by Martin Kemp
51. Designs for a Flying Machine
c. 1488, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, MS B 74v & 75r
Realizing the age-old dream of human flight would have been Leonardo’s supreme achievement. He well understood that his great “bird” (uccello) would “fill the universe with stupor, bringing eternal glory to the place of its birth.” The flying machine would also represent the greatest challenge to the engineer as a “second nature” in the world: in other words, inventing a mechanism that emulates nature in its perfect operation, without redundancy and without insufficiency.
His approach was to learn from nature, seeking the rationale behind natural design to invent a “bird” that would work on its own terms rather than literally imitating a natural organism. Above all, it should be a mathematical machine: “a bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law. It lies within the power of man to make this instrument in all its motions. . . . Accordingly we may say that such an instrument fabricated by man lacks nothing but the soul of man.”
A series of designs from the late 1480s shows Leonardo thinking intensively about how to overcome the problem of the power-to-weight ratio using only human musculature. He realized that just attaching wings to our arms would get us nowhere.
The designs on the two facing pages shown here from MS B involve the basic “skeleton” and its motive power. They both demonstrate the amplification of arm-power by the legs of an aviator (not shown in the drawing), whose feet would pump a pair of stirrups. In the drawing on the left page, the aviator’s hands would either be free or lever directly on the mechanism, whereas on the right-page drawing his arms would rotate hand pedals.
The right-page design also tackles the problem of how to steer the whole contraption, “as is done by the kite and other birds.” Leonardo envisaged a four-vaned tail at the end of a long shaft attached uncomfortably to a band around the aviator’s head (on the upper right of the page). He advised that “this instrument will be tested over a lake, and you will carry a long goatskin as a girdle so that if falling in you will not be drowned.”
52. Design for the Wing of the Flying Machine
c. 1485, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Codice atlantico, 858r
Leonardo devoted a great deal of thought to the most effective design for the wings of his flying machine. He learned from the anatomical structures of the wings of birds and bats—particularly the latter, because they consist of a skeletal framework covered by an impermeable membrane. He identified a site to construct his “bird” on the roof of the Corte Vecchia, a Sforza palace in Milan (no longer extant), not far from the cathedral. He designed test wings to discover how much lift they might generate. It seems unlikely that he succeeded in constructing a complete “bird.”
Alongside machines that were driven by flapping wings, Leonardo looked to other options to sustain the aviator in the air. We know that he would have encountered insuperable problems in generating the necessary lift through flapping. At various times, he considered constructing a craft akin to a modern hang glider.
The wing illustrated here is a relatively simple design in which a skeleton of flexible wood and rope is overlaid by cloth (panno) that passes over the wing and is attached underneath at half the width of the wing. The main axes of the wings are attached to ropes that run over pulleys and around a cylinder turned by a handle. This mechanism would not deliver powered flight but would serve to adjust the angles of the wings.
This wing design was used in a hang glider constructed in 2002 by the British firm SkySport Engineering, which specializes in the restoration of historic aircraft. Only materials available to Leonardo were used. On the hills near the sea in Sussex, the Leonardesque contraption rose into the air, piloted by Judy Leden, world hang glider champion. The lift provided by the creaking wings was prodigious, to such a degree that the glider had to be tethered by ropes to prevent its intrepid aviator from disappearing over the sea. The aim was not to demonstrate that Leonardo invented human flight, but to show that his ideas about wing design were soundly based.
A hang glider constructed in 2002 by the British firm SkySport Engineering based on Leonard’s designs; it is shown here in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design, held at the V&A museum in London in 2006.
53. Cartoon for the Portrait of Isabella d’Este
1500, Paris, Louvre
When his patron in Milan, Ludovico Sforza, was overthrown by the invading French troops of Louis XII in 1499, Leonardo decided not to remain, although offered work by the new rulers. He sent money to Florence in anticipation of his return. He first went to Venice, where he advised on hydraulic engineering, and then to Mantua, where Isabella d’Este, sister of Ludovico’s wife, gave him a ready welcome. An avid patron, Isabella had already asked Cecilia Gallerani to lend her the Leonardo portrait with the ermine (see pages 48–49) so she could compare it with portraits by Giovanni Bellini.
The main artistic fruit of Leonardo’s brief stay in Mantua is his cartoon for a portrait of Isabella, drawn in charcoal with black and colored chalks. It retained the profile format as was obligatory for aristocratic women in the North Italian courts, but the artist has attempted to give an enhanced sense of the marchioness’s presence by setting her body at an angle. Although the drawing has been damaged and trimmed, we can still delight in the delicate subtlety of Leonardo’s hand as he caresses the contours of Isabella’s face, and evokes the abundant softness of her hair in its diaphanous veil and the floating ribbons of her drapery.
The main outlines were very finely pricked so that the design could be transferred. There is a drawing in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, done by a member of Leonardo’s workshop, that has been made by transfer from this one. Isabella’s pose has been adjusted in the copy by lowering her right forearm to grant it more space. The copy also shows that her hands were resting on a parapet and that she was pointing to a book. In March 1500, Isabella’s agent in Venice mentioned that he had seen a portrait of her there executed by Leonardo; it seems that the prime version remained in Mantua and that the portrait admired by the agent in Venice was the copy.
Over the course of the next six years, Isabella wrote on a number of occasions to various intermediaries in Florence to obtain either a portrait painting of her or any other painting by Leonardo. She was not successful.
54. Madonna of the Yarnwinder
c. 1501–8, Collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
55. Madonna of the Yarnwinder (the “Lansdowne Madonna”)
c. 1501–8, Private Collection
One of the correspondents of Isabella d’Este when she was striving to extract a painting from Leonardo (see page 101) was the head of the Mantuan Carmelites in Florence, Fra Pietro da Novellara. Twice in April 1501 he updated Isabella on what Leonardo was doing. On the second occasion, he informed her that “his mathematical experiments have . . . greatly distracted him from painting.” However, Leonardo had promised to undertake her portrait, once “he has finished a little picture he is doing for . . . Robertet, a favorite of the King of France.”
Fra Pietro described the “little picture” as “a Madonna seated as if she were about to spin yarn. The child has . . . grasped the yarnwinder and gazes attentively at the four spokes that are in the form of a cross. As if desirous of the cross he smiles and holds it firmly and is unwilling to yield it to his mother.” This is a very perceptive account of what was a new kind of Madonna composition, which contains an implicit narrative. The yarnwinder, signifying Christ’s sacrificial cross, is actively and prophetically embraced by the young child.
Florimond Robertet, who served as secretary to three French kings, had met Leonardo when the French invaded Milan in 1499. He had to wait for his Madonna until 1507, when it was reported by the Florentine ambassador that “a little picture by his hand has recently been brought here [Blois] and is held to be an excellent thing.” This stimulated King Louis’s ambition to obt
ain a painting by Leonardo.
The Madonna of the Yarnwinder is one of the best documented of Leonardo’s paintings. The complication is that we know of two very high-quality variants of the composition: one in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, opposite; and one that is also known as the “Landsdowne Madonna,” shown on page 105. They are both in private collections. Can we identify which one was sent to Blois?
A series of scientific examinations has revealed very remarkably that the two paintings underwent parallel developments in Leonardo’s workshop. Infrared reflectography, which has the potential to reveal underdrawings on the white priming layer of a panel or canvas, disclosed an elaborate series of changes.
In both, the child’s pose has been adjusted and the shaft of the yarnwinder realigned. The fingers of the Virgin’s hands have been comparably changed. The most surprising of the shared modifications is in the middle ground to her left. In the underdrawings it is possible to see a figure group under an arch, in which we can identify two women, a child, and a stooping man. This motif appears in at least three other versions by Leonardo’s followers and is recognizable as Joseph making a baby walker for his son, watched by Mary and a female companion. The followers have picked up the motif that Leonardo eliminated, probably quite late in the completion of Robertet’s painting.
That Leonardo produced two paintings of this small-scale devotional subject is confirmed by the presence of a “Madonna with the Child in her Arms” in a list of paintings by Leonardo in the hands of his assistant Salaì (formally Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, 1480– c. 1524) in 1525, six years after the master’s death. Can we tell which painting went to Blois and which remained in Leonardo’s hands? There is no way at present of arriving at a definite answer.
The two paintings differ in a number of respects. The landscape in the Buccleuch version on page 102 diverges from Leonardo’s customary backgrounds, but the foreground rocks are beautifully characterized. The background in the “Lansdowne Madonna,” opposite, is more convincingly Leonardesque, but the rock structures below the yarnwinder lack geological conviction. The painting of the figures in both paintings is of the highest quality. Any stylistic judgments must be tempered by the conservation history of the two paintings. The Buccleuch Madonna remains on its original panel and is in good condition, albeit with yellowed varnish. The “Landsdowne Madonna” has been transferred from panel to canvas and then remounted on inert board. Inevitably there has been some paint loss, if not extensive, and the painting has been cleaned. Allowing for these divergences in condition, both small Madonnas can be credited largely to Leonardo himself.
Madonna of the Yarnwinder (the“Lansdowne Madonna”), c. 1501–8.
56. Map of Imola
1502, Windsor, Royal Library, 12284
After Leonardo’s return to Florence in April 1500, he probably resided at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata, where the Servite monks had commissioned him to paint their high altar. There seems to have been little or no progress on the commission. Fra Pietro da Novellara reported to Isabella that the painter had completed a cartoon of the Virgin, Child, St. Anne, and a Lamb (see page 156) and was engaged on the little Madonna for Robertet (see page 103). A little over a year later Leonardo was named as “architect and general engineer” to Cesare Borgia (1475–1507), whose troops were rampaging in central Italy to subjugate the traditional Papal States on behalf of Cesare’s Spanish father, Pope Alexander VI. Leonardo traveled in Cesare’s service for eight or nine months.
The most spectacular example of the skills he deployed during this time is the Map of Imola, executed with wonderful precision in pen and ink and watercolor.
From a central vantage point, Leonardo has taken radial bearings of the walled town of Imola and its immediate surroundings, using eight prime orientations (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW), subdivided further into eight intermediate degrees. He correlated these with measurements on the ground, paced out by men commandeered for the purpose. He also seems to have used detailed information about the buildings from an existing map. The result offered Borgia an aerial view of the fortified city that would allow him to plan the disposition of his forces and to manage his own security within the city. On the left and right, Leonardo noted the orientation and distance of other cities, which was vital information for armies on the move.
The map exploits the highest levels of accuracy. Yet it is not an inert record. The city assumes the character of a living organism, tingling with implicit life. The river Santerno surges past in a series of stony meanders, excavating ragged chunks of bank on the outside of the bend nearest the city. Leonardo could not portray any portion of the “body of the earth” in a lifeless manner.
57. Copy of the Battle of Anghiari (the “Tavola Doria”), Unknown Artist
c. 1559 (original 1503–7), Florence, Uffizi
58. Studies for the Battle of Anghiari
c. 1503, Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia
59. Studies of the Heads of Warriors
c. 1504, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts
On his return to Florence after serving Cesare Borgia, Leonardo was involved in a number of schemes of military and hydraulic engineering. In 1503, we have the first notice that he had been commissioned to portray the Battle of Anghiari in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, the large new council hall of the Florentine Republic. On October 24, he moved into the monastery of Santa Maria Novella, where there was a hall large enough to accommodate his huge cartoon.
The Battle of Anghiari was part of a patriotic scheme for the decoration of the council hall. A companion piece of the Battle of Cascina of 1364 was to be commissioned from Leonardo’s rival, Michelangelo. Leonardo’s subject was the Florentine victory over the Milanese at Anghiari in Tuscany, in 1440. The key moment was the capture of the Milanese standard. The best of the copies of Leonardo’s unfinished mural is the large panel painting once owned by the Doria family.
Four horsemen are locked together in a violent tangle, desperately contesting control of the Milanese standard. The old warrior in the center, screaming with rage, threatens to bring his scimitar down on the hands of the two Florentines who advance from the right. The other Milanese soldier contorts himself to brace the shaft of the standard across his back. Beneath the hooves of the horses, who are as savagely combative as their masters, one fallen foot soldier cowers under his shield, while another stabs a recumbent enemy in the throat.
The protagonists wear cuirasses and helmets that are extravagantly decorative. Leonardo’s fantasies on organic themes—a ram’s head, exotic shells, and seething dragons—transport the battle into the realm of legend rather than one of documentary accuracy.
Various copies of the mural record the central portion of the composition planned by Leonardo, which he had begun to paint on the wall. This was in keeping with an interim agreement on May 4, 1504, in which Leonardo was pressed to either complete the whole cartoon or begin painting that portion of the mural for which the cartoon had been finished. We can calculate that this painted section would have been 14 or 15 feet (4.3 or 4.6 meters) wide, and that the whole field to be painted was as long as 60 feet (18.3 meters) across.
A drawing in pen and black chalk in Venice (opposite, near left) shows how Leonardo’s brainstorm drawing style allowed him to intertwine this knot of combatants. We can discern the central warrior with his aggressively raised arm, and the fluttering standard with its bent shaft. The incoming Florentines are as yet little defined, while a horse has collapsed where the fighting foot soldiers were to appear. Below, Leonardo has portrayed naked men whose bodies are contorted in savage action, presumably as studies for those who fight on foot. This is one of a series of impulsive drawings of men and horses in frantic action.
On June 6, 1505, a fierce storm interrupted his work on the wall and the cartoon was damaged. The records of supplies and contemporary witnesses indicate that Leonardo’s technique was at least as experimental as that of The Last Supper. He adopted oil as the binding medium fo
r his pigments rather than working with the traditional technique of fresco. The medium would grant him the range of colors that he could enjoy when painting on a panel, and it would permit him to work at his own pace.
We know from Leonardo’s accounts in a piece in one of his notebooks titled “How to Paint a Battle” that he was striving for extraordinary visual effects that lay outside the scope of fresco. Some excerpts will convey a flavor of what he aspired to achieve:
You must make the foreground figures covered in dust—in their hair, on their brows, and on other level surfaces suitable for the dust to settle. . . . And if you should show one who has fallen, indicate the spot where he has slithered in the dust turned into blood-stained mire. . . . Make the conquered and beaten pale, with their brows knit high and let the skin above be heavily furrowed with pain. Let the sides of the nose be wrinkled in an arch starting at the nostrils and finishing where the eyes begin. [Show] . . . the lips arched to reveal the upper teeth and the teeth parted, as if to wail in lamentation. . .
Show dead men, some half and others completely covered in dust. [Show] the dust, as it mixes with the spilt blood turning into red mud . . . and others in their death throes, grinding their teeth, rolling their eyes or clutching their crippled legs and bodies with their fists. . . . Show an angry figure holding someone up by the hair—wrenching that person’s head against the ground, with one knee on the person’s ribcage. . . . The angry figure will have his hair standing on end, his eyebrows lowered and drawn together, and teeth clenched, with the two lateral corners of his mouth arched downward.
