Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Italian High Renaissance Painter and Inventor, 1452-1519 Florentine Renaissance man, genius, artist in all media, architect, military engineer. Possibly the most brilliantly creative man in European history, he advertised himself, first of all, as a military engineer. In a famous letter dated about 1481 to Ludovico Sforza, of which a copy survives in the Codice Atlantico in Milan, Leonardo asks for employment in that capacity. He had plans for bridges, very light and strong, and plans for destroying those of the enemy. He knew how to cut off water to besieged fortifications, and how to construct bridges, mantlets, scaling ladders, and other instruments. He designed cannon, very convenient and easy of transport, designed to fire small stones, almost in the manner of hail??grape- or case-shot (see ammunition, artillery). He offered cannon of very beautiful and useful shapes, quite different from those in common use and, where it is not possible to employ cannon ?? catapults, mangonels and trabocchi and other engines of wonderful efficacy not in general use. And he said he made armoured cars, safe and unassailable, which will enter the serried ranks of the enemy with their artillery ?? and behind them the infantry will be able to follow quite unharmed, and without any opposition. He also offered to design ships which can resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon, and powder and smoke. The large number of surviving drawings and notes on military art show that Leonardo claims were not without foundation, although most date from after the Sforza letter. Most of the drawings, including giant crossbows (see bows), appear to be improvements on existing machines rather than new inventions. One exception is the drawing of a tank dating from 1485-8 now in the British Museum??a flattened cone, propelled from inside by crankshafts, firing guns. Another design in the British Museum, for a machine with scythes revolving in the horizontal plane, dismembering bodies as it goes, is gruesomely fanciful. Most of the other drawings are in the Codice Atlantico in Milan but some are in the Royal Libraries at Windsor and Turin, in Venice, or the Louvre and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Two ingenious machines for continuously firing arrows, machine-gun style, powered by a treadmill are shown in the Codice Atlantico. A number of other sketches of bridges, water pumps, and canals could be for military or civil purposes: dual use technology. Leonardo lived at a time when the first artillery fortifications were appearing and the Codice Atlantico contains sketches of ingenious fortifications combining bastions, round towers, and truncated cones. Models constructed from the drawings and photographed in Calvi works reveal forts which would have looked strikingly modern in the 19th century, and might even feature in science fiction films today. On 18 August 1502 Cesare Borgia appointed Leonardo as his Military Engineer General, although no known building by Leonardo exists. Leonardo was also fascinated by flight. Thirteen pages with drawings for man-powered aeroplanes survive and there is one design for a helicoidal helicopter. Leonardo later realized the inadequacy of the power a man could generate and turned his attention to aerofoils. Had his enormous abilities been concentrated on one thing, he might have invented the modern glider.   Related Paintings of LEONARDO da Vinci :. | The Benois Madonna | Head and shoulders Christs | Woman portrait | Study fur the head of a Madchens | Anatomical studies of the basin of the Steibeins and the lower Gliedmaben of a woman and study of the rotation of the arms |
Related Artists:
Alfred R. Waud
American, 1828-1891,was an American artist and illustrator, born in London, England. He is most notable for the sketches he made as an artist correspondent during the American Civil War. Before emigration, Alfred Waud had entered the Government School of Design at Somerset House, London, with the intention of becoming a marine painter. This did not come to fruition, but as a student, he also worked as a painter of theatrical scenery. He intended to pursue that work in the United States, when he immigrated in 1850, seeking employment with actor and playwright John Brougham. In the 1850s, he worked variously as an illustrator for a Boston periodical, the Carpet-Bag, and provided illustrations for books such as Hunter's Panoramic Guide from Niagara to Quebec (1857). The period during the American Civil War was time when all images in a publication had to be hand drawn and engraved by skilled artist. Photography existed but there was no way to transfer a photograph to a printing plate since this was well before the advent of the halftone process for printing photographs. Photographic equipment was too cumbersome and exposure times were to slow to be used on the battlefield. An artist such as Waud would do detailed sketches in the field, which were then rushed by courier back to the main office of the newspaper they were working for. There a staff of engravers would use the to sketches create finished engravings for publication. In 1860 Alfred Waud became an illustrator or special artist (a full time paid staff artist) for the New York Illustrated News. In April 1861, the newspaper assigned Waud to cover the Army of the Potomac, Virginia main Union army. He first illustrated General Winfield Scott in Washington, D.C., and then entered the field to render the First Battle of Bull Run in July. Waud followed a Union expedition to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina the next month. That autumn, he sketched army activity in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Waud joined Harper's Weekly toward the end of 1861, continuing to cover the war. In 1864 Alfred brother, William Waud (who up to that time had been working with Frank Leslie Illustrated Newspaper), joined Alfred on the staff of Harper's and they worked together during the Petersburg Campaign. Alfred Waud attended every battle of the Army of the Potomac between the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 and the Siege of Petersburg in 1865. Alfred was one of only two artists present at the Battle of Gettysburg. His depiction of Pickett Charge is thought to be the only visual account by an eyewitness. Waud died in 1891 in Marietta, Georgia, while touring battlefields of the South.
Theodore Heuck
(1830 - 1877) was an architect, a merchant, and a painter. He designed The Queen's Medical Center (dedicated to Queen Emma), the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii in 1865, and ʻIolani Barracks in 1871. He was born in Hamburg, Germany and grew up as an only child. Traveling from Australia, Heuck arrived in Hawaii January 20, 1850 and advertised as the first professional architect. Finding no business, he became a partner with Herman Von Halt in a retail store, "General Commission Merchants". He became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii and married Mahiki on March 22, 1852
mattsleiderstam
Adolf Ludvig Stierneld, född den 1 september 1755 i Stockholm död den 31 juli 1835 på Gripsholm, var en svensk friherre, politiker, hovman och samlare av historiska dokument, vilken av senare historisk forskning avslöjats som en av Sveriges mest förslagna och produktiva dokumentförfalskare. Stierneld var son till Samuel Gustaf Stierneld, vilken var chef för Västmanlands regemente, och vilken lär ha antecknat sitt regemente bland den nyföddes faddrar. Sonen inskrevs även endast sex månader gammal som volontär i samma kår. Oaktat denna militärståtliga början hann sonen ej längre än till ryttmästare vid livregementet, vartill han utnämndes 1781. Inom hovet anställdes Stierneld som kammarherre hos drottning Sofia Magdalena 1778. Han kom dock snart på mindre vänlig fot med Gustav III och tillhörde vid 1786 och 1789 års riksdagar ledarna för oppositionen inom adelsståndet. När kungen beredde sig att genomföra sina envåldsplaner, hörde Stierneld till de motståndare som arresterades. Till följd av sina förbindelser med ryske ministern hade han åsamkat sig konungens synnerliga ovilja, och när de övriga arresterade frigavs, sändes Stierneld till Varbergs fästning, där han kvarhölls till 1790. Genom sitt 1790 ingångna giftermål med grevinnan Kristina Charlotta Gyldenstolpe, dotter till Gustav III:s gunstling Nils Philip Gyldenstolpe, kom Stierneld snart åter på mera vänlig fot med hovet och blev 1792 överkammarherre. Vid riksdagen 1800 sågs han också, i likhet med andra ur 1789 års opposition (Magnus Fredrik Brahe, Claes Axel Lewenhaupt med flera) i hovpartiets främsta led.