The 20 most famous inventions of Leonardo da Vinci * Ratings

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A great artist, a pioneer of medical research, a brilliant inventor - and all this is about one person, Leonardo da Vinci. He was hundreds of years ahead of his time. You have probably heard that in his famous paintings he applied the principle of the golden ratio and created drawings of “flying cars” 400 years before the first flight of the Wright brothers. Pretty impressive, right? But this is only the beginning. We will tell you about the most famous inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.

20. Garlic Press

In Italy, this unpretentious subject is still sometimes called "Leonardo". This manual garlic press reached the 21st century in the form that was conceived by its creator.

19. Bicycle

On page 133 of the Atlantic Code of Leonardo da Vinci there is a drawing, which some consider to be a prototype of a bicycle, while others are either a fake or a creation of the students of the great Italian. We do not know. which of them is right, and we offer you, dear readers, to opt for one of the theories.

18. Gateway with sliding wings

This type of lock is still used on almost any channel or waterway. Leonardo's design was effective, and did the job exactly as the inventor wanted.

The gateway consisted of two valves located at an angle of 45 degrees, which met at one point. They resembled the shape of the letter V. When the oncoming stream of water hit them, the flaps moved tightly.

At the bottom of a large gate, Leonardo proposed making small lock gates, bolt-locked. This would let in as much water as needed to equalize the pressure on both sides of the large gate.

17. Searchlight

The Italian "universal man" made a box inside which there was a large burning candle in a candlestick, and a glass lens was placed in one of the walls. Such a simple design was created by Leonardo for theatrical needs.

16. Portable pianola

Being a multi-talented person, Leonardo da Vinci was interested in music. And he created a musical instrument that was attached to the belt of the musician with a special device. Thus, both hands were free for a person and he could play the piano on the go. In this case, a very complicated mechanism was involved, which was responsible for the constant contact of the horsehair bow with strings. The sound extracted from such a device was similar to the sound of a violin.

15. Submarine

Usually with the phrase "submarine" Nautilus appears from the works of Jules Verne. However, back in 1515, Leonardo da Vinci created a drawing of his own submarine. It was designed to sink enemy ships and was controlled by one person who was in a small cabin.

According to the author’s idea, the sailor was to quietly lead the submarine to the enemy port, and attach a special cable to the skin of the enemy ship. At the other end of the cable was placed a cargo that had to be thrown into the sea. When the ship set off, the board upholstery came off due to cargo, and the ship began to sink.

14. Ball bearing

Leonardo da Vinci invented ball bearings between 1498 and 1500. He designed it to reduce friction between the two plates that would touch in his other famous project - the helicopter. At the heart of Leonardo's ball bearing was a sliding ring, inside of which were 8 smooth balls. Each ball could move freely, almost without touching each other.

100 years after the development of Leonardo, Galileo Galilei also mentioned the early form of ball bearings. And only at the end of the 18th century a patent was received for the “modern” design of ball bearings. It was provided to the Englishman Philip Vaughn.

13. City of the future

During the 15th century, Europe was still recovering from the black death - the plague, which destroyed more than a third of the population. Da Vinci noted that cities are more vulnerable to plague than rural areas.

His decision was a completely new futuristic city, completely designed from top to bottom to provide the best sanitary conditions for residents. The city of the future Da Vinci was divided into several "layers". Everything that was considered unhygienic should be located in the lower layer, the contents of which could be removed through the channels. Each part of the city could use running water thanks to a complex hydraulic system, which also served as the basis for modern plumbing.

However, da Vinci could not find a patron who would support his interesting, but very expensive undertaking.

12. Scissors

A very simple, yet extremely important tool - scissors - was of great importance in the development of mankind. Nevertheless, this is one of da Vinci's most controversial inventions, since archaeological evidence indicates that objects resembling scissors were used in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome.

However, it is undeniable that da Vinci made detailed sketches of the scissors and probably contributed to the improvement of their design.

11. Winged aircraft (hang glider)

Leonardo da Vinci is the first engineer in the world to be credited with manned flight projects. The discoveries made by Leonardo during countless dissections of the wings of birds and bats are evident in the designs of the ornithopter, a device that flies by waving winged appendages.

According to Leonardo’s calculations, to take his ornithopter into the air (it is also called a flywheel in various publications) with a person on board, bird-like wings are required, the length of which reaches 12 meters. The weight of the structure itself, together with the person, was supposed to be about 136 kilograms.

The idea of controlled flight: was as follows:

The pilot had to lie down on top of the central wooden plank.

With his neck and head, he held onto a semicircular rim, and his feet held onto the rear straps.

In this position, it was possible to control the hang glider with the help of arms or legs. With his hands he would hold on to the frame, and with his feet he would press the pedals, one of which controlled the flap of the wings, and the second - their lowering.

10. Helicopter

Only on the hang glider project Leonardo did not stop. His other project, conceived in 1493, is a prototype of a vertical aircraft, together with a description of the propeller. This screw was supposed to be about 5 meters high, and a radius of 2 meters. Its coating would be made of iron. The apparatus was supposed to set in motion the muscular efforts of four people.

For most of his life, Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight. He conducted many studies on this mystery of nature, and in 1505 he wrote a Code of Flight for birds, containing both a description of the flight and drawings of his flying vehicles.

9. Diving equipment

Neither heaven nor sea was an obstacle to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. He created a project for the first diving suit, conceived as an unusual weapon for hitting enemy ships.

The diving suit was supposed to be made of leather, and it had a special mask with two tubes (located in the nose) that were connected to a cork diving bell floating above the water.

On the chest of the underwater suit was a large pocket that was filled with air. With it, a diver could surface.

This elegant gizmo was accompanied by a separate department in a suit that would allow the diver to urinate if he was involved in a long underwater mission.

This costume shows an amazing resemblance to the systems that are still in use.

Leonardo also developed webbed gloves that are the prototype of modern flippers.

8. Giant Crossbow

Fearing was the main goal of this invention. The giant crossbow was designed purely to intimidate enemy forces. In open form, the length of this structure reached 24 meters. It was located on a platform that had six wheels to make the crossbow mobile.

This crossbow could shoot not only arrows, but also large stones. And his bowstring was pulled by mechanical devices.

7. Self-propelled cart (car)

You have not been impressed by the most famous inventions of Leonardo da Vinci? Then how about the fact that he accidentally became a pioneer in mechanical engineering? The self-propelled cart, supposedly intended for theatrical use, was designed by Leonardo to move without pushing with the help of a person.

The device, driven by coil springs, was equipped with brakes and steering systems.

6. Armored vehicle

If the self-propelled truck is the "great-grandmother" of modern cars, then the armored vehicle is, of course, the "great-grandfather" of modern tanks.

The armored car was supposed to have a crew of 8 people inside the hull. In addition, on a massive round platform should have been located many light guns. At the same time, their gunner had a field of view of 360 degrees, being in the sighting tower at the top. Leonardo da Vinci even thought about including horses in the control of his car, but then abandoned this idea because of the uncontrolled nature of animals.

Questions are caused by the location of the cranked systems of the armored car, which, apparently, are moving in opposite directions. Because of this, the car simply cannot move. Some historians believe that this could be a deliberate decision, since the “pacifist” da Vinci did not want his military vehicles to be used for real combat. A somewhat strange assumption, because the same da Vinci created a project-predecessor of modern machine guns and a giant crossbow.

5. Anemometer

In connection with the study of flight, Leonardo developed a new design for the anemometer, a device that measures wind speed. His additions made to the original design of Leon Batista made the device much more accurate.

4. 33-barrel gun (machine gun)

Leonardo was greatly excited by the inadequacy of modern wars. In particular, he was upset by the time interval between gun shots, caused by the need for reloading. To solve this problem, he invented a multi-barrel cannon consisting of three rows of 11 small-caliber cannons mounted on a triangular rotating platform with large wheels.

Such a weapon could be turned and fired from one row of guns while the other was reloading, and another one was cooled.

Interestingly, multi-barreled volley weapons were actually used in various forms even before the birth of da Vinci (like the Ribodekin used during the Hundred Years War). However, da Vinci's 33-barrel “fighting organ” looked more like a 19th-century machine gun model — for example, a Gatling machine gun, which boasted a higher rate of fire without the problem of barrel overheating.

3. Swivel bridge

Leonardo’s sliding swing bridge was not only a marvel of engineering and a huge innovation in military affairs, but also a curious early example of flat design. Designed in the 1480s for the Duke of Sforza, the bridge allowed troops to quickly cross rivers and could be easily assembled and transported for reuse elsewhere.

In technical terms, it was assumed that the bridge would have a counterweight that would balance the design on both sides. With regard to ease of transportation, the design was developed using wheels and a cable-pulley system for efficient deployment in a short period of time.

2. Parachute

Although the creation of the first parachute was often attributed to the Frenchman Louis-Sebastian Lenormann in 1783, evidence was found showing that the Italian genius was the first in this area.

His sketch is accompanied by an annotation: “If a person has a tent made of flax, in which all the holes are closed, and it is twelve cubits wide and twelve in depth, he will be able to rush down from a height of great growth without any injuries.”

1. Robot Knight

Dressed in heavy German-Italian medieval armor, the mechanical knight was conceived in 1495 as a humanoid machine gun. This machine, with an internal system of pulleys, gears, levers and connecting rods, was actually the first humanoid robot in human history.

According to some reports, the ingenious invention of Leonardo da Vinci was presented in Milan during a ceremony organized by the Duke of Lodovico Sforza.

The robot, driven by internal mechanisms (evenly distributed over the trunk and lower body), supposedly had the ability to both sit and get up, while at the same time demonstrating its ability to move its head.