The Hour of the Apprentice
by Patrick Nerra
The workshop was, as usual, bustling on this spring morning. Matteo stood before a wooden table, grinding yellow pigments into a fine powder. The steady sunshine had already warmed the room, and the odors of linseed oil and wood shavings were pleasant, if strong. Like the other apprentices, Matteo would spend much of the day preparing materials for Da Vinci while the master worked on an enormous canvas. The boy's mind wandered as his fingers mechanically performed their task.
Matteo's daydreams were interrupted by the sound of a driver shouting at his horse in the street. Within moments, Da Vinci was out of doors, quarreling with the owner of the horse cart. The apprentices eavesdropped shamelessly as the master reproached the man.
"Don't disturb the peace again! If you do, I'll see that you are arrested!"
The man muttered something and shrugged, driving his horse down the dusty street. Da Vinci withdrew indoors, raking his fingers through a mass of red curls.
"What did that man say?" he demanded of the silent apprentices.
"That you are a mad inventor and a great, soft-hearted fool," replied Ludovico, the youngest boy in the workshop.
Da Vinci laughed. For it was true that he enjoyed sketching fantastic machines as much as, or more than, he loved painting and sculpting. He sometimes dropped his paintbrush to scribble frantically in his notebooks. If a boy were lucky, he might get a glimpse of a design for a flying machine or a cart that would run by itself. What an incredible world the master created! His friends often came to the studio to see what Da Vinci was creating. They marveled at his genius and urged him on to greater and greater efforts. Everyone knew that the Duke of Milan employed Da Vinci, although he'd never managed to win favor with the powerful Medici family.
While Matteo ate his lunch of bread and cheese, he reflected on his good fortune at finding a place in Da Vinci's workshop in Milan. He might have worked in another city, such as Florence, which had been known for its master painters, woodcarvers, sculptors, and metalsmiths. But ever since his early childhood, Matteo had wanted to work for the artist most people referred to as a genius. He too wanted to invent marvelous machines, and who better to teach him than Da Vinci?
When dusk fell, the boys began to trickle out of the studio, heading home for dinner. Matteo always found it a wrench to leave this place, which seemed more alive than anywhere else in the city. Finally, even the sun deserted the sky, and Matteo found himself alone with the master who was hunched over one of those inky notebooks, completely absorbed in his sketching.
Abruptly, Da Vinci glanced up and then stared unblinkingly at the apprentice.
"Well? Not hungry for your supper, boy?"
"No, Master. I just want to see—"
"My notebook? Hm? Then see, guarda questo—this is a design for a parachute."
"Can it fly?" asked Matteo eagerly, bending his dark head over the drawing.
"It should be able to float," Da Vinci replied. "It could be made of linen cut in a large circle, with the ropes just here, and here. If a man were to throw himself down from a great height, he would land unharmed."
"And if you changed the shape, maybe made the canopy in a triangle instead of a circle?" Matteo suggested impulsively.
"Draw, then."
Carefully, Matteo made a few touches to the sketch in the notebook. Da Vinci appraised the drawing carefully, then flung back his head and grinned.
Passage 2
The Wonderful Imagination of Leonardo Da Vinci
by Cecilia Eliot
The Masterly Apprentice
Born in northern Italy in 1452, Leonard Da Vinci was truly a Renaissance man. He absorbed and helped to create what was best in Italian culture, including fine literature and art. At fifteen, Da Vinci apprenticed in Andrea del Verocchio's workshop in Florence. The apprentice soon proved to be enormously talented at painting, sculpting, and drafting designs.
Da Vinci's gifts and personality made him a favorite of the powerful Duke of Milan and won him other admirers. From 1485 to 1490, he was the duke's technical advisor and engineer, drafting flying machines, submarines, weapons, fortifications, and architecture. Based on what people already knew about simple machines such as levers, gears, and hydraulics, Da Vinci made his own designs.
At the Center of Power
In Milan, Da Vinci ran his own workshop. Having numerous projects to complete, he often gave up on one and moved on to another, although he did manage to finish several major works, including his painting The Last Supper. War and the changing circumstances of the Italian city-states kept Da Vinci on the move, but he continued to find employment. One of his patrons was the powerful Roman Cesare Borgia, for whom Da Vinci made maps and city plans.
We can learn a great deal from the notebooks Da Vinci kept from 1490 and 1495. He made sketches of the human body and other nature studies. We may admire him as the painter of the Mona Lisa, but his fabulous machines greatly impressed Da Vinci's contemporaries. Da Vinci did have rivals, the artists Michelangelo and Raphael, who competed with him for recognition and rewards.
Engineering the Future
Da Vinci was continually inspired by his observations of birds and bats. Some sketches feature a flying machine in which the pilot lay face down on a board and pedaled a crank connected to a rod-and-pulley system. He also left sketches for the "airscrew," a machine similar in theory to the modern helicopter. Da Vinci intended this device to compress air in order to achieve flight. In fact, the helicopter works on much the same principle of the aerial screw.
Da Vinci made many brilliant designs, including the self-propelled cart. Equipped with steering and a brake, the machine moved by the action of coiled springs. This may have been the world's first robot. He also designed a robotic knight, which would move by means of a cable and pulley system. Using his vast knowledge, the inventor was able to build upon and further the study of mechanics. He was a man of his time and ahead of his time.
Despite his many successes, Da Vinci had his fair share of failures as well. Many of his inventions were never built, or didn't work as he had hoped. But his endless curiosity and determination to explore the unknown pushed him forward, inspiring generations of inventors and thinkers to come. Da Vinci's legacy lives on not only in his paintings and sculptures, but also in the incredible machines he imagined and designed.
Matteo knew that he was privileged to be a part of Da Vinci's workshop, learning from the master himself. Every day brought new discoveries and challenges, as Da Vinci pushed his young apprentice to think outside the box and to never be satisfied with the status quo. Matteo felt that he was not just learning a skill, but was also being shaped into a better person by the influence of Da Vinci's creativity and ingenuity.
As Matteo gazed at the sketches in the notebook, he felt a sense of awe and wonder at the limitless possibilities that Da Vinci's mind could conceive. The world was a canvas, waiting to be filled with the genius of a true master. And Matteo was grateful to be a part of that world, even if only as an apprentice.
As Da Vinci closed the notebook and stood up, a spark of excitement in his eyes, Matteo knew that the journey was far from over. There were still heights to reach, and depths to explore. And he was ready to follow wherever the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci would lead.