Leonardo da Vinci is the greatest figure of the Renaissance. But few people know that the painter also had the gift of a predictor. Who really was Leonardo da Vinci - a guest from the future or an ordinary genius? What prophecies did he encrypt in his paintings? And what is the secret of Mona Lisa's mysterious smile? All answers in the new issue of the X-Files program.
“Experience the flight once, and your eyes will forever be directed to the sky” - Leonardo da Vinci.
In 2019, the whole world celebrated 500 years since the death of the great Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci. He was a genius in everything: his contemporaries even considered him a magician and sorcerer. It is believed that he was ahead of his time by several hundred years. Few people know that Leonardo was also considered a great soothsayer, in comparison with whom Nostradamus seems like a foolish boy.
Leonardo encrypted his main prediction in the drawing "The End of the World", which contemporaries considered complete nonsense. He depicted the outlines of a huge mushroom against the backdrop of a destroyed city. Now, in the age of the atom, we understand that Leonardo painted the death of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today hundreds of scientists are struggling to decipher the numerous prophecies of the genius.
“And it never occurs to anyone that Leonardo was leading everyone by the nose. He was, of course, a genius person, but, apparently, was very witty. Because one of the entertainments that was then has revived now on television, when they begin to invent some incomprehensible words. Well, for example, they still predicted: "There will be many who will skin their mother, turning her skin on her." This is just the apotheosis of sadism, but in fact it is an ordinary mystery. The answer is: "the land is being plowed." Or here. "People will love to see their own creations being destroyed and torn apart." Something incredible is born in a person's head. And these are actually shoemakers. All these things, which are called predictions, he invented as a word game, for such great receptions when you can cheer the people. But he wrote it all down. And over the years it began to be perceived as something fantastic,”says writer Alexander Myasnikov.
Today everyone knows Leonardo Da Vinci as a brilliant artist, the author of the famous Mona Lisa - Gioconda. Much less we borrow about Leonardo as an outstanding inventor, designer, engineer. When they discovered and were able to decipher the diaries of the master, scientists were amazed at the number of his inventions. Some of them have already come true in our time, and some have remained in sketches.
The famous "Katyushas" that smashed the Germans during the Great Patriotic War. A salvo from the "Katyusha" destroyed all life on a huge area, but few people know that we also owe the victorious salvo of the "Katyusha" to the genius of Leonardo.
“This analogue of the Katyusha was tested during his lifetime. Three-barreled. Because it rolls over. The first barrels are fired, the cannon turns over, these barrels cool down and go down, other loaded barrels appear in place of the fired barrels, and they fire again. And so it revolves in a circle: some shoot, others cool down. In "Katyusha" we have. You see, shells are loaded in volleys of 4, 8, 16 at once. They are always allowed in rows - first, second, third. The fourth row is coming. While the second, third, fourth shoots, the top one is resting and charging, "Semenov notes.
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In general, there are so many myths about Leonardo's life that it is almost impossible to distinguish truth from lies. It was believed that he belongs to some secret order, that he was engaged in witchcraft. These legends were born from the unusual way of his writing. He did not write from left to right, like most people, but from right to left. Moreover, in addition, letters inverted in a mirror image. This encrypted letter was very difficult to read.
According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, Leonardo was a very handsome and physically developed person. He could bend horseshoes with his hands, but at the same time he was never married and avoided women. Only the lazy does not know about his unconventional orientation.
“He stuck with this gay all his life. Experts say that Leonardo da Vinci left a lot, a very large creative legacy, but no one can show at least one sheet where he would depict at least female genitals. That is, perhaps he simply had no idea what they looked like,”says Vladimir Fortunatov, Doctor of Historical Sciences.
The most mysterious and mystical work of Leonardo da Vinci is the fresco in the Italian monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie "The Last Supper". In terms of the number of legends and myths, only his "La Gioconda" can compete with her. According to some reports, in The Last Supper, the artist depicted himself in the image of the Apostle Thaddeus, the second figure from the right. The most enigmatic figure of the fresco is the feminine figure of the Apostle John.
Others claim that the femininity of the figure is inherent in all images of John. The mysticism of the frescoes is found in the disposition of the apostles, who sit according to the signs of the zodiac. It is also curious that the same person posed for Christ and Judas.
“He very quickly found Jesus, or rather the image from which he painted Jesus - a young man from the choir. He drew it, but he could not find Judas, well, nothing. And the customers strangled him. He searched for the image of Judas for three years and could not find it. And suddenly one day he walks and sees a completely drunk man in the ditch, just some kind of cyanosis. He takes him with his assistants, drags him into the workshop in order to start drawing. He is in a half-drunk state, then come to your senses, looks around and says: "Duck, I seem to have been here once." He says: "Well, how could you be here?" "Yes," he says, "a few years ago, they drew something from me." And it turned out that this is the very person from whom Christ was painted. And so during these three years he has fallen so low, having received money, life has broken down, he has become a degraded person. And the same person was a type of both Christ and Judas. On the one hand, this is such a parable, and on the other hand, such is the natural history,”says Alexander Myasnikov.
The fate of the fresco itself is also surprising. Leonardo painted it in an unusual way, on dry plaster. Therefore, the fresco began to crumble during the artist's lifetime. It has not been successfully restored several times. During the restoration process, the 3D effect in which Leonardo painted this picture disappeared. An amazing story happened to her during the Second World War.
“The bomb hit this monastery. What is most surprising is that the monastery fell apart - all the walls fell apart and fell apart. And the wall with the painting collapsed completely like a painting. And, interestingly, she remained intact. And then they lifted it up, restored it and put it back - it is still in the monastery there,”says Yuri Semenov.
Today Leonardo da Vinci is credited with inventing all the modern achievements of scientific and technological progress. It turns out that both the plane and the spaceship - everything belongs to Leonardo. There are, perhaps, not so many real inventions of Leonardo. Paratroopers jumping out of the plane and descending under the canopy may consider themselves the heirs of the great master - a drawing of a completely modern parachute was found in his notes. And yet, perhaps, our tankers can also consider the heirs of the tank invented by Leonardo. Although, of course, it does not look very much like modern mighty machines. With a helicopter, the situation is somewhat more complicated.
By the way, the diving suit is also considered an invention of Leonardo da Vinci. With his help, he offered to fight enemy ships. In the meantime, it was a completely revolutionary invention. In any case, during the Second World War, Italian swimmers widely used the method of their compatriot.
“And even at that time there were no oxygen cylinders for scuba divers to put on their shoulders and he could breathe calmly. A wooden bell floated above the water, from which air entered his lungs through a tube so that he could breathe. Well, the second tube, through which they exhaled, came out from the other side. The diving suit was made of leather, I can't say whether the seams were glued or not, but it was definitely made of leather and was sewn tightly. But, you see, on the basis of this his first diving suit, light diving suits began to appear, and so on gradually to deep-sea ones. It would be where to start - and then we will develop,”explains Yuri Semenov.
But, of course, in the eyes of most people, Leonardo da Vinci remains an unsurpassed painter. Millions of people travel to Paris to look at the most famous creation of the master - Mona Lisa or La Gioconda. No painting evokes as much controversy and admiration as this small canvas. There are more than 20 versions of who is depicted in the picture. Lisa Gherardini or Francesco del Giocondo or someone else. Some believe that this is a self-portrait of the master himself. And recently a version appeared that in fact this is a portrait of a man, Leonardo's lover, a certain Salai. This is evidenced by the similarity of La Gioconda with paintings depicting John the Baptist and an angel in the flesh.
And, of course, the main secret of Mona Lisa is her mysterious smile. For five centuries people have been trying to figure out its meaning. Some see divine beauty in her, others - secret signs, others a challenge to the norms of society. According to a study carried out using computer analysis, Gioconda is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry, which is not surprising when people have been talking about you for 500 years. The English researcher believes that Mona Lisa suffered from Down syndrome, and hence her smile. The French experts came to the conclusion that the right side of the model's body is paralyzed, which means that the smile is also just a spasm. Poor Mona Lisa received so many diagnoses that it is not clear how she lived at all.
Everyone sees in the creation of a genius what he wants to see. Recently, an Argentine historian announced that he had found Leonardo's secret code, which is associated with his manner of mirroring. The researcher applied the mirror to different points of the paintings and received truly devilish images. For example, from the painting "Saint Anna" you can get an image that resembles a head in a helmet - a kind of Darth Vader from "Star Wars". A similar image appears above the Mona Lisa's hand, if you attach a mirror in the place she points with her finger. But with the painting "John the Baptist" in general it turns out some kind of devilry.
“Any of his work is taken, that's any. For example, "The Rest of the Faun", anything, is cut in half - and we know perfectly well, and he also knew that the left and right sides of a person diverge. The person's face is "sawn" in half - we get a completely different person, although the person is one. But if you take the whole picture and "cut it through", then it turns out there is generally no one knows what. There is a specialist in the world now who makes gluing from Leonardo's paintings, cutting them in half. It turns out such devilry that Bosch is generally a kindergarten in comparison, what can be done from paintings by Leonardo da Vinci,”notes Alexander Myasnikov.
500 years have passed since the death of the greatest master of the Renaissance. The peculiarity of Leonardo was that he could never finish his creations. He began to draw the eye, and after that he was carried away by the issues of light refraction. Many of his inventions remained only on paper.
But, apparently, there was something in this indisputably outstanding person. Probably a passion for knowledge, the discovery of everything new. So, apparently, in the drawing of the Vitruvian man there are hidden secrets that will be revealed to future generations. Geniuses are not born, they are made. Genius is talent and constant work.
“Firstly, he was one of the first, so he was noticed. He could present himself brightly and what he did. And thirdly, he was really very efficient. I think that in general, many people can repeat his feat if they concentrate well on the work being done. Why don't we have geniuses now, because everything is blurred, everything is disassembled for parts, but there is no time either. There are two factors here - on the one hand, people have forgotten how to work deeply and efficiently, to immerse themselves deeply in the material, to sit straight and crush them qualitatively, to do this for 15-20 years. You see, if you have been doing something for 20 years, or better 25, then by the 26th year you risk becoming the best specialist in the world on this topic. It is quite possible, but maybe in 15 years,”Ilya Martynov notes.
“Leonard's Mona Lisa is just a thousand thousand multi-colored strokes. Each of us is a billion pieces that have come together right.”- Chuck Palahniuk