industrious student of mediaeval art". He was born in Westminster and was the son of the architect Philip Hardwick (1792-1870), grandson of Thomas Hardwick (junior) (1752-1825) and great grandson of Thomas Hardwick Senior (1725-1825); the Hardwicks' architectural work spanned over 100 years, making them one of the most successful architectural families in British history. Hardwick's mother was also from an eminent architectural family: the Shaws. His maternal grandfather was John Shaw Senior (1776-1832) and his uncle was John Shaw Jr (1803-1870) - both architects known for their work at Christ's Hospital and at Ramsgate harbour. Philip Charles trained under his father and also in Edward Blore's office during which time he visited Belgium and Germany. Hardwick exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1848 and 1854. Like his father, Philip Charles was employed in the 'Square Mile' of the City of London, where he became the leading architect of grandiose banking offices, mainly in an Italianate manner, setting the pattern for suburban and provincial designs for almost three decades. He designed five City banks, including Drummond's in Trafalgar Square (1879-81), and was architect to the Bank of England from 1855 to 1883. However, he was more employed outside London, designing branch offices at Hull (1856) and Leeds (1862-65). His best known work was the Great Hall of London's Euston railway station (opened on 27 May 1849). The Great Hall was demolished in 1962 to make way for construction of the current Euston Station building. Philip Charles was the last Hardwick Surveyor to St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and was a major benefactor of the hospital.
Carlo Labruzzi
painted Aleksandra and Izabela Potocki taking a stroll near to lake Albano in 1779-1780