Design for articulated driving-chains by Leonardo da Vinci, 1470-1520.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the most outstanding Italian painter, sculptor, architect and engineer of the Renaisance period. He had a wide knowledge and understanding far beyond his times of most of the sciences, including biology, anatomy, physiology, hydrodynamics, mechanics and aeronautics. His notebooks, written in mirror writing, contain original remarks on all of these areas.