As one of the greatest men in recent history, Leonardo da Vinci’s genius remains unbounded by time and technology. By helping to set an ignorant and superstitious world on a course of reason, Leonardo’s spirit lives on to influence the inventors, artists, and art patrons of our own time. This paper is about the design to divert the Arno River to fortify city of Pisa during war time. It has been 500 years since Leonardo da Vinci recorded his thoughts and designs in notebooks for us to marvel at, and within these notebooks I am interested in the “Codec Madrid II”, which dealt with military architecture and Leonardo plans to divert the Arno river. The Codec Madrid were rediscovered in 1965 in Madrid after being officially lost since 1830. This is were the arguments become interesting.
Many are unsure whether or not Leonardo da Vinci originated the design of the diversion of the Arno River to help fortify Pisa for war. There are many arguments about whether or not Leonardo originated idea to divert the Arno River. Scholars and experts alike have many different angles to this design. Experts say he would have known it was a hopeless project because of the environment, war, and lack of manpower. There are many who think the Florentines came up with this design 100 years before Leonardo was born.
The wars and campaigns in Italy began in the 1500’s because of political conflicts between the great powers. All involved parties had to maintain the best possible defense as well as their means of attack. Since new firearms, explosives, and artillery were developing all the time, they had to alter the systems of fortifications and technical warfare became more important. It was only natural that Leonardo da Vinci with his theory and practice of architecture throughout his life should also be included to the field of defense architecture and strategic engineering studies.
The Essay on In time of war, actions not morally acceptable become acceptable
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In 1503 the Florentine Republic started a new campaign against Pisa, and here emerged the most daring plan to divert the course of the Arno river to cut off the sea access so the Pisan’s could not get supplies. The big question is whether Leonardo had any part in drawing this plan up or if he was just to perfect the idea. This must be left undecided. Scholars doubt that the Florentine plan to divert the Arno River was originated by Leonardo, because they said he would have know from the beginning that such a feat would be difficult in peacetime but very impossible during war time. The plan called for canals to be dug 60 feet wide and 21 feet deep to carry the river as much as 7 miles off it’s normal course. Being a man of practical knowledge of time-and-motion expert and he could figure our how much digging men could do, how they ought to do it, and what it would cost.
This what Leonardo wrote in Codex Madrid II: I found that the complete excavation of the moat, which is, on average, 17 braccia wide, and 16 braccia deep, and 340 braccia long, reduced to square braccia, amounts to 174, 080 braccia. Which reduced to square canne, amounts to 2720 canne. Of which, those at the mountain, due to the difficulty offered by the rock, deserve 5 lire the canna, an amount paid on other occasions to the diggers. (Leonardo da Vinci, Madrid II 10 r) With this in mind he knew he had to design a machine to help the dig process because of inefficiency of men equipped with shovels. That is where the treadmill powered digging machine design was born.
All of these calculations and work was erroneous. It was said that five times the available manpower would have been necessary, according to more realistic calculations by today’s experts. Besides, the work had plenty of difficulties. It seemed to be impossible to get the thousands of workers required, or to keep them working, especially since they didn’t get paid on time, and the section which was completed but could not handle the mass of water that was fed to it and collapsed.
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By this time opinions were split amongst the commanders, so the projects came to end in October 1504. The Florentines continued fighting another five years only to surrender there city in 1509. As one of the greatest men in recent history, Leonardo da Vinci’s genius remains unbounded by time and technology. His dedication to the discovery of truth and the mysteries of nature make his insightful contributions to science and technology legendary in the Renaissance period. By helping to set an ignorant and superstitious world on a course of reason, Leonardo’s spirit lives on to influence the inventors, artists, and art patrons of our own time. Whether or not Leonardo originated the design to divert the Arno River doesn’t matter it was he vision and challenging dedication that moves me and many others.
Some might argue that such ideas in the Renaissance time period should of been too modern. They need to remember to whom there referring too.
