Leonardo da Vinci's Glider and Parachute Idea
Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian artist and scientist, who lived in the fifteenth century, spent years experimenting with the idea of flying. He made a number of sketches of wings to be fitted to the arms and legs of man. His plan for a parachute was soundly worked out and his idea that the wings of a flying machine should be patterned after the wings of the bat found expression in the doped fabric covering of our early airplanes.
Venice in the Sixteenth Century
Raffaelle
A store of crossbow bolts, shafts and heads
The crossbowman is aiming at a target to the left of the picture. From a catalogue of the Arsenal of the Emperor Maximilian I. (6. 1459, d. 1519).
Etruscan mode of drinking
The mode of drinking from the ἀμφορεύς, bottle or amphora, and from a wine skin, is taken from a painting on an Etruscan vase.
Amphoræ, Rhytons, etc.
(British Museum) The modern jars in any of the wine districts of Italy, such as Asti Montepulciano or Montefiascone, thin earthen two-handled vessels holding some twenty quarts, are almost identical with the ancient amphoræ. Suetonius speaks of a candidate for the quæstorship who drank the contents of a whole amphora at a dinner given by Tiberius. This amphora was probably of a smaller size.