Welcome to Histories Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. We are so incredibly excited for today's episode, especially because we have a huge surprise. That's right.
SPEAKER_01Today you get two episodes. If you look in your podcast feed today, we actually have a bonus interview episode with the amazing historical person we are talking about right now.
SPEAKER_00And he is maybe the smartest, most wonderfully curious person who ever lived on Earth. Just imagine someone who painted the most famous painting in the entire world, but also designed flying machines, parachutes, and helicopters 400 years before they actually existed.
SPEAKER_01Wait, helicopters? Back when people were still riding horses and fighting with swords.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. He left behind over 7,000 pages of amazing notebooks, all crammed with inventions that humanity would not catch up with for centuries. Oh, and here is the craziest part. He wrote all of them completely backwards.
SPEAKER_01Backwards? Like right to left in a mirror. Why in the world would anyone do that?
SPEAKER_00To keep his incredible secret safe from copycats. Today we are diving into the unbelievable, action-packed life of Leonardo da Vinci. Our story starts way back on April 15th, 1452, in a tiny, beautiful village in the hills of Italy called Vinci.
SPEAKER_01Vinci? Wait, so his name is literally just Leonardo from Vinci?
SPEAKER_00Yep. He didn't really have a traditional last name like we do today. He was just Leonardo da Vinci. But life did not start out easy for him at all.
SPEAKER_01Uh-oh. What happened when he was a kid?
SPEAKER_00He was born to a poor peasant mother named Caterina and a wealthy father named Piero. But they were not married. Because of the strict rules back then, Leonardo wasn't allowed to go to proper schools or attend the university.
SPEAKER_01That is so unfair. If he couldn't go to school, how did he learn to be a genius?
SPEAKER_00By going outside. He explored the Tuscan hills, deeply studying bugs, birds in flight, and how water swirls in a river. He was almost completely self-taught. When he was 14, in 1466, he moved to the big, bustling city of Florence.
SPEAKER_01Whoa Florence was huge, right? Like full of horses, carts, and giant churches.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it had about 50,000 people living there, which was absolutely massive for the 1400s. His dad apprenticed him to a highly famous artist named Andrea Del Velocchio. What exactly is an apprentice?
SPEAKER_01Like a helper in the workshop?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Amidst the smell of linseed oil and marble dust, he learned to mix paint, sculpt statues, and draw. And Leonardo was so naturally gifted that by the time he was 20, he was actually painting way better than his famous boss. Did his boss get mad or jealous? Legend actually says Verrocchio was so amazed by a beautiful angel that Leonardo painted that Verocchio put down his paintbrush and swore to never paint again. By 1482, when Leonardo was 30 years old, he wanted a massive new challenge. So he wrote a job application letter to the powerful Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.
SPEAKER_01Did he send the Duke copies of his beautiful paintings?
SPEAKER_00Nope. Leonardo wanted to be an inventor. His letter barely even mentioned art. He pitched himself mainly as a military engineer. He promised to build armoured cars, which were basically the first tanks, giant crossbows that were 80 feet wide, and secret folding bridges for the army.
SPEAKER_01Wait, 80 feet wide? That is as big as two yellow school buses lined up end to end. Did he actually build a giant weapon like that?
SPEAKER_00Most of his wild weapons stayed in his sketchbooks, because the technology to build them just didn't exist yet. But the Duke hired him anyway.
SPEAKER_01Phew, I am glad he didn't build giant war machines. So what did he actually do in Milan? Everything!
SPEAKER_00He designed costumes for royal parties, planned city streets, and oh, he painted a massive mural called The Last Supper, starting in 1495. It is 15 feet high and 29 feet wide.
SPEAKER_01That is way bigger than my entire house. How long did it take him to paint something that huge?
SPEAKER_00Three whole years. And Leonardo was a notorious procrastinator. Sometimes he would stand staring at the wall for hours, paint one single stroke, and then just leave to go do something else.
SPEAKER_01I bet the monks who were paying him were so annoyed watching him.
SPEAKER_00They were furious! Also, Leonardo loved experimenting. Instead of painting on wet plaster, which lasts forever, he decided to try painting on totally dry wall with a new paint recipe.
SPEAKER_01Oh no. Did his experiment work?
SPEAKER_00Not really. Within just 20 years, the paint started flating right off the wall. But even damaged, it is still considered one of the greatest masterpieces in all of human history. But Leonardo didn't just want to paint people's outside. He wanted to know exactly how the human body worked on the inside so he could draw it perfectly.
SPEAKER_01Uh, how exactly do you learn how a body works from the inside?
SPEAKER_00By dissecting real human bodies. He dissected about 30 bodies in hospitals, in Florence, Milan, and Rome. Wait, in the dark, with dead bodies? That sounds absolutely terrifying. He worked late at night by flickering candlelight, surrounded by horrible smells, drawing every single muscle, bone, and organ. His anatomical drawings were so perfectly accurate, doctors could literally still use them today.
SPEAKER_01So he wrote all his secret medical findings down in those 7,000 pages of notebooks you mentioned?
SPEAKER_00Yes, he filled them with wild ideas. He designed an Ornithopter, which is a flying machine with giant flapping wings like a bat. And he invented a parachute shaped exactly like a pyramid. That sounds crazy! Did the pyramid parachute actually work? Someone finally built and tested his exact design in the year 2000, and it worked perfectly. And get this, in 1503, he started a portrait of a woman named Lisa Gherardini. You might know it better as the Mona Lisa.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I definitely know that one. It is literally the most famous painting in the world.
SPEAKER_00It is. But Leonardo was a crazy perfectionist. He loved it so much that he never actually gave it to the person who paid for it.
SPEAKER_01Wait, he just kept it for himself?
SPEAKER_00Yep, he carried the Mona Lisa with him everywhere he travelled for the last 16 years of his life, constantly adding tiny, microscopic layers of paint to her famous smile. In his final years, Leonardo even worked as a military mapmaker for a ruthless warlord named Cesare Borgia. But eventually, he went to work for King Francis I of France. He packed up his notebooks, slung the Mona Lisa over a mule, and crossed the Alps.
SPEAKER_01What did he do for the King of France? Build more tanks?
SPEAKER_00Actually, the king just wanted to talk to him. He gave Leonardo a huge royal salary and a beautiful manor house called Clos Luce just for the pleasure of hearing him speak about his ideas. Getting a huge castle just to chat? That is amazing. Sadly, on May 2, 1519, Leonardo died at the age of 67. Legend says he actually died right in the king's arms.
SPEAKER_01That is really sad, but what an incredible life he lived.
SPEAKER_00It really was. He left a legacy that completely changed the world. Before Leonardo, artists were just seen as basic craftsmen, like carpenters. He proved they were genius thinkers.
SPEAKER_01Okay, before the quiz, tell me some weird fun facts about him.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Did you know he was incredibly strong? People from his time wrote that he could bend a thick iron horseshoe with his bare hands. No way! Like an actual superhero. And he was a massive animal lover. He was a strict vegetarian, which was super rare in the 1400s. He used to walk through the crowded markets, buy caged birds from the cellars, and then just open the cages to let them fly away free.
SPEAKER_01Wow. He spent his life designing flying machines for himself, and he still took time to give real birds their flight back.
SPEAKER_00Alright, Finn, it is time for the quiz.
SPEAKER_01Are you ready? Okay, I am totally ready. Let's do this. First question.
SPEAKER_00What year was Leonardo da Vinci born? Next one. How many pages of notebooks did Leonardo leave behind? Question three. What massive mural did Leonardo paint that started flaking off the wall? Here's number four. What did Leonardo do at the market with caged birds? Last question. How long did Leonardo carry the Mona Lisa with him? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is, he was born in 1452. For question two, he left behind over 7,000 pages of backward notes. The answer to question three is the Last Supper. For question four, he bought them and set them completely free. And the final answer is he carried it for 16 long years. I honestly cannot believe how much one single person could accomplish in just one lifetime.
SPEAKER_01I know! Painting masterpieces, inventing helicopters, studying science, bending horseshoes. He really could do absolutely everything.
SPEAKER_00And remember, if you want to actually hear from the master himself, go find the special bonus interview episode right here in your podcast feed today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and hey, if you love learning with us, please leave us a five-star review. Just scroll down and tap the stars. Let us know what your favourite Leonardo invention is.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and don't forget to check out our site kidopoly.com. We have got tons of fun learning games and amazing activities there for you to explore.
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SPEAKER_00Thanks so much for listening, everyone. See you next time on Histories Not Boring. Bye!