Fortunately, over five thousand pages of notes of all Leonardo's production still remain, drawn up with his unmistakable mirror writing, oriented from right to left. This enormous mass of writings, certainly the most consistent of the Renaissance period, underwent many vicissitudes after Leonardo's death. In fact, the current appearance and subdivision of the manuscripts are certainly not the original ones, when the master was alive or when they passed to his faithful disciple Francesco Melzi. It was the heirs of Melzi, after his death in 1570, who initiated the dispersion of that immense material; even, not having understood its ...

Leonardo da Vinci understood the importance of scientific experimentation better than any other scientist of his century. His scientific theories, as well as his artistic innovations, were based on careful observation and precise documentation. Unfortunately, as often happened with artistic projects, many of his scientific treatises were never completed. His manuscripts consist of five thousand pages of notes, many of which are only legible in the mirror because they were written backwards, from right to left. Anticipating numerous discoveries of the modern era, Leonardo studied, in the field of anatomy, the blood circulation and the mov...

Italy, beautiful Italy: land of saints and navigators, poets and great artists. Between Empoli and Pistoia, on Saturday 15 April 1452, Leonardo di Ser Piero d'Antonio was born in the village of Vinci. His father, a notary, had it from Caterina, a woman from Anchiano who would later marry a farmer. Despite being an illegitimate child, little Leonardo is welcomed into his father's house where he will be raised and educated with affection. At sixteen, grandfather Antonio died and the whole family soon moved to Florence. It was his and our fortune, because without that move today perhaps no one would know him. The artistic precocity a...

An international team of researchers has analyzed some of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, through an innovative genomic approach known as nanopore sequencing. The goal is to study and analyze the complete composition of the microbiome, that is the set of microorganisms present in the works of the Tuscan genius. Seven designs were analyzed during the study, published in Frontiers in Microbiology (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.593401/full). Through a study carried out through macroscopic scanning and energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy, the scientists have highlighted the presence of nume...

In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci was looking for a new job. He wrote a letter to the lord of Milan, Ludovico il Moro. The letter contains a list of what Leonardo da Vinci believes he can do for the Lord. It is very similar to a modern curriculum vitae. This is the english's translation of the letter: Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim themselves skilled contrivers of instruments of war, and that the invention and operation of the said instruments are nothing different from those in common use: I shall endeavor, without prejudice to any one else, to explain myself to your Excelle...

1. Biographical data Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the town of Vinci (although it could have been in the hamlet of Anchiano, about 2 km from Vinci) in the Republic of Tuscany (Italy), as the illegitimate son of Piero Fruosino da Antonio, a wealthy notary. Leonardo's father had been marriage to a 15-year-old girl from a peasant family named Caterina. Messer Piero, married up to four times. The last of his wife, Lucrezia Guglielmo Cortigiani, provides him with great affection, incorporating him into the rest of her family. Since until then Leonardo had lived with his paternal grandfather Antonio da Vinci, a well-off g...