5. LEONARDO AND THE BIRTH OF 

 MODERN SCIENCE 



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Leonardo da Vinci died in the little manor of Cloux, near 

 Amboise, where he had been for the previous three years the 

 honored guest of Francis I, on May 2, 1519. He was not only one 

 of the greatest artists, but even more the greatest scientist and 

 the greatest engineer of his day. Indeed, with the passing of time 

 his unique personality looms larger and larger and bids fair to 

 attain, as soon as it is completely known, gigantic proportions. 



Leonardo the artist is so well known that I shall hardly speak of 

 him, but it is worth while for the purpose that I have in mind to 

 recall briefly the most important facts of his life. 



He was born in Vinci, a village in the hills between Florence 

 and Pisa, in 1452, an illegitimate child, his mother being a peasant 

 woman, and his father Ser Piero, a notary, a man of substance. 

 The latter's family can be traced back to 1 339, through three other 

 generations of notaries. Soon after Leonardo's birth, his father 

 took him away from his mother, and both parents hastened to 

 marry, each in his own set. Ser Piero must have been a man of 

 tremendous vitality, mental and physical. He was one of the most 

 successful notaries of the Signoria and of the great families of 

 Florence, and his wealth increased apace. He married four times, 

 the two first unions remaining childless. His first legitimate child 

 was not born until 1476, when Leonardo was already twenty-four, 

 but after that ten more children were born to him by his third and 

 fourth wives, the last one in the very year of his death, which 

 occurred in 1504, when he was seventy-seven. 



Thus Leonardo had five mothers. The real one disappears soon 

 after his birth; she bore him and her mission ended there as far 

 as Leonardo was concerned. What the four others were to him, 

 we do not know, for he does not speak of them. He had five 

 mothers and he had none. He is a motherless child, also a brother- 

 less one, because he does not seem to have had much to do with 



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