Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Aeronautical Annual, 1895: Devoted to the Encouragement of Experiment With Aerial Machines, and to the Advancement of the Science of Aerodynamics
The story which tells of the sad fate of Icarus is but one of many which may be found in the pages of antiquity showing that from time immemorial man has longed to ?y. Yet, these tales are but traditions, and, search as we may, no written records of the study of the great problem of ?ight are to be found until we come to the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, who died three hundred and seventy-five years ago.
Within the limits of these pages it is only possible to give a few fragments concerning the life and works of this great man.
He was born in 1452, at the Castle Vinci, which is situated in the vale of the Arno, midway between Pisa and Florence.
Richter savs, He was the natural son of Ser Piero Antonio da Vinci, notary to the Signory of Florence. His mother's name was Caterina. The son was brought up entirely in his father's house. Of his youthful education we are unable to judge; we only know it to have been a varied one. Vasari tells us that 'in arithmetic he made such rapid progress that he often confounded the master who was teaching him by the per petual doubts he started, and by the difficulty of the questions he proposed. He also commenced the study of music and re solved to acquire the art of playing the lute, when, being by nature of an exalted imagination and full of the most graceful vivacity, he sang to that instrument most divinely, improvising, at the same time, both the verses and the music.'
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