Edwards Roberta - Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?

By Roberta Edwards

Illustrated by True Kelley

Grosset & Dunlap

For Tanni TytelR.E.

For Eloise and Charlotte LindblomT.K.

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Text copyright 2005 by Grosset & Dunlap.

Illustrations copyright 2005 by True Kelley. Cover illustration copyright 2005 by Nancy Harrison. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.

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Some people are enormously talented and then there is Leonardo da Vinci. He lived at a time when there were many extremely talented people all around him. Even so, he stood out.

He could draw and paint better than anyone. One of his paintings, the Mona Lisa, is the most famous painting in the world. He was a scientist hoping to unlock the secrets of the natural world. He was an engineer and inventor. He designed a bicycle that would have workedthree hundred years before the first bike was actually built.

He was an excellent athlete. A fine musician. And he was handsome. (Although there are no known paintings of him, whenever people of the day described him, they always mentioned his good looks.)

I want to work miracles, he stated. Yet he often met with failure. And while he could be charming, he mistrusted almost everyone. He was a loner. He had no family of his own. For sixteen years, he didnt even have a home of his own.

By his own standards, Leonardo was a disappointment. He never reached the goals he set for himself. His greatest works were left unfinished. Nevertheless, what he did achieve in sixty-seven years still sets the standard for human excellence. It is hard to imagine someone doing better.

On April 15, 1452, in a tiny hill town in Italy, a baby boy was born. His father was a well-to-do businessman, Ser Piero. His mother, Caterina, was a poor young peasant girl. We dont even know her last name. Their baby was named Leonardo. Because the town he came from was called Vinci, he was known as Leonardo da Vinci. That means Leonardo from Vinci.

Leonardos parents werent married. His father was ashamed of the baby and left him with his mother. Ser Piero married another woman, someone more respectable, and started a new family. He moved nearby to the busy city of Florence. Caterina did not want to keep her baby, either. She cared for him for only a year or two. Then she, too, married someone else and began a new family.

So what was to become of little Leonardo?

Ser Pieros answer was to leave the baby with his parents. But Leonardos grandparents were oldhis grandfather was eighty-five at the time. At their age, what did they want with a toddler? Still, they took him in. They fed him, clothed him, and gave him a home. But little else. No one loved the little boy. The only person who showed interest in him was an uncle named Francesco.

Francesco was a farmer and he loved the beautiful countryside around Vinci. He would take long walks in the hills, which were covered with olive trees.

Leonardo would go with him. It was there on these walks that Leonardo grew to love the natural world. The rolling shapes of the hills. The silvery leaves of the olive trees. The flight of birds. And the soft misty sunlight.

Everywhere he went, Leonardo took a little notebook with him. He made drawings of anything that interested him. A plant. Ducks in a stream. Flowers. An insect. Some cows. Paper was very valuable, but Leonardo was lucky. Because of his fathers business, there was always a supply. It was one of the most important things Ser Piero ever gave his son.

PARCHMENT AND PAPER

PARCHMENT IS MADE FROM THE SKINS OF ANIMALS SUCH AS SHEEP, CALVES, OR GOATS. THE SKIN IS DRIED AND TREATED UNTIL IT BECOMES FLAT AND PAPERLIKE.

PARCHMENT IS MUCH STRONGER THAN PAPER. IT IS MORE EXPENSIVE, TOO. THE BEAUTIFUL PRAYER BOOKS AND BIBLES COPIED BY HAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES WERE ON PARCHMENT. PARCHMENT IS RARELY USED TODAY.

PAPER WAS FIRST MADE IN CHINA ALMOST TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO BY USING BARK FROM THE MULBERRY TREE. (TODAY, THE FINEST PAPER IS MADE FROM CLOTH RAGS.) PAPER WAS MADE BY WETTING AND POUNDING THE MATERIAL UNTIL IT SEPARATED INTO FIBERS OR STRANDS. THESE WERE THEN BROKEN DOWN INTO A LIQUIDLIKE SUBSTANCE THAT WAS POURED ONTO A MESH MOLD. AFTER THE SUBSTANCE DRAINED ON THE MOLD, IT COULD BE LIFTED OFF AS A SHEET OF PAPER. IN EUROPE, PAPER WAS INTRODUCED BY THE MOORS OF NORTHERN AFRICA. THE FIRST PAPERMAKING MILL WAS BUILT IN SPAIN AROUND 1150.