Real Story of Da vinci prophe Cies -Article From TamilYoungsters.com
THE HISTORY OF Da Vinci PROPHE Cies
to predict the future accurately. For the last 500 years, To predict the future accurately. For the last 500 years, academics have been puzzling over Leonardo da Vinci’s visions and what they say about the fate of mankind
Conquering the skies “From the crest of the hill the great bird will take its first flight, filling the whole world with amazement.” www.tamilyoungsters.com
No other phenomenon fascinated Leonardo da Vinci more than flying. He made thousands of pages of notes on the subject, developed a tailplane and an elevator for a glider, and even sketched a prototype for a helicopter. But all this was just theory. His manuscripts were designed to guide future generations, rather than point the way for the engineers of the time, for whom the idea of fl ight seemed absurd. Nowadays, with unmanned aerial vehicles buzzing around the skies, even Leonardo’s once-radical visions seem to have been surpassed. CIES
Future of medicine
“People will become so cowardly that they will accept other people crowing over their suffering and over the loss of their true wealth: their health.”
As the monks wandered past Da Vinci dissecting bodies in the cellar of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, they said three Ave Marias and continued quickly on. Though Leonardo’s bloody work was considered sacrilege, his experiments were tacitly approved by Pope Alexander VI. Was he searching the human body for weaknesses? Looking for the most effective way to kill a soldier? Whatever it was, Leonardo was ahead of his time, gaining more knowledge about human anatomy than anyone ever had before – and he recognised that medicine would one day spawn its own vast industry. A recent comparison of Da Vinci’s anatomical hand drawings to what can be produced by modern CTI scans showed what researchers at the UK’s Royal Collection Trust called “startling accuracy”. Among other things, he also predicted that the female womb had a single chamber – rather than seven, as was believed at the time – 150 years before medical science.
The nobleman left the villa in a rage, his spurs scarring its marble fl oor with every step. Outside, he turned around and shouted up to the balcony: “You will be sorry, Melzi, my prince will never make an offer like this again!” Then he mounted his horse and Francesco Melzi watched a fortune ride off into the distance. But the artist remained fi rm; for 20 years he had been guarding a treasure chest of knowledge, the likes of which the world had never seen. His master had entrusted its safekeeping to him on his deathbed and since then, he had hidden the treasure in his villa. Selling it, even to the ruler of Milan, was out of the question…
COULD THIS ANCIENT CHEST CONTAIN THE SECRETS OF TOMORROW?
We don’t know whether Francesco Melzi fully grasped the importance of the old oak chest with the metal clasps. He may not have realised that its contents were priceless, something that shouldn’t belong to one man but rather to all of mankind. Contained within that ordinary-looking box was the sum total of the world’s scientifi c and engineering knowledge of the time. This knowledge was not a compendium of writings from various scholars and sources, it came from the mind of just one man: Leonardo da Vinci, Melzi’s teacher. The world’s greatest genius had covered 10,000 pages with writing and sketches of anything that crossed his mind; all the observations, discoveries, inventions and ideas from throughout his life. All of Leonardo’s existing manuscripts were held in that chest in the villa in Vaprio d’Adda. Francesco Melzi died in 1570. His son Orazio didn’t know what to do with the old parchments so sought advice from Gavardi d’Asola, a tutor employed by the Melzi family, who subsequently took them to Florence to sell. Today, about one fi fth of that collection lies scattered across eleven different places in Europe. The rest is missing, perhaps lying forgotten on library shelves waiting to be rediscovered, in much the same way as the manuscript found in a public library in Nantes, France, in December 2010. Unfortunately, a large part of the collection will probably remain lost forever. This means that today, 500 years after the death of Leonardo da Vinci, we can only appreciate a small part of his genius. We have notebooks, known as codices, to thank for our knowledge of Leonardo’s anatomical studies, his notes in mirror writing and the intricate sketches of technical inventions, some of which were only realised centuries later. Much of Leonardo’s work is well documented, but there are secrets hidden in his writings that have escaped the notice of most scholars. In the largest of his known collections of writings, the ‘Codex Atlanticus’, there are passages which might easily be overlooked. The short texts entitled ‘Prophecies’ appear to have been written sometime in the 1490s. Leonardo disguised these prophecies as entertainment for the nobility, on whose patronage he relied. That explains why he provided stage directions for some of his predictions: “Say in a wild, crazy way, like a lunatic,” it says in one margin. Imagine his aristocratic audience digesting these words: “It will come from the earth and deafen all bystanders with a horrifi c roar; it will kill people and destroy towns and castles with its breath.” This kind of apocalyptic vision would have raised eyebrows in the court of Milan 500 years ago, in much the same way as other claims such as “there will be vehicles that travel with incredible force,” or “seawater will rise above the high peaks of the mountains and will fall down again onto the dwellings of men” would.
The nuclear arms race
“It will come from the earth and deafen all bystanders with a horrifi c roar; it will kill people and destroy towns and castles with its breath.”
It could be said that Leonardo da Vinci was the creator of Murphy’s law. “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” or, in this instance, “If something can end in total disaster, it will.” Da Vinci knew the power games of popes, kings and rulers who were willing to sacrifi ce anything and everything, including people, towns and castles, in their quest for supremacy. Historians doubt that Leonardo was specifi cally anticipating the atomic bomb with this prophecy, but he was certainly envisaging a weapon of extraordinary power.
Advanced weaponry “We will see creatures fi ght each other incessantly, with very heavy casualties and many deaths on both sides. Their malice will know no bounds.”
He would know, since he was planning it himself. On the orders of Italy’s most powerful dynasty, Leonardo da Vinci designed some truly gruesome weapons, knowing that if he could already attach 33 guns to one machine (as he did with his so-called 33 Barrelled Organ; see drawing below left), there was no reason why someone couldn’t mount 330 guns, or invent guns 33 times more powerful, at some point in the future. Leonardo knew that the number of victims would rise in line with the increasingly destructive power of the weapons, and he was right. During the First World War, a million men were killed in the Battle of the Somme alone. While the 33 Barrelled Organ is regarded as the basis for the modern-day machine gun, Da Vinci’s armoured car design foresaw the invention of the battle tank.
The exploitation of nature “And there will be hunters, who, the fewer animals there are, the more they will take; and conversely, the more there are, the fewer they will take.”
In Da Vinci’s day, fi sh were plentiful, forests were full of wild animals, and there was an abundance of raw materials. But he knew that none of this would last forever. Simply put, whoever fi shes the seas until they are empty will at some point return to the harbour with empty nets. It seems we’re yet to heed his advice; despite continued warnings, the overfi shing of the world’s seas continues to be a major problem.
COULD LEONARDO COME FROM? REALLY FORESEE ATOMIC BOMBS, CARS AND THE INTERNET?
Such statements would have caused both fear and amusement in the 15th century. But the deeper truth of his prophecies would not have been understood by anyone but Leonardo himself. His discoveries and inventions were undoubtedly ahead of their time, but it seems he could also envisage the consequences of these things – he could see how the modern world would develop with the introduction of new technologies. In other words, Leonardo could see into the future. “Something from the earth, that will destroy towns with its breath” immediately conjures up an image of the atomic devastation of Hiroshima. “Vehicles that travel with incredible force”; for the man who had already refl ected on the functioningof the gearbox, it was not that great a leap to the modern car. As for the seawater that “will rise above the high peaks”, well, we now know about the rise in sea levels attributed to the damaging effects of climate change.
WHERE DID DA VINCI’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE COME FROM? He is like a man who woke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep,” said Sigmund Freud about Leonardo, 400 years after his death. With his uncanny ability to foresee the shape of things to come, it’s tempting to imagine that the informally educated Tuscan boy had somehow travelled to the future. He had an understanding of the things around him that seems almost supernatural to the normal thinker. The limits of time and space appear not to have applied to him, but just how did the universe work in Leonardo’s mind? “Noble sir, having immersed myself in the work of all who call themselves military architects, I lay my secret inventions at the foot of your throne and undertake to attend to your wishes and orders.” With these bold words, Leonardo da Vinci appealed to the Milanese ruler Ludovico Sforza in 1482. At the time, fi ve great powers shared Italy: Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome and Naples were ruled by princes and royal courts which had been established by often ruthless conquests. Italian princes fought each other like warlords. Only the lucky few who were in the right place at the right time and made themselves indispensable were successful. For Leonardo da Vinci, artist, inventor and scientist with a thirst for forbidden anatomical knowledge, these were unsettled and dangerous times. He was taking bodies from hospitals in order to dissect them – and he needed a powerful patron to allow him to continue his clandestine research. He found an ally in the amoral Regent of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. But Sforza was surrounded by ambitious rivals and couldn’t be won over by clever words alone. Da Vinci knew exactly what Sforza needed, and that’s what he offered: revolutionary new weapons systems. The amazed Sforza pored over the inventor’s sketches of guns, mobile bridges and, amazingly, an armoured vehicle, about which Leonardo promised: “no company of soldiers is so great that it will not break through them.” Sforza had never seen such a thing before. Better still, nor had his enemies. Everyone was a winner: Leonardo’s superweapons promised to give the Milanese ruler an edge that would allow him to consolidate his position – and Leonardo had a master who would fi nance his work, because he knew the advantages it could bring. At the time, Leonardo’s designs were unprecedented. His revolutionary armoured vehicle may only have worked by muscle power but it had extraordinary potential: the men inside would operate the central cranks which were connected to cogs, which in turn transmitted their energy through the gear box to the four wheels. On paper, the vehicle looked to be unstoppable: a tank with a 360° gun turret in the era of crossbowmen and foot soldiers.
21st century transport “There will be vehicles not pulled by any animal that will travel with incredible force.”
Leonardo believed in engineering. He thought that whatever nature could do, people could copy with technical means. For him, it was only a question of time until there were self-propelled vehicles, and he knew the advantages for mankind would be so great that nothing could stand in the way of their development. Da Vinci’s self-propelled cart was the predecessor to the motor car, envisaging a vehicle powered by coiled springs, and featuring steering and braking capabilities. In 2006, an Italian museum team built the cart according to Leonardo’s design; to their amazement, the cart worked.
The future of money “That shall come forth from hollow caves which shall cause all the nations of the world to toil and sweat with great agitation, anxiety and labour, in order to gain its aid.”
The great merchant banks of the middle ages were based in Florence and the Florentine banking empire was built on remittances to the church. The money was then lent to export businesses – at interest. Monasteries were some of the fl edgling banking industry’s most important clients. They needed to send gold and silver abroad, which wasn’t a simple task. The Florentine banks solved this problem. They were the Western Union of their day, moving funds from monasteries throughout Europe to the papal coffers in Rome. It was the beginning of modern banking, and Leonardo was right in the thick of it. He understood the strategy of these new banks and their new forms of taxation, and what burdens the new fi nancial system would place on the world. And he knew that this was only the beginning…
Climate change “Seawater will rise above the high peaks of the mountains towards the sky and will fall down again onto the dwellings of men.”
Leonardo was fascinated by water, describing locks, dams and irrigation systems in his manuscripts. But he didn’t just research the usefulness of water, he examined its destructive power, too; notes and drawings in his Codex Leicester provide a geometric analysis of river fl ow and riverbank erosion. Floods had always been a popular subject of paintings, but most artists concentrated on the biblical catastrophe, rather than the shape of things to come. Not Leonardo. His scientifi c knowledge led him to suspect that there would again be mighty fl oods and nothing would be able to hold the water back.
WHY DID LEONARDO DESIGN UNFEASIBLE SUPERWEAPONS?
Obviously Sforza wanted this weapon – straight away if possible – but he misunderstood the practicalities. Most of Leonardo’s ambitious plans were impossible to realise with the limited industrial and technical capabilities of the time. His advanced mind had once again leapt into the far future. Leonardo knew that it would be many generations before people would be able to build his machines. It was no accident that he left behind 160 sketches about the fl ight of birds and attached suggestions about the construction of fl ying machines. Other thinkers would have been deterred; why invent something that no one understands or can build? But Leonardo was determined to leave a technological legacy for future generations. If a heart valve functions in a particular way, then surely it could also work with a mechanical pump. A gun may work well enough by itself, but would the end result not be improved by adding more guns to the same fi ring mechanism? Where his contemporaries said “a little better”, Leonardo said “the best”. Leonardo knew no limits because he was interested in absolutely everything. This gave the him the scope to imagine what would happen not just in 50 years, but in 500.
HOW COULD LEONARDO DESIGN A CLOCK THAT MEASURED INFINITY?
For da Vinci, infi nity was not a mysterious theological concept, but an integral part of nature. He even designed a complete machine according to this principle. Twelve cogs of exponential sizes were to be connected in series, with the smallest gear completing one revolution per second. Each successive cog would rotate more slowly than its predecessor, until the fi nal cog appeared to be entirely stationary. But that apparent standstill is deceptive; even the fi nal cog would be turning, albeit unimaginably slowly. It would take a billion years to complete a single revolution! For the average person in the 15th century, for whom such time scales seemed quite unimaginable, Leonardo’s machine would have been the devil’s work. He knew this and he never built it. It wasn’t until 2007 that some of Leonardo’s inventions were built for a televisiondocumentary. Needless to say, most of them worked. Leonardo was even several centuries ahead of the crude medieval medicine of the time. Through his studies of corpses, he was the fi rst person to describe the symptoms of arteriosclerosis. But his dissection work was not without risk: in those years the human body was a treasure in the eyes of the church and was not supposed to be tampered with. Indeed, 50 years after Leonardo’s medical studies, Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius was sentenced to death for body-snatching, before having his sentence commuted to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Leonardo remained untouched, however; he was simply too valuable to the powers that be. Only in 1516, at the age of 64, did Leonardo appear to tire of staying one step ahead of his enemies. Knowing full well that he would never return home, he accepted an offer of employment from Francis I of France and took all of his notebooks with him, the same books that would wind up scattered all over the world after his death. To the last he was aware that science is a quest with no end. It’s fi tting, then, that the last word Leonardo wrote was aimed at the future: “etcetera”. It was his way of saying “it will go on”
Modern-day communication “People will talk to each other, comfort and embrace one another across the hemispheres, and they will understand the others’ languages.”
This prophecy expresses Leonardo’s desire for freedom of knowledge and expression. He would have loved the internet, and the global interaction on websites like Facebook. He understood the common language of computers – zeros and ones, the universal language of science.
