I ^th January, IQ14. 



Professor J. A. Lindsay, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., President 

 in the Chair. 



" LEONARDO DA VINCL" 

 By Professor W. B. Morton, M.A, 



(Abstract) 



The Chairman, who was received with applause, said he was 

 sure that he could heartily welcome his colleague Professor 

 Morton in their name. The lecturer of that evening has chosen 

 a subject of exceptional interest, and was going to present to them 

 one side of the life and achievement of one of the most versatile 

 and many-sided men who had ever lived. He was sure they would 

 hear the lecture with pleasure and profit. 



Professor Morton, who was cordially received, said 

 Leonardo was not only a great painter, sculptor, architect, and 

 engineer, but was also the greatest figure in the history of pure 

 science between Archimedes and Galileo. Before his time writers 

 on scientific subjects contented themselves with endless comment- 

 aries on the works of Aristotle, building up a priori theories with- 

 out reference to the phenomena to be explained. Leonardo was 

 the first to practice the proper experimental method which Bacon 

 preached, without practising, a century later. Born in 1452, he 

 spent the first thirty years of his life in his native city of Florence, 

 where he worked at art under the protection of Lorenzo de Medici. 

 Then tor sixteen years he was employed as engineer by Lodovico 

 Sforzaat Milan. During that period he painted the "Last Supper," 

 and was engaged on the equestrian statue of the father of his patron, 

 besides carrying out canal construction and other engineering 

 works. After the fall of Lodovico, Leonardo led an unsettled life 



