“The greatest virtues that man has ever possessed, both sent down from above and innate - or not, yet supernatural, miraculously united in one person: beauty, grace, talent - were such that, why would this man , so happily gifted, no matter how he turned, his every action was divine; he always left all other people behind, and this personally proved that he was led by the hand of the Lord himself."
Giorgio Vasari
OPTICS
Leonardo da Vinci made many discoveries in optics.
Before Leonardo, only geometric optics existed. Only fantastic hypotheses were expressed about the nature of light that had no connection with reality. Leonardo was the first to express bold guesses about the wave nature of light: “Water, striking water, forms circles around the point of impact; sound travels a long distance in the air, and even more so fire.”
Leonardo's studies in geometric optics, unlike a number of other areas, were based on a solid foundation of works on optics of the ancient Greeks and primarily on the optics of Euclid. In addition to the ancient Greeks, his teachers were Vitelo and Alhazen, as well as artists of the early Renaissance, and primarily Brunelleschi and Uccello, who, dealing with issues of perspective, worked a lot on geometric constructions related to the laws of linear optics. But first scientific explanation the nature of vision and the functions of the eye belongs to Leonardo da Vinci. He is the first to attempt to transfer natural science knowledge in optics to the applied field.
And Leonardo began with the eye, about which his predecessors wrote a lot, but confusingly and not specifically enough. He seeks to determine the process occurring in the eye that sees external world. There was no other way to do this than to study the anatomy of the eye. Leonardo set to work diligently, got hold of a lot of eyeballs, cut them up, studied their structure, and sketched them. As a result, he created a theory of vision, although not entirely correct and in some details still repeating the mistakes of the science of that time, but still very close to correct. When studying Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts on the structure and functions of the eye, one must take into account at least two circumstances: the first is due to the fact that Leonardo imagined the lens as a sphere, and not as a biconvex lens; second, it assumes that the lens is not adjacent to the iris and is located approximately in the center of the eye. He created a unique model of the human eye with a cornea, lens, pupil and vitreous body ("aqueous humor").
Leonardo considers the issues of accommodation and adaptation of the eye in some detail. “The pupil of the eye receives as varied dimensions as the lightness and darkness of the objects that appear before it varies. In this case, nature came to the aid of the visual faculty, which, being affected by excessive light, has the ability to contract the pupil of the eye and, affected by varying darkness, to open wider this is a bright hole, like the hole of a purse. And nature acts here like someone who has too much light in the room - covering half the window, more or less, depending on need, and when night comes, she opens all the windows in order to better see inside the named one; premises. And nature here resorts to constant equalization, constantly moderating and arranging, enlarging and decreasing the pupil, in proportion to the aforementioned gradations of darkness and light, which constantly appear before it. You will be convinced of this by experience, observing nocturnal animals, such as cats, eagle owls, and owls. etc., whose pupils are small at noon and huge at night.”
The path of rays in a camera obscura. Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. 15th century
Leonardo da Vinci not only tried to explain the nature of vision and the structure of the eye, but also tried to solve the issue of improving vision. He recommended correcting eye defects (myopia and farsightedness) with artificial glass lenses - glasses. The pages of the Codex Atlanticus are devoted to glasses and magnifying glasses. Thus, we have proven that on the issue of the nature of vision and the functions of the eye, Leonardo da Vinci went much further than his predecessors. He posed and solved the problems of constructing the path of rays in the eye and camera obscura, identified the basic laws of vision, and gave a scientific explanation of the action of lenses, mirrors and glasses. Leonardo da Vinci's study of the properties of binocular vision led him to create stage needs around 1500. It was a box, on one side of which there was a large glass lens, and inside there was a candle. This is how Leonardo created “intense and broad light.”
Leonardo gave a detailed analysis to the question of the formation of shadows, their shape, intensity and color (the theory of shadows), which was especially important for the artist. Finally, greatest attention he focused on the problems of reflection of light rays from flat and curved surfaces (primarily mirrors) and refraction of rays in various media. By experimenting and researching in these areas, Leonardo often came to new, valuable, completely correct results.
In addition, he invented a number of lighting devices, including lamp glass, and dreamed of creating a telescope from spectacle lenses. In 1509 they were offered design of a machine for grinding concave mirrors , the manufacture of parabolic surfaces is described in detail.
PHILOLOGY
Leonardo was not only an outstanding painter, engineer and architect, but also a philologist.
In their scientific records Leonardo da Vinci pays tribute to one of the passions of the Renaissance - at that time it was considered unworthy to write scientific works in everyday language. In the Middle Ages, only ancient Greek and classical Latin were considered worthy of expressing scientific thoughts. But at the same time, Leonardo is an innovator and cannot help but try to expand the circle of people who could understand him, so he uses Italian.
In the codex "Trivulziano", in the manuscripts "H" and "J", in the "Atlantic" codex, enormous material has been collected for some kind of universal philological work, the depth and breadth of which amazed researchers. Either this is the experience of a treatise on the philosophy of language, or a Latin-Italian dictionary and grammar, or attempts to create precise and capacious terminology to describe his experiences... The language of Leonardo’s notes very well conveys the fullness of his multifaceted nature, an incomprehensible fusion of energies of a clear, insightful mind and storms of strong and vivid feelings: “Since the images of objects are completely in all the air present to them and all at every point of it, it is necessary that the images of our hemisphere, with all the celestial bodies, enter and exit through one natural point, where they merge and unite in mutual intersection, at which the images of the moon in the east and the sun in the west unite and merge at such a natural point with our entire hemisphere. Oh, wonderful necessity, with your greatest mind you force all actions to be involved in their causes, and according to a high and indisputable law, every natural activity obeys you in the shortest action. Who would have thought that such a narrow space could contain images of the entire Universe? Oh, a great phenomenon, whose mind is capable of penetrating such wonders? Obviously, no one can comprehend this! divine."(Atlantic Codex, folio 345).
In addition, among his contemporaries Leonardo was considered one of the best experts on Dante's poetry, and knowledge and understanding of Dante was a kind of certificate of highest literary maturity during the years of Leonardo's life.
GEOLOGY
Leonardo da Vinci inquisitively observed nature, and for this reason alone he could not help but be interested in this issue. Many later researchers accused him of being scattered, but is it fair to blame him for the fact that he could not calmly pass by natural phenomena that he did not understand, although these phenomena lay aside from his main activities. This is how his theory of fossils was born, and this is how he developed his idea of geological strata.
While observing the excavation of canals to drain swamps in the hillsides of Milan, Leonardo da Vinci noticed fossilized shells and other organic remains embedded in solid rocks. Just like Avicenna and Biruni, he came to the conclusion that the modern land and even the mountains, on which the remains of shells, oysters, corals and sea crayfish were found, were once the bottom of a retreating ancient sea. Some of his contemporaries believed that shells were formed in the earth's strata under the influence of "starlight." Church ministers claimed that since the “creation” of the world, the earth’s surface remained unchanged, and the shells belonged to dead sea animals that were brought to land during the “flood” and remained there when the waters subsided.
Leonardo de Vinci did not recognize cataclysms that push up and destroy continents, uplift mountains, and exterminate flora and fauna in the blink of an eye. The scientist believed that the outlines of land and oceans began to change slowly in the distant past, and that this process was constant. The slow but tireless activity of water, atmosphere, and wind ultimately leads to the transformation of the earth's surface. “Coasts grow, moving into the sea, reefs and capes are destroyed, inland seas dry up and turn into rivers.” Rocks with the remains of plants and animals were once deposited in water, the activity of which, according to Leonardo, should be considered the most important geological factor.
Leonardo da Vinci was not afraid to criticize biblical legend global flood, claiming that the Earth has existed much longer than stated in the Holy Scriptures. Such freethinking threatened trouble, and only the intercession of the Duke of Milan saved the artist from imprisonment.
PHYSICS
A great engineer easily moves from a particular case to a general one, from the concrete to the abstract, in a word - from technology to science. Questions about the mechanics of perspective led Leonardo to study problems of geometry (algebra, which began to develop in his time, was almost unfamiliar to him) and mechanics.
The most lasting and, perhaps, the most significant was his study of the centers of gravity of flat and three-dimensional figures, begun even earlier by two other great thinkers - Archimedes and Heron, whom Leonardo could have known from the works of Albert of Saxony and the scholastics. Just as Archimedes found the center of gravity of a triangle, so Leonardo finds the center of gravity of a tetrahedron (and hence an arbitrary pyramid). To this discovery he also adds a very elegant theorem: the straight lines connecting the vertices of the tetrahedron with the centers of gravity of the opposite faces intersect at one point, which is the center of gravity of the tetrahedron and divides each of the straight lines into two parts, of which the one adjacent to the vertex is three times larger another. This is the first result that modern science has added to Archimedes' research on centers of gravity.
Leonardo, of course, was familiar with many works on mechanics, as follows from the few quotations he gave and from more numerous extracts and notes without indicating sources. From these sources, Leonardo perceived the contemporary teaching of mechanics, assimilated it, correctly applied and developed it. He went further, expanding the concept of the moment of force with respect to a point, discovering the theorem on the expansion of moments for two special cases and using it with amazing skill to solve problems on the addition and expansion of forces, a solution that had been unsuccessfully sought for many centuries and which was completely clarified only a century later by Stevin and Galileo.
From Jordanus Nemorarius, and perhaps from Albertus of Saxony, Leonardo learned the conditions for the equilibrium of a body resting on inclined plane. But he surpassed these authors by discovering, apparently as a result of reflections on the stability of various leaning towers in Italy (Pisa, Bologna), a theorem which is now called the “support polygon theorem”: a body resting on a horizontal plane remains in equilibrium, if the base of a vertical line drawn from its center of gravity falls inside the support area.
In applying the results of science to technology, Leonardo was the first to try to give the theory of the arch - “a fortress created by two weaknesses; for the arch of a building consists of two quarters of a circle, each of these quarters of a circle is very weak, tends to fall in itself, but since one prevents the fall of the other , then the weaknesses of both quarters turn into the strength of a single whole."
He was the first to study the resistance of beams to tension and compression, the first to study the mechanism of friction and noticed its influence on the conditions of equilibrium.
In the field of dynamics, Leonardo was the first to pose and partially resolve a number of questions. Artillery studies prompted him to study the flight and impact of a cannonball; for the first time he wondered how cannonballs thrown at different angles fly and what is the force of the impact. For the first time, Leonardo posed the question of the impact of elastic balls and for a number of cases came to a completely correct solution.
Leonardo's work on the problem of friction is very remarkable. He was the first to introduce the very concept of friction coefficient and quite correctly clarified the reasons that determine the value of this coefficient.
ASTRONOMY
Leonardo da Vinci is much more famous as an artist than as a natural scientist. At the same time, his contribution to natural science, and, above all, to the doctrine of the Universe is very significant. Nothing was known about Leonardo's astronomical views until the mid-19th century, when his notebooks were first deciphered and began to be published.
In the time of Leonardo da Vinci, the Ptolemaic system of the world still reigned supreme. According to which the center of the Universe is the Earth, and all cosmic bodies known at that time are located around it. The Moon, according to Ptolemy, is the closest luminary to us. Then come Mercury and Venus, and after them Ptolemy arranged the orbit of the Sun. Behind the latter are three more planets: Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Thus, the mathematician divided the known planets into two groups - internal and external (in relation to the Sun). Leonardo repeatedly pointed out the inconsistency of this system.
This is what Leonardo writes in his diary about the Earth as a celestial body: “The Earth is not in the center of the solar circle, and not in the center of the world, but in the center of its elements, close to it and united with it; and whoever stood on the Moon when it, together with the Sun, was below us, this Earth of ours with the element of water appeared to him would play and would really play the same role as the Moon in relation to us." Elsewhere he wrote: "The sun doesn't move." Leonardo also disputed the uniqueness and originality of the structure of the Earth as the center of the universe. Anticipating the results of Galileo's observations about the similarity of the structure of the surface of the Earth and the Moon, he said: "Earth is a star almost like the Moon."
Of the major discoveries in the field of astronomy, it should be noted that Leonardo’s first correct explanation of the reasons for the ashen glow of the darkened part of the Moon. Before Leonardo, the explanation for the presence of an ashen color and the unsanctified part of the Moon was sought in the fact that the Moon itself shines, but weakly. Leonardo was the first to find the correct explanation, pointing out that the darker parts of the Moon were illuminated, albeit weakly, by sunlight reflected from the surface of the Earth.
EARTHLY HOBBIES
Leonardo was not interested in anything! Incredibly, his interests even included cooking and the art of serving. In Milan, for 13 years he was the manager of court feasts.
Leonardo invented several culinary devices to make the life of cooks easier. This is a device for chopping nuts, a bread slicer, a corkscrew for left-handed people, as well as a mechanical garlic press “Leonardo”, which is still used by Italian chefs to this day. In addition, he came up with an automatic spit for frying meat; a kind of propeller was attached to the spit, which was supposed to rotate under the influence of heated air flows coming up from the fire. A rotor was attached to a series of drives with a long rope; the forces were transmitted to the spit using belts or metal spokes. The hotter the oven heated up, the faster the spit rotated, which protected the meat from burning. Leonardo's original dish - thinly sliced meat stewed with vegetables placed on top - was very popular at court feasts.
TABLE ETIQUETTE
Along with the invention of various devices to make work in the kitchen easier, Leonardo da Vinci developed rules of etiquette.
In that era, during feasts, it was customary to wipe oily hands on a common tablecloth. You can imagine what she was like after the end of the feast. Sometimes the tablecloth was replaced by the clothes of the neighbors at the table! Leonardo considered this unworthy of his age and... invented table napkins. But, alas, this new product did not catch on. When Leonardo da Vinci placed individual napkins on the table in front of each guest during dinner, no one knew what to do with them. Some courtiers began to lay them under themselves, others blew their noses. And some wrapped treats in napkins and hid them in their pockets. Leonardo never offered napkins to guests again.
Leonardo da Vinci’s attempt to introduce a common salad bowl, which guests would pass to each other, and each would take a certain amount of salad, also ended in failure. Unfortunately, the very first guest in front of whom the salad bowl was placed swallowed all its contents, plunging both hands into the middle of the dish to do so.
A FEW RECIPES FROM LEONARDO
The following recipes are taken from the book "The Romanov Code", which appeared about 20 years ago in Italy. In the preface, the author wrote that he copied the work from the manuscript of Leonardo’s manuscript, stored in the archives of the Hermitage. The manuscript could not be found. But, having examined the book, experts concluded that Leonardo may well be its author and the recipes described in it correspond to that time.
Soup with berries
Boil a few handfuls of soft, fresh fruit in strong pork stock and strain through a horsehair sieve. Now place the words Zuppa di Bacci (soup with berries) on top of the broth. This way it will immediately become clear to your guests what dish they were served.
You can make caper soup in the same way, but at the end, instead of berries, garnish it with capers, from which you can spell out the words Zuppa di Cappero, otherwise your guests may think that they were served the same soup.
Snacks from Leonardo
Pitted plums, quartered, served on a thin slice of raw beef, sun-dried for three months. As a decoration - an apple tree flower.
Hard-boil a chicken egg, peel and remove the yolk. Mix the yolk with the peppered pine nuts and return to its place. You can top it with cream sauce.
Take a noble sea salmon, gut it, remove the skin and, kneading it, remove the bones and everything unnecessary. Then mix the crushed fish with broken chicken eggs, make fist-sized balls or pies from the resulting mass with your hands, roll them in bread crumbs and fry in a frying pan in boiling oil until golden brown. The garnish for this dish will be parsley sprouts.
Christmas pudding
Remove skin, bones and mash 7 large white fish. Mix this with the pulp of seven loaves of white bread and one grated white truffle, for gluing, add the whites of 7 chicken eggs and steam in a strong canvas bag for one day and one night.
Meat balls
Tender pork, boiled and thoroughly crushed, mixed with finely grated apple, carrots and chicken egg. Make balls from this paste, fry them until golden brown and serve on a bed of rice.
“Many famous artists, from Rembrandt to Picasso, suffered from strabismus, as evidenced by their self-portraits and other maps. Today, art historians believe that strabismus helped them paint better, since the work of the “wrong” eye was suppressed, and they saw the world in two dimensions,” says Christopher Tyler from City University London (UK).
IN last years Scientists are beginning to uncover the most unexpected secrets of history by studying how various famous historical figures were depicted by their contemporaries in the form of sculptures, paintings and other monuments of art, or described in chronicles.
For example, the statue of the Apostle Peter told doctors that the Catholic gesture of blessing with two fingers arose due to the fact that the high priest suffered from damage to the ulnar nerve, and Michelangelo’s portrait revealed the secret of how the artist managed to create despite progressive arthrosis of the hands. Christina, the girl symbol of America from the painting by Andrew Wyeth, turned out to be a victim rare disease, Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome.
Tyler discovered another secret of the classics of painting by studying all the famous self-portraits and portraits of Leonard da Vinci, one of the most successful and famous artists and inventors of the Renaissance.
As the ophthalmologist notes, unlike other painters of that time, we still do not know exactly what da Vinci actually looked like - art historians, to one degree or another, doubt the authenticity of all self-portraits of the great polymath, as well as the works of other artists where he presumably depicted.
When Tyler saw two similar works, the painting "Savior of the Earth" and the sculpture "David", cast by Andrea del Verrocchio, he noticed one common feature, extremely unusual by Renaissance standards.
Both Jesus and David, played by da Vinci himself, looked at the world. After studying the position of their eyes and calculating the position of the pupil, a British doctor discovered that the great artist suffered from light form strabismus.
The creator's left eye, as the scientist found, deviated outward by about 10 degrees compared to the right visual organ on each of these jobs. This deprived him of "three-dimensional" binocular vision in those moments when he was not concentrating, and forced him to squint when looking at distant objects.
This feature of da Vinci’s vision, according to Tyler, helped him “check” the image on canvas or paper with the real picture of the surrounding world, switching between three-dimensional and two-dimensional vision of space. This may explain the extraordinary “depth” of his work and excellent sense of perspective, the ophthalmologist concludes.
Introduction
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The “greatest progressive revolution,” which, according to F. Engels’ definition, was the Renaissance, was marked by outstanding achievements in all areas of culture. The era “which needed titans and which gave birth to titans” was also such in the history of philosophical thought. It is enough to name the names of Nicholas of Cusa, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel Montaigne, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella to imagine the depth, richness and diversity of philosophical thought of the 14th-16th centuries. Having replaced the centuries-old dominance of scholasticism, Renaissance philosophy was a unique stage in the development of European philosophy, preceding the “great systems” of the 17th century and the era of the European Enlightenment.
“Renaissance” or “Renaissance” (in French) this period of history is called, first of all, because this term means the revival of classical antiquity, ancient culture, including ancient philosophical teachings (philosophical Renaissance), the emergence of a new sense of life , which was seen as akin to the vital feeling of antiquity and as opposed to the medieval attitude to life with its renunciation from the sinful, earthly world. However, the Renaissance, whose birthplace is Italy, should not be understood as a simple repetition of ancient culture, as a return to old traditions and mores, to a past way of life. This was the historical process of the formation of a new culture, a new natural science, world trade, corresponding to new socio-economic transformations, which in essence were a period of the collapse of feudalism and the formation of new bourgeois social relations, which were progressive in nature, despite the deepest social contradictions inherent in them.
profound changes in all areas of society of his era.
In the history of mankind it is not easy to find another person as brilliant as the founder of High Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci. The comprehensive nature of the activities of this great artist and scientist became clear only when scattered manuscripts from his legacy were examined. A colossal amount of literature has been devoted to him, and his life has been studied in detail. And yet, much of his work remains mysterious and continues to excite people’s minds.
The phenomenal research power of Leonardo da Vinci penetrated into all areas of science and art. Even centuries later, researchers of his work are amazed at the genius of the insights of the greatest thinker. Leonardo da Vinci was an artist, sculptor, architect, philosopher, historian, mathematician, physicist, mechanic, astronomer, and anatomist. His numerous drawings and drawings with designs for lathes, spinning machines, an excavator, a crane, a foundry, hydraulic machines, devices for divers, etc. have reached us.
The art of Leonardo da Vinci, his scientific and theoretical research, the uniqueness of his personality has passed through the entire history of world culture and science, and had a huge influence on art.
1. The emergence of humanism as a direction in the philosophical thought of the Renaissance
The philosophy of the Renaissance was distinguished by pronounced anthropocentrism. If in the Middle Ages man was not considered in himself, but only within the framework of his relationship with God, then the Renaissance was characterized by the study of man in his, so to speak, earthly way of life. Formally, the thinkers of this era still placed God at the center of the universe, but they no longer paid primary attention to him, but to man. Man was seen as active creative person- be it in art, politics, technology, etc. Feudal asceticism, the authority of the church, and faith in the other world were opposed by secular interests and full-blooded earthly life. Liberation from spiritual shackles led to an extraordinary flowering of art and literature and the formation of a humanistic worldview.
Other important feature era is to form a new, pantheistic picture of the world. Renaissance philosophers tended to deny divine creation, to identify God and nature, to a kind of deification of nature and man.
Let us turn to the content of the humanistic concept. During the Renaissance, the importance of mental labor increased, the number of people in liberal professions increased, and a secular intelligentsia appeared. Humanists, as a rule, were not professional philosophers; these were representatives of the new social environment - politicians, diplomats, philologists, poets.
Humanists made new translations of ancient authors and retrieved many of their works from oblivion. New translations were met with hostility by representatives of the scholastic tradition, since the previous translations were elevated to the level of non-negotiable authorities. Focusing on all the richness of the revived culture, humanists entered into polemics with the cult of Aristotle. In particular, in 1417 Lucretius's poem "On the Nature of Things" was found; "Lives of the Philosophers" by Diogenes Laertius and others were discovered and translated by Niccolo Niccoli (ca.1365-1437), one of the humanists, a merchant, a collector of antiques, created an entire library containing about 800 manuscripts of works by ancient authors. “The humanists had a negative attitude towards official education, permeated with the church-scholastic spirit. It is characteristic that the humanists had no relation to universities and were not associated with the interests of the church.”
Humanists were in opposition to a number of concepts that developed in the Middle Ages. If in the Middle Ages the soul was put in first place in a person and a disdainful attitude towards the body was cultivated, then humanists strived for the complete rehabilitation of the physical principle in a person.
A spiritual-physical person is beautiful. If a person is an inextricable unity of soul and body, then there is no need to fight his bodily, natural side and overcome his sinful nature; on the contrary, it is necessary to develop the bodily side of a person. This approach to a person is anti-ascetic. It is no coincidence that humanists turn to the ancient Epicureanism they revived.
Humanists proclaimed the goodness of human nature and the equality of all people, regardless of birth and belonging to one class or another. Man has the potential for improvement. It is characteristic that if in the Middle Ages a humble person submissive to God was idealized, then humanists emphasized important role human activity and activity. From their point of view, the significance of an individual was determined by his own merits.
An important feature of humanism is anti-clericalism, a critical attitude towards professional ministers catholic church, especially to the monks, the most numerous representatives of the church. Bruni and Bracciolini write the dialogues “Against Hypocrites”, Valla - “On the Monastic Vow”. Church ministers are also criticized by Boccaccio et al.
During the Renaissance, the form of philosophical works changed. Dialogue is becoming an important genre, as it provides an opportunity for a comprehensive discussion of problems.
The humanist movement originated in Florence. At the beginning of the 14th century. the city was a major political, commercial, financial and cultural center. In a city with a population of one hundred thousand there were about 18 thousand houses. About ten thousand schoolchildren attended primary schools, about a thousand - commercial schools and about six hundred - "gymnasiums" at the church (such data were given by Giovanni Villani), about half of the male population could receive a school education.
Born in Florence and long years lived Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), in whose works (" The Divine Comedy", "Feast", "On the Monarchy"), humanists saw the source of their moods and ideas. Dante emphasizes that "of all the manifestations of divine wisdom, man is the greatest miracle." He puts forward a new idea - about the dual role of man. Man is destined for bliss " eternal”, posthumous life; but his real, earthly life is no less valuable. Dante says that the fate of a “noble man” is not predetermined by his birth in one class or another and should be formed on the basis of the desire “for valor and knowledge” .
The birth of humanism as a worldview system built on principles largely opposed to the foundations of Christian ideology is attributed by most researchers to the 14th century, linking it with Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374). Researchers consider him the true founder of humanism and Renaissance literature. Coming from a Popolan family in Florence, he spent many years in Avignon under the papal curia, and the rest of his life in Italy.
Petrarch keenly felt the modern political situation in Italy, experiencing the tragedy of its fragmentation. He believes that the main strength of a person is his mind, this is the first blow to Catholic morality. The nobility of a person does not depend on his nobility, but on his virtue; Petrarch develops this thesis in his treatise “On the Vicissitudes of Fate.”
After the death of Petrarch, in the last decade of the 14th century, the banner of Italian humanism was raised by Florence, which became the main center for the development of a new culture and ideology throughout the next century. The humanist and chancellor of the Florentine Republic, Coluccio Salutati, brilliantly combined science with political activity, "with a broad ideological platform, in which the main thing was the understanding of humanism as a complex of culture necessary for the formation of a new person. Hence the signs of the high practical role of ethics for the education of man. Salutati came to the conclusion that people can create a kingdom of mercy and peace on earth in persistent struggle and work."
Salutati praises freedom as a necessary manifestation of the human will. In Salutati's reasoning, God does not appear as the main creator of goods on earth, but only as a guarantee of the creation of this good through the efforts of people. Salutati himself, with more than 30 years of service to the Florentine Republic as its chancellor, earned the reputation of a true citizen and patriot.
Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) became Salutati's successor. His main thesis was: only a humanistic education, a system of humanitarian knowledge can and should form a whole person. Education must be comprehensive, equally relevant to spiritual and physical qualities person. Bruni, therefore, fully accepts the idea of harmonious personal development. Philosophy occupies the highest place in the system of sciences. “Theoretical knowledge, without knowledge of reality, no matter how great it is, if it is decorated with the brilliance of literary information, it will seem superfluous and dark.”
Bruni, being a staunch supporter of the republic, dedicated his works “Praise to the City of Florence” and “History of Florence” to the Florentine Republic. Leonardo Bruni and Coluccio Salutati entered the history of Italian humanism as heralds of the ideas of citizenship and republicanism. They were inspired by the philosophy of the ancients.
In the first half of the fifteenth century. humanistic education becomes the property of the upper strata of society. However, the emerging humanistic worldview from the very beginning was higher than the layers that gave birth to it - the secular character and rationalistic principles affirmed by humanism gave it much greater significance.
A high appreciation of reason gave rise to a new understanding of the structure of knowledge and the hierarchy of sciences. Emphasizing the primary ethical value of the title entailed a different solution to the problem of contemplative and active life compared to that which developed in the humanistic ethics of the previous period. The very contrast between the activity of civil life and the “contemplation” of academic pursuits was removed. Science acquired social significance. In this sense, we can talk about the development of humanistic thought in the second half of the 15th century, a civic orientation characteristic of the movement for a new culture of the previous period. At the same time, the ideal of the sage, established in the humanism of the last decades of the 15th century, became a reflection of the crisis of ideas of civil ethics generated by the beginning of crisis phenomena in the socio-economic and, especially, political sphere.
2. Features of humanism in the system of views of Leonardo da Vinci
The humanistic worldview, without openly breaking with the Christian (Catholic) religion, essentially denied many traditions of medieval church-feudal culture. The pantheistically colored philosophy ran counter to the official teaching of the church, which contrasted the creator with the world he created.
Anthropocentrism, the desire to place man at the center of the Universe, rationalism (emphasis on knowledge rather than faith in his knowledge of himself and the world around him), secular ethics, devoid of asceticism, affirming the joy of earthly existence and calling for creative activity, and finally, anti-dogmatism of thinking , a call for free thinking - all this gave humanism its originality and marked a departure from medieval traditions. Having emerged as a holistic worldview - despite the presence of different ideological trends - humanism in the second half of the 15th century. became a powerful factor in the development of the entire Renaissance culture.
The humanistic ideal of man is glorified. The new ideal finds brilliant embodiment in the art of the High Renaissance, illuminated by the genius of the titanic artist Michelangelo.
“In the entire history of the Renaissance, it is impossible to find a phenomenon more decisively and irreconcilably opposed to all passivity than the work of the frantic Michelangelo. For all centuries it remained a trumpet voice, awakening a person, calling him to action, to struggle, to heroic deeds. It is impossible to imagine anything more far from the contemplative ideal of the Platonists."
Humanistic philosophy of the second half of the 15th century, placing man at the center of its attention, emphasized the greatness of his mind and the right to free creative thought. By undermining faith in dogma and authority, humanists cleared the way for the development of scientific knowledge of the world, a new step towards which was made by the successes of natural science at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. It was this area of science that became in the 16th century. the focus of freethinking, enriching the humanistic worldview with a number of bold and original ideas. Experience and scientific experiment were recognized as an important link in understanding the surrounding world, which strengthened the realistic tendencies in the Renaissance approach to the world and man.
The first step in this direction was taken by the brilliant thinker, scientist, engineer and artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). "Leonardo was the most consistent and the most brilliant representative of that new method, based on experiment, the goal of which was the scientific knowledge of nature." Having acted as a decisive opponent of speculative knowledge and fruitless philosophizing, Leonardo considered a thought devoid of value that does not go beyond the boundaries of pure contemplation, is not connected with action and is not confirmed by practice. “And if you say that sciences that begin and end in thought have truth, then we cannot agree with you on this, but should be rejected for many reasons, and first of all because experience is not involved in such purely mental reasoning, without which has no authenticity." And further: “Mental things that have not passed through sensation are empty and do not give rise to any truth, but perhaps deceptive.”, but concrete sensory knowledge of the world is only the beginning of experience, which, as Leonardo believed, is fully revealed when the scientist comprehends the nature of things by changing them with his own hands - conducting a physical experiment, creating an engineering design or drawing.
The brilliant thoughts of the great scientist were confirmed when relatively recently the so-called Madrid Codex of Leonardo da Vinci, containing his observations and inventions in various fields of knowledge, were found. Followers were amazed by the depth of scientific and technical foresight of the great Florentine. In the 15th century, he developed ideas that were embodied only three to four hundred years later, and some have become feasible only today. His drawings are so accurate that they allowed the staff of the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan to make models of a number of inventions of the great Florentine: a water saw with automatic log feed, a screw cutter, a pile driver, a winch, a notching machine, files; and more recently, according to the exact drawing of a scientist, an American company began to produce polystyrene water pipes.
Defending new method knowledge, teachings, he argued that errors are never born of experiment, but are rooted in the thinking of the researcher, in his ignorance: “experience is never mistaken, only your judgments are mistaken, which expect from it things that are not in its power.”
According to Leonardo, experience is the best teacher and no books can replace it: “wisdom is the daughter of experience.” “Do not trust, researchers, authorities,” he urged, “who, with their imagination alone, wanted to mediate between nature and people; trust only those who, not only by the instructions of nature, but also by their actions, have taught their minds to understand how experiences deceive those who did not comprehend their nature."
Practice, according to the scientist, “should be based on good theory.”
“He who is carried away by practice without science is like a helmsman who steps onto a ship without a rudder or compass.”
The scientist considered mathematics to be a mediator between experience and knowledge; he saw mathematics as a method of scientific knowledge; he made extensive use of mathematics in experimental studies of physical nature. “There is no certainty in science there,” he argued, “where it is impossible to apply any of the mathematical sciences and that has no connection with mathematics."
Leonardo Renaissance humanism realistic
Leonardo decisively departed from the previous scientific trend. But this departure was predetermined in part by the achievements of humanistic thought itself (Ricino, Pico, especially Alberti) and, opening new stage in its development, Leonardo enriched the humanistic worldview with a realistic justification of the cognitive and creative capabilities of man.
In his understanding, knowledge turns out to be not only a great human ability, but also a vital need, a necessity that determines his attitude to the world around him.
Connected with faith in the power of the human mind is Leonardo’s conviction in the limitless creative possibilities of man - and in this he was a direct successor of Alberti. “Where nature ceases to produce its species,” noted Leonardo, “there man begins to create from natural things, with the help of this same nature, countless species of new things.”
The genius of Leonardo raised the Renaissance idea of man and his creative power to a new level, placing these ideas themselves on a real, practical basis. And this is the most radical meaning of the humanistic thought of the Renaissance. The gap with the Christian worldview is especially noticeable here: “If we question the reliability of every sensible thing,” wrote Leonardo, “all the more should we question that which rebels against sensations, such as, for example, questions about the essence of God and the soul and the like, about which they always argue and fight. And truly, always where there is a lack of reasonable arguments, they are replaced by shouting, which does not happen with reliable things.”
Although Leonardo called himself “a man without a book education,” emphasizing that he had little connection with the circle of humanist philosophers and philologists, and although in reality he was closer to the environment of artisans and artists, he raised the importance of the “mechanical arts,” which included painting , to the level of "liberal arts". Thus, he marked the beginning of the rapprochement of different fields of knowledge - natural and humanities - within the framework of a single “truth of science”, one of the foundations of which was the close connection between theory and practice.
Leonardo remained indifferent to Neoplatonism and took a completely different path. He based his conclusions on naturalistic - natural-testing and artistic-realistic principles, and not on platonic - mystical ones. The greatness of Leonardo lay in the fact that he was the first to understand the insufficiency of the ethical development of reality and, based on the same humanistic premises, began the struggle for knowledge and subordination of nature to man. Apparently, natural philosophical humanism in the 16th century . - this, in essence, is the third final stage in the development of the humanistic worldview: “here it receives completion and exhausts itself.”
The cult of reason, knowledge and creativity, which colored the main content of humanistic ideology in Italy, cleared the way for free development, fettered by the thousand-year dominance of religion and theology in the middle of the century. Natural science already in the 16th century. took the first steps towards real science. Humanism continued the secular trends in the development of ideology and art that had emerged in Italy back in the 12th-13th centuries, and asserted the right to the existence of an independent secular culture. This can be seen as one of the main achievements of humanism and the Renaissance in Italy.
Conclusion
The philosophy of the Renaissance is a rather motley picture, a set of various philosophical schools, often incompatible with each other, and is not something whole, although it is united by many common ideas. This philosophy seems all the more complex if we look back centuries and see that many of the ideas of the Renaissance arose much earlier than the era began - in the 13th century, when debates were still raging in medieval universities, the main ideas were those of Thomas Aquinas and The ideas of the later nominalists were just beginning to emerge. But at the same time, ideas arose in Italy that were in opposition to the scholastic worldview that was dominant at that time.
The philosophy of the Renaissance was, first of all, clearly distinguished by its pronounced anthropocentrism. If in the Middle Ages a person was considered in his relationship with God, then the Renaissance was characterized by an understanding of a person as an independent personality (in art, politics, technology). Asceticism and faith in the other world were opposed to secular interests and a full-blooded earthly life. All this led to an extraordinary flowering of art and the formation of a humanistic worldview.
If we talk about representatives of this era, then the figures of the Renaissance, usually referred to as representatives of humanism, are almost always consistent Platonists, but with liberal-individualistic and free-thinking conclusions for science, morality and socio-political theory, often with anti-church views, but with the promotion to the foreground of the simplicity of primitive Christianity.
The legendary fame of Leonardo da Vinci has lived for centuries and still not only has not faded, but is burning brighter: the discoveries of modern science again and again fuel interest in his engineering and science fiction drawings, in his encrypted notes. Particularly hotheads even find almost prescience in Leonardo’s sketches atomic explosions. And the painting of Leonardo da Vinci, in which, as in all his works, there is something unsaid and everything he did, he did consciously, with the full participation of the intellect. But he almost deliberately threw a cloak of mystery over the content of his paintings, as if hinting at the bottomlessness, the inexhaustibility of what is inherent in nature and man. Leonardo seems to stop mid-sentence; Instead of the expected ending, his words are heard from the outside or from eternity: “Whoever thinks it’s too much, let him reduce it; whoever thinks it’s not enough, let him add.” Initially, his anatomy was meant, but the statement can also be interpreted in the sense that each life is part of a common life, and if someone did not manage to do something, others will try for him.
Art is a philosophy that feeds on ambiguity, the daughter of the inexpressible, imitates nature not for the sake of repetition, but in order to create a “great creation” of reason and utopia, to make the imaginary more concrete and the reality more abstract, so that the fruits of the mind are confirmed and take on a visible form. , that “which otherwise would not have been so.” With the help of analytical drawing, the artist learns endless “phenomena that have never been verified by experience.”
Leonardo's art had a huge influence on Italian painting. Leonardo da Vinci is considered to be the embodiment of the Renaissance ideal of the "universal man".
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Leonardo da Vinci. Savior of the world. around 1499.
Leonardo da Vinci most likely had intermittent divergent strabismus, says the JAMA Ophthalmology. A British ophthalmologist came to this conclusion after studying six paintings, drawings and sculptures by the artist. Moreover, the disease could help the artist in his work, since divergent strabismus is associated with good stereoscopic vision.
In strabismus, one or both eyes deviate from the central axis when looking at an object. At the same time, from the side it is clear that the corneas are located asymmetrically with respect to the corners or edges of the eyelids. There are several types of this disease, including divergent strabismus (exotropia), when the cornea is directed towards the edge of the eye. Strabismus can be intermittent, meaning that sometimes it appears, and sometimes the person can straighten the eyes.
Some famous artists, such as Rembrandt, Durer and Degas, suffered from strabismus. This is evident from their self-portraits, in which the incorrect position of the cornea of one of the eyes is noticeable. British ophthalmologist Christopher Tyler from City University London suggested that Leonardo da Vinci could be placed in this row. The researcher examined six works (two sculptures, two oil paintings and two drawings)—possible self-portraits or portraits of the artist—and measured their squint angle, the angle at which the male pupils deviated from the midline.
The researcher studied the statue of David and the terracotta bust codenamed “Young Warrior” by Andrea del Verrocchio. Presumably, the model for the young warrior was Leonardo, who at the time of the creation of this work was an apprentice in the sculptor's workshop. At the same time, the warrior’s appearance is very similar to David, and both sculptures have a noticeable squint. The two paintings that Tyler studied - “John the Baptist” and “Savior of the World” - belong to the brush of the artist himself. Although they were presumably not self-portraits of the artist, Da Vinci probably believed that the artist's paintings would reflect his appearance to varying degrees. In the Atlantic Codex, a collection of drawings and discussions on different topics, he wrote: “[The soul] guides the hand of the artist and makes him copy himself, since it seems to the soul that this is the best way to depict a person.” In addition, in appearance, John the Baptist is very similar to David, sculptured by Verrocchio. Therefore, it is possible that Da Vinci gave the saint his own features. Finally, the characters depicted in the self-portrait of an elderly Leonardo and the Vitruvian Man, who looks like Da Vinci, also suffered from strabismus.
Statue of David by Andrea del Verrocchio
JAMA Network. American Medical Association
According to the researcher, analysis of the alignment of the eyes in portraits and sculptures suggests that Da Vinci suffered from intermittent divergent strabismus. In a relaxed position, the squint angle appeared to be -10.3 degrees, but when the artist focused, the eyes returned to the correct position. Strabismus is usually associated with good stereoscopic vision, which most likely helped the artist take into account the spatial depth of objects. Da Vinci wrote on this subject in his Treatise on Painting: “The first thing to consider is whether the objects have the necessary contrasts corresponding to their [three-dimensional] position.”
Doctors regularly discuss the diagnoses of famous historical figures at the Historical Clinicopathological Conference, which takes place annually in the United States. So, last year, researchers developed typhoid fever in Sultan Salah ad-Din, who died from this disease. And two years ago, doctors fell ill with the heroine of the famous painting by American artist Andrew Olson “Christina’s World”.
Ekaterina RusakovaThe great Italian artist, sculptor, thinker, who combined a profound theorist and practitioner, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) influenced the development of all areas of knowledge of his era, including optics. He was the first 15th-century thinker to propose that the subjective visual experience noted in Euclid's optics and the objective laws of linear perspective are interrelated. Developing Alhazen's ideas about visual errors and the role of light in creating an optical illusion, he explores in detail the issues of perception of light, color and shadow, introduces the concept of visual power, which, unlike the visual pyramid, is not reduced to a single end point, and also comes to the conclusion that that the optical properties of the eye act in a similar way to a camera obscura.
The comprehensive nature of Leonardo da Vinci's work as a great artist and scientist became apparent when scattered manuscripts from his legacy were examined, which, according to the author's plan, were to become an encyclopedia of all sciences.
In the 15th century, the representation of physicality, as well as the representation of space, is filled with the aesthetics of three-dimensional visual correlations. It becomes aesthetically important that, thanks to linear perspective, the human eye has the opportunity to see a panorama of personal relationships with the universe, to realize oneself as an organic part of the natural whole. And if earlier optics was considered in the context of light metaphysics, then from the end of the 15th century (largely thanks to the works of Leonardo da Vinci on perspective) there was a sharp shift in optics into the practical field. Leonardo points out the importance of accurate observations. Without correct location light and shadow, the image will not be three-dimensional. If a painting does not show an object as three-dimensional, it means that it does not meet the main criterion - resemblance to what is depicted.
In our opinion, it is necessary to dwell on this criterion and note that light, thus, serves not only as the basis of geometric optics, but is important for fulfilling the practical task of the painter, namely creating volume. Both of these qualities are aimed at imitating nature. Discussing the science of painting and perspective, Leonardo emphasizes that the most important thing in painting is that the depicted bodies should appear in relief, and the backgrounds surrounding them should seem to go deeper.
The main achievement of the painter was considered the ability to “make a flat surface show the body in relief”; such art is the result of mastery of chiaroscuro, and the one who is most successful in this art deserves the greatest praise. Chiaroscuro drawing was used to create clarity and contrast of the image.
The science of painting for Leonardo is a reflection of the isomorphism of nature and the cognitive mind, sensory impression and scientific experience. In the rhythmic organization of compositional spaces, in the nature of the construction of the composition, in the drawings and rhythmic textures of the application of strokes, one can trace the goal characteristic of the Renaissance artist: to serve naturalism and accuracy, without forgetting the role of artistic knowledge.
