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Speaker 1: All right, If like me, you're a huge fan of

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Speaker 1: Ken Burns, the world's greatest documentarian, or like me, you're

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Speaker 1: fascinated by the greatest artist slash genius in history, Leonardo

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Speaker 1: da Vinci, this one is for you. Burne's new documentary

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Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci that Makes Sense and debuting this week,

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Speaker 1: tells the story of a guy who defines the term

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Speaker 1: renaissance man. I'm Patty Steele. Leonardo da Vinci, from the

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Speaker 1: Mona Lisa to the helicopter that's next on the backstory.

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Speaker 1: The backstory is back. Leonardo da Vinci wasn't a bad artist,

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Speaker 1: think the Mona Lisa, but he was also an incredible inventor.

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Speaker 1: He designed everything from a helicopter to scuba gear to

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Speaker 1: machine guns. Almost six hundred years ago, no Wonder, Steve

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Speaker 1: Jobs called Da Vinci his hero, but he was also

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Speaker 1: a wacky character, part of what makes him fascinating. I

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Speaker 1: thought we'd revisit this peak into Da Vinci's life as

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Speaker 1: we welcome Ken Burn's new documentary Leonardo da Vinci on PBS.

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Speaker 1: Do you know who Apple founder Steve jobs all time

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Speaker 1: hero was? It was Leonardo da Vinci. Now think about it,

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Speaker 1: both of them were fascinated with both the arts and science,

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Speaker 1: sort of like Ben Franklin, even Albert Einstein's all about design.

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Speaker 1: They loved beauty so much they became obsessed with understanding

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Speaker 1: it and how it worked. Da Vinci was, of course

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Speaker 1: one of the great masters, with paintings like The Last

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Speaker 1: Supper and really the most famous painting in the world,

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Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. Have you ever waited online to see

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Speaker 1: that it'sy bitsy work of art? It's only two and

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Speaker 1: a half feet tall nineteen inches wide, but who doesn't

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Speaker 1: at least attempt to get a peek at out if

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Speaker 1: they managed to get to Paris anyway. Da Vinci was

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Speaker 1: born in fourteen fifty two, but he was centuries ahead

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Speaker 1: of his time. I mean, this guy created the first

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Speaker 1: prototypes of helicopters, a self propelled car, scuba gear, robots,

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Speaker 1: machine guns, and parachutes and there's a lot more. And

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Speaker 1: the parachutes before there was anything to jump from. But

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Speaker 1: you know how really talented people are also sometimes a

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Speaker 1: little wacky. That was Leonardo. He had a really interesting childhood,

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Speaker 1: born to a very poor, very young mother. He lived

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Speaker 1: with her until he was about five years old. Then

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Speaker 1: his wealthy dad took over and moved him to his home. There,

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Speaker 1: he was exposed to books and especially to his father's

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Speaker 1: art collection. He explored both and was crazy curious about

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Speaker 1: everything he studied. Fortunately for him, his dad appreciated his individuality. Now,

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Speaker 1: imagine what it would be like living in Italy in

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Speaker 1: the fourteen hundreds, and you're illegitimate, you're gay, you're a vegetarian,

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Speaker 1: and historians agree he was likely ADHD since he was

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Speaker 1: really easily distracted. Now, on top of that, he was

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Speaker 1: left handed. Doesn't seem like a big deal, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: back then it was seen as the mark of the devil.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the very word sinister is based on the

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Speaker 1: Latin word for left. But Leonardo was also really a

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Speaker 1: gorgeous guy, and he had this big, warm personality as

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Speaker 1: well as amazing talent. He loved super stylish clothing, He

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Speaker 1: loved birds and other animals. In fact, he would even

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Speaker 1: buy caged birds just to immediately set them free. He

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Speaker 1: was definitely a romantic. By the age of fourteen, he

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Speaker 1: had been sent to Florence to be an apprentice at

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Speaker 1: a big time artist's workshop, and his career really kind

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Speaker 1: of took off from there. Legend has it the artist

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Speaker 1: he worked for was so shocked by Da Vinci's talent

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Speaker 1: he stopped painting himself because he felt he could never

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Speaker 1: measure up to this kid. In fact, one of Leonardo's paintings,

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Speaker 1: Salvatore Monday, sold in twenty seven Ventine for over four

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars. That's the most ever paid

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Speaker 1: for any painting, and they didn't expect it to go

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Speaker 1: for anywhere close to that. So Leonardo's artwork kind of

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Speaker 1: speaks for itself, I guess. But what really thrilled him

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Speaker 1: was mechanics, how stuff worked. He could not stop dreaming

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Speaker 1: about what was possible. Even though he was a really

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Speaker 1: gentle soul. He made a bundle working for aristocrats and

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Speaker 1: royals like the Medici family, designing all kinds of devices

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Speaker 1: for military use, including an armored fighting vehicle that was

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Speaker 1: an awful lot like today's tanks. He also designed weapons,

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Speaker 1: including that machine gun I mentioned earlier that was able

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Speaker 1: to rain just a continuous barrage of firepower. And get this,

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Speaker 1: he also designed a robot night who knew about robots

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Speaker 1: back then. In addition, he figured out how to harness

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Speaker 1: concentrated solar power, and he designed an early adding machine.

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Speaker 1: And on top of all that, he was fascinated by anatomy.

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Speaker 1: His Fami Vitruvian man drawing is a perfect example of

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Speaker 1: that interest. During his lifetime, hospitals such as they were

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Speaker 1: in those days, allowed him to dissect over thirty human bodies,

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Speaker 1: and he did detailed drawings of human and animal anatomy

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Speaker 1: that were used for centuries. His drawings detailed how different

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Speaker 1: organs work in our bodies and even how the eye

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Speaker 1: processes light. Da Vinci died in fifteen nineteen while in

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Speaker 1: France working for King Francis, the First who had become

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Speaker 1: a really close friend. He was sixty seven years old.

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Speaker 1: What day he leave behind? Well, this is wild. He

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Speaker 1: left over seven thousand pages of notes and sketches in

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Speaker 1: big journal type books, but they're almost impossible to decipher.

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Speaker 1: Problem is that wacky Leonardo would write in what's called

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Speaker 1: mirror script, with everything in reverse. It actually wasn't to

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Speaker 1: confuse potential thieves who might try to steal his ideas,

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Speaker 1: but he mostly did it because it was easier for him,

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Speaker 1: as a left handed guy, to write backwards so he

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Speaker 1: could see what he'd written and so as not to

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Speaker 1: smear the ink on the page. He'd fill these journals

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Speaker 1: with all sorts of scribbles, a lot of which only

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Speaker 1: he could understand. The world knows him as one of

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Speaker 1: the greatest artists in history, but it was his genius

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Speaker 1: for helping us understand how things work that made Leonardo

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Speaker 1: da Vinci the original renaissance man. I'm Patty Steele. The

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Speaker 1: Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions.

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Speaker 1: Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve

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Speaker 1: Goldstein of Amplify Media. We're out with new episodes twice

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Speaker 1: a week. Thanks for listening to The Backstory, the pieces

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Speaker 1: of history you didn't know you needed to know.