Da Vinci, the legacy

Salutations dear reader,

There was a program on PBS last week concerning the Modern applications concerning the drawn fantasy devices of Leonardo Da Vinci. They attempted to build his cross-bow catapult and one of his thousands of designs for flying machines. I, as usual, was a captive audience.

If the subject is Da Vinci, the world stops and I’m there. I usually get another piece of information to add to my overwhelming collection of information concerning this man.

I’m sure that those who know me are aware of this fascination with a man who has been dead for over 500 years, a man who skated along the dangerous edge of the established religious rigors of proper thought and action. Funny thing about established religion, thinking for ones self is not something it employs. Established religions function is to lay down rules and direction for what is and isn’t acceptable thought and activity, according to its interpretation of what it believes God wants. It prefers ignorance and dogma to explanation and knowledge. I had a belly full of it early in life, I attended Parochial school for the first 5 years of my scholastic endeavors. Brother was that a disaster. We all learned early just what a serious problem I have with authority and the spoken order from one I don’t respect (or is holding a gun) “Obey!”

To this day the sight or subject of a Nun comes up and I find myself growling. However I choose not to go into this right now…the subject is Da Vinci.

I ran across my first book about Da Vinci when I was transferred into a public school and for some reason I was sent to the Library as some form of punishment. I don’t recall the exact form of my infringement of that society’s rules that I had violated but I thank God that I did it. I was intrigued by this man and his drawings of what he saw and what he thought. Up to that point his was the first original mind I’d ever ran across. He was an outsider to society having not been born on the right side of the sheets so to speak, because his parents weren’t married he was barred from higher position in society thus forced to receive a tradesman’s education. His spelling was an atrocity. His Math skills sucked. He didn’t follow the rules…he followed his heart, he allowed his mind to work. He followed his mind, pushed the boundaries of what he knew and kept a record of this thought process. He allowed his mind to collect information and develop a new idea from what it had learned. He was, my father would like to say, ‘ not staying in step with the program’. The church believed that human Anatomy was the business of God and only God…Believing dissection was a criminal act…Necromancy was the term used…maybe if a man figured out how one worked he’d want to build one of his own and really piss off God. Better to live in ignorance and bury the dead then to piss off God. Leonardo needed to know why these little bumps under the skin moved when the person moved. He needed to know why people and animals had similar features with some extremes appearing in the animals that contributed to their special abilities. He was always collecting information and using it somewhere else. At the time he was revered as brilliant but dangerous.

Today we see his drawings and discover that at least one in 5 of our modern discoveries were made by him first, well over 500 years ago. What I got from this program that was on last week was this: It seems that it was only recently discovered that the blood flowing through the heart makes a vortex that helps close the valves. And Yupper Da Vinci not only noticed this but constructed an experiment to prove it to himself, then he designed an artificial human heart valve that is indistinguishable from one “invented” in the last 10 years. He also discovered that the heart “wrings” itself out when it beats. We just re discovered this in the last 5 years. Trained as an Artist, he was an architect, astronomer, anatomist, botanist, civil engineer, designer, mechanic, military engineer, musician, geologist, etc. etc. He even invented technical drawing-the exploded veiw and multiple veiws. In fact when we speak of someone who has more then one talent we refer to him as a ‘renaissance man’ in the tradition of Da Vinci and other men like him…and yes there were others, dear reader, he was just the best.

It’s been estimated that less then a fourth of the books and drawings of Da Vinci have survived. Most of his legacy ended up in possession of 2 church leaders; a monk and a cardinal. The collection that was owned by the cardinal had pages torn out of it and sections destroyed…probably because it challenged church doctrine. Da Vinci wasn’t in step with the program according to the church. And we never learn... established religious based authority still wants to dictate what is and isn't truth. Is "Intelligent design" based in Science or theology? I want to also assure my reader that I do believe there was intelligence behind the design of the Universe and the things in it, but I didn't learn that in school, and have a problem with it being taught in school. School presented me with the facts as they were known...I reached my own conclusion.

I write this for my Nephew Ben.
I've met the lad once when we baptized him oh so many years ago...I don't get to England that often and my sister doesn't come to NC ever.

My sister has reported that Ben has declared war. He doesn’t want to learn French. She’s had some problems with Ben’s education…seems he wants to learn what he wants to learn and doesn’t want to stay with the “program”. All reports are that he’s not a stupid boy, he's stubborn about what he wants to learn- just knows what he wants to know and follow it where it may lead. I would NEVER tell my sister how to raise her child. She wouldn’t hear of it, just as my father wouldn’t hear of how to raise his son. But I write this with a sparkle in my eye. I get this feeling my Nephew Ben will be taking over my role in the family as the “different one,” the one who follows his heart and pursues the education that will teach him what he wants to know and not what “the program” dictates. The one who won't color inside the lines, whose sentences run perpendicular the lines provided on the 8 1/2 x 11 pre printed lines on the notebook paper. He’ll be the one who collects stuff that no one has any use for because he sees potential in it. The one his friends and peers watch with the look of shock as the most complicated physical problems are solved simply and with stuff he finds around him and in the trash. The one that will find that Leonardo is his patron saint and will collect all the information he can about him. You go Ben, You go with my blessing.