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 :. | Study of the proportion of the head | Portrat of Isabella d-Este | The Baptism of Christ | Mona Lisa (detail) dyk | The Annunciation |
Related Artists:
Master of the Housebook
German Northern Renaissance Painter, 15th Century, German graphic artist. The master is named for a series of vigorous and sophisticated drawings of everyday life found in the Hausbuch at Castle Wolfegg. Many of his engravings are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. His work is thought to have influenced Bosch, Bruegel, and Durer.
Francis Nicholson
English Painter, 1753-1844 English painter. After studying with a local artist in Scarborough, Nicholson began his career in his native Pickering, producing sporting pictures and portraits for Yorkshire patrons. In the mid-1780s a sideline in portraits of country houses led him to concentrate on landscapes in watercolour. From 1789 he contributed views of Yorkshire and Scotland to exhibitions at the Royal Academy. He also supplied topographical views for the Copper Plate Magazine. Although his market increasingly became London-based, Nicholson continued to live in Yorkshire (at Whitby, Knaresborough and Ripon), only moving to London c. 1803.
ulrika eleonora
Ulrika Eleonora d.y., född 23 januari 1688, död 24 november 1741, var regerande drottning av Sverige 1719-1720, dotter till Karl XI och Ulrika Eleonora av Danmark, syster till Karl XII samt kusin till August den starke, Fredrik IV av Danmark och Fredrik IV av Holstein-Gottorp. Hon gifte sig 24 mars 1715 med Fredrik av Hessen, den blivande Fredrik I, men förblev barnlös. Ulrika Eleonora föddes den 23 januari 1688 på Stockholms slott som dotter till kung Karl XI och Ulrika Eleonora d.ä. Under barndomen förbisågs hon av alla för sin äldre, livligare och mera begåvade syster Hedvig Sofia. Så snart hon blivit giftasvuxen fick hon många friare, bland andra blivande Georg II av Storbritannien och arvprins Fredrik av Hessen-Kassel. Redan 1710 begärde denne hennes hand, men deras trolovning tillkännagavs inte förrän den 23 januari 1714. Bilägret firades den 24 mars 1715. Under Karl XII:s vistelse utomlands var hon, efter Hedvig Sofias död (1708), den enda myndiga medlemmen av kungahuset inom riket om man borträknar hennes åldriga farmor (Hedvig Eleonora). I slutet av 1712 eller början av 1713 hade Karl XII tankar om att göra sin syster Ulrika Eleonora till regent, men fullföljde inte denna plan. Det kungliga rådet däremot övertalade henne att bevista dess sammanträden för att i henne erhålla ett stöd. Första gången hon infann sig i rådet, 2 november 1713, beslöts också om sammankallande av en riksdag. Det s.k. rörelsepartiet vid denna riksdag ville att prinsessan i kungens frånvaro skulle göras till riksföreståndarinna "såsom närmaste arvinge till kronan och regementet". Detta förslag motarbetades av Arvid Horn och rådet, som fruktade att svårigheterna för en ändring av regeringssättet därigenom skulle ökas. Prinsessan visade emellertid ständerna stort intresse för landets angelägenheter. I sina brev till kungen uppmanade hon honom att återvända hem och varnade honom för möjliga följder av hans frånvaro. Med hans samtycke undertecknade hon under den följande tiden alla rådets skrivelser, utom dem som var ställda till honom, för i sin egenskap av vice regent var hon ett med kungen enligt dennes uppfattning. Mera sällan deltog hon i rådets förhandlingar.