Leonardo da Vinci

Everybody knows that Leonardo was a very great painter and a genius of the Renaissance. However, his colleagues thought that some things about his behaviour  were very strange, they didn’t understand him at all, and still today these obscure aspects make him enigmatic.

Leonardo had achieved excellent results with his painting.  He lived a good life, spent lots of money, wore elegant clothes, ate quality food and was very generous economically to his young apprentices. Then, at a certain point in his life Leonardo did a strange thing, he decided to neglect painting and devote himself, nearly exclusively, to scientific research.  His painter colleagues couldn’t understand this choice – why give up something that gives you such a good life?

Also Sigmund Freud’sessay on Leonardo written in 1910, speaks about how Leonardo’s colleagues thought he  was wasting time on experiments  instead of painting seriously and getting just as rich as his student Perugino. They even suspected him of black magic!

Still today the enigma continues – why did he decide to neglect painting, to devote him self to scientific research?  In reality it would seem that Leonardo’s scientific studies didn’t achieve anything useful for mankind.

Bill Gates himself thought the same thing. In 1994, after buying Leonardo’s Leicester Code for 30 million dollars, Gates couldn’t understand what was so important about Leonardo’s research compared to his own work which gave the internet to mankind.