Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else. Leonardo da Vinci
Life well spent is long. Leonardo da Vinci
Little children
Will be taken
From the arms
Of their mothers
And thrown to
The ground
And then torn to pieces. Leonardo da Vinci
Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience, who is the one true mistress. These rules are sufficient to enable you to know the true from the false – and this aids men to look only for things that are possible and with due moderation – and not to wrap yourself in ignorance, a thing which can have no good result, so that in despair you would give yourself up to melancholy. (Artists: Da Vinci & Proof) Leonardo da Vinci
Nothing is that which fills no place. Leonardo da Vinci, cited Discoveringdavinci online
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. (Authority & Silence) Leonardo da Vinci
Painting excels because it does not fade as music does as soon as it is born; it endures. Leonardo da Vinci
Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship. Leonardo da Vinci
Tell me anything that’s ever done at all. Leonardo da Vinci, notebooks
The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known. Leonardo da Vinci
The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams that the imagination awake. Leonardo da Vinci
The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard. Leonardo da Vinci
The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation. Leonardo da Vinci
The swollen waters
Gyrate in the lake
That contains them,
And with eddying vortices
Percussively strike
Diverse objects,
And leap into the air
With muddy spume. Leonardo da Vinci
Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous, and she needs no counterpoise when she makes limbs proper for motion in the bodies of animals. But she puts into them the soul of the body, which forms them that is the soul of the mother which first constructs in the womb the form of the man and in due time awakens the soul that is to inhabit it. Leonardo da Vinci
Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory. Leonardo da Vinci
Who sows virtue reaps honour. Leonardo da Vinci
I saw this image coming down – it was half of Leonardo and half of Mona Lisa ... The proportions that Leonardo wrote about were used in creating this Shroud’s face. Lillian F Schwartz, School of Visual Arts New York & OSU
The image on the Turin Shroud has baffled the world’s top scientists for decades. Despite thousands of tests researchers couldn’t identify how it was made. The Da Vinci Shroud: Revealed, National Geographic 2001
When a flat cloth wraps a three-dimensional object like a human head the image transferred to the cloth is always distorted. The ears are so widely spaced that the face looks bloated and inhuman. Very different from the image on the Shroud. ibid.
At some point over the decades the Shroud underwent a seemingly miraculous transformation. When it reappeared it was no longer seen as an obvious fake, a bad painting, the Turin Shroud was praised as a true holy relic. Even the Pope declared it genuine. ibid.
In the 15th century Leonardo produced work for many of Italy’s rich families. In Florence’s Royal Library there’s evidence that connects him directly to the owners of the Shroud – the Savoys. ibid.
Although the cloth can be carbon-dated it’s impossible for scientists to date the actual image itself. It could have been created any time after 1260. ibid.
Although the camera wasn’t invented until the nineteenth century its forerunner – an optical device called a camera obscurer – had been around since 400 B.C. To test his theory Allen sets out to recreate the Shroud image by building a camera obscurer. Allen hangs a life-size model of a human body outside a building. Inside, he has blacked out a room, and in the wall he has placed a round crystal lens. Allen then stretches a length of cloth over a frame. The cloth has been soaked in silver sulphate which makes it light sensitive just like photographic film. All the materials he uses were available in fifteenth century Italy, the time when Da Vinci was at the height of his creative powers. Once the lens is uncovered, light streams into the room and projects a photographically perfect upside-down image of the body on to the linen. This is the same principle as a film camera. Only here the image is projected on to light-sensitive cloth. ibid.
Amazingly the two faces [Mona Lisa and Shroud] lined up perfectly ... Schwartz’s discovery is further proof that Da Vinci must have had a hand in the creation of this enduring image of Christ. ibid.
It’s the connection we’ve always been looking for: to prove a connection between Leonardo and the Shroud. Clive Prince, co-author The Turin Shroud – How Leonardo Da Vinci Fooled History
We are looking at a photograph of a crucified man. Leonardo took a body from one of the stock of bodies he dissected for his anatomical research, and he truly crucified it. Lynn Picknett, co-author The Turin Shroud – How Leonardo Da Vinci Fooled History
This law of optics and the principle of the camera obscurer had both been understood since the 5th century A.D. Some enthusiasts think that Leonardo could have applied the law as no-one had previously, and created the ghostly image on the Shroud. If it is Leonardo’s handiwork, its power to transfix seems just as strong as if it were genuinely the result of Christ’s resurrection. Decoding the Past: Unravelling the Shroud, History 2005
Some proportions of the Shroud image are anatomically incorrect ... The forehead of the Shroud figure is too short, the face too narrow, the arms extend further down than is humanly possible: is this proof that the Shroud figure is something other than the image of Jesus or any other person, or is there yet another explanation to make sense of the flawed proportions? ibid.
It is not only the historic content that suggests that the Shroud could be a forgery. There are clues in the Shroud itself. The image shows a man that would have been extraordinarily tall in Jesus’ time. The back is taller than the front. And compared to a normal man the head is simply too small for the body. And sits too low on the chest. Finally, there’s the problem of the so-called globe effect ... It’s a problem of geometry ... The image on the Shroud is not distorted in this way. Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud, National Geographic 2001
It was the remarkable similarity to Leonardo’s self-portrait that first made people wonder if there might be a link between Leonardo and the Shroud. ibid.
The Mona Lisa – bewitching, seductive, world famous. In the minds of millions she is the ultimate work of art ... Behind the enigmatic smile remains a mystery. Andrew Graham-Dixon, Secrets of the Mona Lisa, BBC 2015
If the Isleworth painting isn’t the earlier version, then it's either lost or still out there somewhere. ibid.
There are dozens of copies. ibid.
The Louvre painting shows an idealised woman, maybe a posthumous portrait. ibid.
600 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. Andrew Graham-Dixon: Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection II: Paradise Regained, BBC 2018
Amazing inventions centuries ahead of their time. Paintings said to contain hidden messages. And sophisticated robots designed more than five centuries ago … but what was the source of his profound intellect? Ancient Aliens s4e8: The Da Vinci Conspiracy, History 2012