Leonardo da Vinci (b. 1452, Vinci, d. 1519)

Leonardo in France

Leonardo spent the last years of his life in France. He arrived there when he was 65 and had already explored every field of knowledge possible. Leonardo was, however, tireless and, at the court of king Francis I, he designed the forefathers of today's robots and a new form of entertainment, an intermezzo to amuse the Royal Court: a tiger appeared on stage and, after gasps of surprise from the spectators, was struck dead by a monk, who slit its stomach to reveal the coat-of-arms of the King's family, the Valois, inside. Both the tiger and the monk were, in effect, robots.Leonardo had applied his knowledge of motion to create an illusion of life, anticipating the use of stage machinery by over a century.

[ Leonardo in Florence ]
[ His Years in Milan ]
[ His Roman Sojourn ]
[ Flight and Freedom ]
[ Leonardo the Engineer ]
...[ Leonardo and Warcraft ]
...[ The Art of War ]
...[ Leonardo and Water ]
...[ Entertainments ]
...[ Mechanics ]
[ The Portrait of Mona Lisa ]