- Columbus
Columbus - A medieval method of combating the plague. The persecution of the anointers in Milan in 1630
In Milan the visitation of 1630 was credited to the so-called anointers,—men who were supposed to spread the plague by anointing the walls with magic ointment—and the most horrible tortures that human ingenuity could devise were imposed on scores of victims, regardless of `rank` or of public service. Manzoni's great historical novel, "The Betrothed" has well pictured conditions in Italy during this period. - Italian Child
Among the dark whites of Europe the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, and Greeks are conspicuous. In speech they are kin to each other, and to the fair whites. How different they are otherwise! They are handsomer in face, more lithe and graceful in body, more quickly aroused, more changeable in purpose, than the fair whites. Their faces, their gestures, their movements, more emphatically betray their emotions. They live more in the present than the somewhat sober and sombre northern peoples. - Principle of the parachute, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci
If Leonardo da Vinci's aerial flight experiments do not seem to have been carried out on a large scale, it is perhaps not the same with the parachute, the use of which is much safer. The description of Leonardo da Vinci was reproduced later, not without a notable improvement in the mode of representation of the apparatus, in a collection of machines, due to Fauste Veranzio and published in Venice in 1617. - Principle of the helicopter, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci
Principle of the helicopter, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci - Facsimile of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings on artificial wings
The examination of the original drawings of the great Italian artist is intersting. We reproduce by heliogravure a complete plate; it makes it possible to follow the thought which presided over its execution. We let Dr. Hureau de Villeneuve interpret it. We see in the second row on the right a small character quite similar to a demon or a genie, for he wears a flame on his head and, next to this flame, a Latin cross. His arms end with the fingers of a bat. The figure is not yet finished when Leonardo already recognizes its insufficiency and, guessing the little muscular action of the arms, thinks of using the force of the legs. So we see a little higher, in the same plank, a vigorous man placed on his stomach, his legs bent and about to launch a violent kick. The protruding muscles, traced by an anatomist's pencil, reveal the great painter in an unassuming drawing.