Abstract
My discovery that one of the leg diagrams in Giovanni Alfonso Borelli’s De Motu Animaliam was the same as in Madrid MS I had Carlo Pedretti diving into his library as the realization set in that perhaps the missing material had been discovered at last. There had been a controversy when Madrid MS I was discovered in the 1960s about when the missing material may have been removed. Interviews were made and the case closed.1
Keywords
- Escapement Mechanism
- Drive Train
- Drive Wheel
- Coil Spring
- Return Spring
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References
See the section on “News and Notes” in Renaissance Quarterly, New York, Renaissance Society of America, XXIV, no. 3, autumn 1971, pp. 430–431, for the “Notice” signed by the members of a committee—Theodore S. Beardsley, Jr. (Hispanic Society of America), Carlo Pedretti (UCLA), and Paul Oskar Kristeller (Columbia U), Chairman—charged by the Renaissance Society of America “to investigate the circumstances under which two Leonardo manuscripts entitled Tratados de fortificación, mecanica y geometria had been recently discovered in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid”.
Nothing is left of Leonardo’s project for the mechanical lion and what used to be known of it was only through the mentions by Vasari and Lomazzo, who did not indicate the precise occasion of the event nor its symbolism. The missing information is supplied by the Descrizione delle felicissime nozze della Cristianissima Maesta’ di Madama Maria Medici Regina di Francia e di Navarra by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (Florence, Giorgio Marescotti, 1600), p. 10, as first discussed and reproduced by Pedretti, Leonardo architetto, cit., p. 322. See also, by the same author, “Leonardo at Lyon,” in Raccolta Vinciana, XIX, 1962, pp. 267–272, and Leonardo. A Study in Chronology and Style, London, Thames & Hudson,and Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1973 (second edition, New York, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1982), p. 172.
Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo architetto, cit., p. 209, and, by the same author, “Leonardo at Lyon,” in Raccolta Vinciana, XIX, 1962, pp. 267–272.
Ivor B. Hart, The Mechanical Investigations of Leonardo da Vinci, London, Chapman & Hall, 1925. Arturo Uccelli, Leonardo da Vinci’s Libri di Meccanica, Milan, Hoepli, 1940. Zur Mechanik Leonardo da Vincis (Hebelgesetz, Rolle, Tragfähigkeit von Ständern und Trägern). Inaugural Dissertation... Fritz Schuster. Germany, K. B. Hof-und Univ.-Buchdruckerei von Junge & Sohn, 1915.
Cf. Carlo Pedretti, The Codex Atlanticus of Leonardo da Vinci. A Catalogue of Its Newly Restored Sheets, New York, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1978–1979, vol. II, pp. 125–126, new folio number 812 r. The studies on the subject are as follows (in chronological order): Guido Semenza, “L’ automobile di Leonardo”, in Archeion, IX, no. 1, 1928, pp. 98–104; Arturo Uccelli, “L’ automobile a molle e Leonardo da Vinci”, in La lettura, no. 3, March 1936, pp. 7–8; Id., “Leonardo e l’ automobile”, in Raccolta Vinciana, XV–XVI, 1935–1939, pp. 191–199; Giovanni Canestrini, Leonardo costruttore di machine e di veicoli, Rome, 1939, in particular pp. 67–129 (section reprinted from the author’s L’automobile: il contributo italiano all’ avvento dell’ autoveicolo, Roma-Milano, Tumminelli and C. Editori, 1939. See also the interpretation by another engineer, Enrico Gigli, later published in the book by Marialuisa Angiolillo, Leonardo. Feste e teatri. Presentazione di Carlo Pedretti, Naples, Società Editrice Napoletana, 1979, one page of text accompanying pl. 6. This too has arbitrary modifications to, or distortions of Leonardo’s design, such that the resulting machine would never work. The latest studies on the subject are as follows: Mario Loria, “Ruota trascinata e ruota motrice: L’ “automobile’ di Leonardo,” in Leonardo nella scienza e nella tecnica. Atti del Simposio internazionale di Storia della Scienza, Firenze-Vinci, 23–26 giugno 1969, Florence, 1975, pp. 101–103; Augusto Marinoni, Leonardo da Vinci: L’ automobile e la bicicletta, Milan, 1981, and, by the same author, “Leonardo’s Impossible Machines,” in Leonardo da Vinci Engineer and Architect. Edited by Paolo Galluzzi, Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1987, pp. 111–130, in particular pp. 124–125. See finally my paper “Leonardo’s Lost Robot,” in Achademia Leonardi Vinci, IX, 1996 for the Appendix on pp. 109–110: “Leonardo’s ‘Automobile’ and Hans Burgkmair’s ‘Gala Carriages’.”
Canestrini, p. 128.
Carlo Pedretti, “Eccetera: perchè la minestra si fredda” (Codice Arundel, fol. 245 recto). XV Lettura Vinciana..., Firenze, Giunti, 1975, p. 13, note 9, where the so-called “automobile” represented in CA, f. 296 v-a [812r], is considered more likely “a cart for festivals moved by springs and planned to cover brief tracts as from one side of a piazza to another” (“non era altro che un carro per feste azionato da molle e destinato a percorrere brevi tragitti come da un punto a un altro di una piazza”). In his Leonardo architetto (Milan, 1978), pp. 319–322, the interpretation is further elaborated and the Leonardo drawings shown in relation to other early studies in the Codex Atlanticus at the Uffizi.
See Ladislao Reti (ed.), The Unknown Leonardo, New York, Abradale Press, 1974, in particular the chapter by Silvio A. Bedini and Ladislao Reti, “Horology,” pp. 240–263, with various kinds of springs discussed on pp. 250–253.
Leonardo da Vinci, The Madrid Codices, vol. III, Commentary by Ladislao Reti, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1974, pp. 23–26. According to Carlo Pedretti, cit. in Chapter I, note 1, p. 322, those missing sheets could well have contained “most accurate and spectacular studies for the robot.”
This is fully discussed and illustrated in my book Robot Evolution: The Development of Anthrobotics, New York, Wiley, 1994, pp. 27–29.
Maurice and Mayr, Clockwork Universe, New York, Smithsonian, 1980, p. 170.
Alfred Chapuis and Edmond Droz, Automata a Historical and Technological Study, London, B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1958, pp. 300–302.
Reproduced in facsimile in I Disegni di Leonardo da Vinci e della sua Cerchia nel Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe della Galleria degli Uffizi a Firenze ordinati e presentati da Carlo Pedretti. Catalogo di Gigetta Dalli Regoli, Florence, Giunti 1985, pp. 92–93, no. 43 [4084A]. See also my paper on “Leonardo’s Lost Robot,” (as in note 6 above), p. 109, fig. 32.
A scale drawing, or at least a drawing begun as such and then turned into a rough sketch, is shown on CA, f. 320 v-a [878r], c. 1478, which I consider as part of the studies for the programmable automaton. As in other sheets (e.g. CA, f. 347 r-b [956r]), the wheels are shown with a 4.2-inch (106 mm) radius. Leonardo’s drafting procedures are shown by the draft of a letter to his patron Giuliano de’ Medici with which, about 1515, he was to complain about the behavior of one of his two German assistants, who was apparently prepared to steal his inventions. See CA, f. 247 v-b [671r], Richter, §1315: “Afterwards he wanted to have the models made in wood, just as they were to be in iron, and wished to take them away to his own country. But this I refused him, telling him that I would give him, in drawing, the breadth, length, height, and form of what he had to do; and so we remained in ill will.” Cf. Carlo Pedretti, Introduction to Leonardo da Vinci Engineer and Architect, (as in note 6), pp. 12–13, and Achademia Leonardi Vinci, VI. Firenze, Giunti, 1993, p. 184.
This was already discussed in the Appendix to my paper “Leonardo’s Lost Robot,” (as in note 6 above), p. 109, note 7. Carlo Pedretti has shown that a comparable application of a coil spring is found in Leonardo’s so-called “helicopter” sketch. See his Studi Vinciani, Geneva, Droz, 1957, pp. 125–129, and his Leonardo. The Machines, (as in note 14 above), pp. 8–10 and 29. See also Giovanni P. Galdi, “Leonardo’s Helicopter and Archimedes’ Screw. The Principle of Action and Reaction,” in Achademia Leonardi Vinci, IV, Firenze, Giunti, 1991, pp. 193–195.
Vanderbilt Tom, “The Real da Vinci Code,” Wired, November 2004, pp. 210–229.
The Uffizi and Oxford sheets contain studies for an Adoration of the Shepherds on which Leonardo was working in 1478, thus confirming the proposed date for the programmable automaton. Cf. A. E. Popham, The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945, plates 50 and 51.
Leonardo’s Dream Machines, Airdate: 25 Febraury 2003, ITN Factual, London, producer: Paul Sapin.
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(2006). Leonardo’s Programmable Automaton and Lion. In: Leonardo’s Lost Robots. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-28497-4_2
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