Not finished

(L.A. Batkin "Leonardo da Vinci)

Our column is devoted to insights, but so far it has only been about realized, or more precisely, materialized insights. But is it said that an embodied idea is more valuable than one that remains a brilliant idea?

Buried on thousands of sheets covered in Leonardo da Vinci’s bizarre mirror handwriting are dozens of witty inventions in the field of mechanics, friction theory, hydrodynamics, resistance of materials and machine parts, optics, architecture, fortification, ballistics, etc. Many of his ideas were boldly ahead of their time: he came up with the idea of ​​building cities where all urban functions would be distributed between two high-rise levels. He made drawings of an aircraft, pestered the city authorities of Florence with a project to raise the entire Cathedral of San Giovanni and put a new base under it; Among his careless sketches one can discern the outlines of armored vehicles, helicopters, parachutes, lifebuoys, shrapnel shells, etc. By the way, "etc." - Leonardo’s favorite expression; it ends most of the phrases in his diaries. He did not have time to finish the thought in writing after he had formulated it to himself.

Offering his services to the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Moro, the self-satisfied genius wrote that “he has sufficiently studied the products of those who are considered masters and inventors of means of war. Their inventions and the production of these means are no different from those that are usually used.” Leonardo himself unfolded before the Duke exciting plans for creating floating bridges; crushing bombards firing explosive cannonballs; deep tunnels; carts protected from enemy fire and equipped with artillery. As well as “other means of amazing effectiveness, never before used.” The culmination of the letter is the proud generalization: “In accordance with the variety of occasions, I compose an infinite number of different things.”

Well, did Lodovico Moro destroy his enemies with new, unheard-of weapons of war? No, Leonardo did not create them. He created nothing technical at all, except for costumed performances with special effects for the entertainment of the ducal court. This was the case throughout Leonardo's long life. On the one hand, according to Vasari, “this brain never stopped inventing,” but on the other, the greatest genius of mankind brought to completion (or at least to the stage of drawings) barely a thousandth of what he invented. Thoughts crowded in his head, plans were layered on top of each other. This is what one of the diaries looks like - "Madrid Codex I": sketches of a watch, a press, a textile machine; then discussions about the center of gravity of the Earth; then sketches on optics; then the beginning of some dictionary (starting with the letter “a”); further notes on straight and curved lines; then a reflection on the impossibility of a perpetual motion machine; reasoning against alchemists; the idea of ​​a bombard that would shoot nine thousand cubits, etc., etc. Leonardo planned to write one, ten, a hundred treatises on each of the countless sciences in which he was interested, sometimes he even referred to these books and chapters - but both the books and chapters remained in his head. What was invented was already perceived by him as existing.

Once Pope Leo X ordered a painting from Leonardo. He enthusiastically agreed and immediately began making varnish with which he planned to cover the picture after he painted it. “Alas!” Dad remarked sadly. “This one won’t do anything” - and he was right. It is generally accepted that Leonardo had no influence on the practical life of Europe because his diaries lay in encrypted form, unread, for three and a half centuries. In reality, this was the structure of this genius - it seemed to him unbearable to implement it, inevitably coarsening the purity of the plan.