Leonardo's crossbow

Last updated
A sketch of the Leonardo Da Vinci's Giant Crossbow on folio 149a of the Codex Atlanticus Leonardo crossbow.JPG
A sketch of the Leonardo Da Vinci's Giant Crossbow on folio 149a of the Codex Atlanticus
A sketch of the Rapid Fire Crossbow by Leonardo da Vinci on folio 153r of the Codex Atlanticus CAH 0153r.png
A sketch of the Rapid Fire Crossbow by Leonardo da Vinci on folio 153r of the Codex Atlanticus
A 3D rendering of Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow design Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow - design.jpg
A 3D rendering of Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow design
A replica of the Rapid Fire Crossbow in The World of Leonardo Museum in Milan Balestra Veloce.jpg
A replica of the Rapid Fire Crossbow in The World of Leonardo Museum in Milan

Leonardo's crossbow designs are a series of shooting weapon schematics designed by Leonardo da Vinci that are in the Codex Atlanticus. One version, a self-spanning infantry weapon called the Rapid Fire Crossbow (Balestra Veloce in Italian), is found on sheets 143r, 153r, and 155r. [2] The other is the Giant Crossbow (Balestra Gigante in Italian) design intended to be a mounted siege weapon found on sheet 149a in the Codex.

Contents

The creation of the large design is linked to Ludovico Sforza, an Italian prince in the Renaissance era. Given the constant warfare in the Italian Peninsula at this time, he wanted to expand and advance both his military and the territory he governed in the Milan region. To do so, he wanted to update the current treatise on military engineering by Roberto Valturio. Leonardo responded by writing Sforza a letter that included a number of innovative machine designs with one of them being the Giant Crossbow. Leonardo also highlighted in the letter his expertise in engineering; most likely having known that Sforza was wanting to hire military engineers at the time. [3]

While there is no exact date for the illustrations of Leonardo's crossbows, they are generally believed to be drafted between 1483 and the early 1490s. [4] Many scholars generally agree that Leonardo completed the drawings in the manuscript in Milan, but there is debate as to why he originally went there. Some believe he came to Milan in search of work as a painter and then he got news of Sforza's military desires upon arriving. Others suggest that the initial reason he came directly to Milan was to work for Sforza. [5]

Design

The crossbow as a weapon had been around long before Leonardo's designs. However, his designs made the weapon more advanced and why Leonardo's crossbows stands out. If a crossbow is designed with a narrower shaft and a tapered bolt, which adjusts the nocking of arrows, it greatly improves the airflow of the bow and the drag on arrows. This allows the crossbow to operate much more efficiently and have a more precise aim. These ideas were present in Leonardo's designs and were developed independently of any other influences. [6]

The mathematics that Leonardo utilized to construct his crossbow designs were far advanced despite having some now known inaccuracies with today's current knowledge of geometrics and design. Nonetheless, Leonardo was "the first modern engineer to attempt to apply the geometrical mathematics of the laws of motion to the design of machines." [7] The other mathematical marvel that is noted in Leonardo's designs of the crossbows is the proportional techniques that he utilized in every aspect of the designs. [8]

Mechanically, the Rapid Fire Crossbow's tiller was split into two stacked wooden pieces held together at the front by a hinge and held in place at the back by a spring-loaded latch. [9] [ better source needed ] Sandwiched inside the tiller, a pair of interconnected folding levers attach the lower half of the tiller to a sliding plank sitting on the top half of the tiller between the two metal prods, similar in mechanical concept to the Gastraphetes, that contained the rolling nut and spring-loaded sear at the back of the plank. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the tiller contained the trigger. Upon pressing a switch on the side of the tiller to release the latch, the user can then fold the bottom half of the tiller down. At the same time, the interconnected levers then push the sliding plank forward until the drawstring is caught by the rolling nut, which is held secure by the sear's spring tension. Upon pushing the bottom half of the tiller back into place, the latch locks the upper and lower halves of the tiller back together. [10] [ better source needed ] After a bolt is loaded on the crossbow and aimed, the trigger is then pulled to compress the sear's spring and enable the rolling nut to release the drawstring to propel the bolt. Such a design removed the need for external spanning tools that an arbalist had to carry and simplified the arming process of the crossbow.

With regards to the Giant Crossbow, the original idea of Leonardo, as described in the drawings of the Codex Atlanticus (1488–1489), was to build a large crossbow in order to increase the range and power of its ammunition. The Giant Crossbow was used to fire rocks and bombs; it was mostly intended to be an intimidation-based weapon for deterring foes from attacking. The Giant Crossbow was made up of thin wood, on 6 wheels, 27 yards across, and made up of 39 separate parts. While some believe that Leonardo designed the Giant Crossbow for his own amusement, the context around this design suggests the Giant Crossbow truly was intended to be a dangerous weapon that would greatly appeal to his employer, Ludovico Sforza. [4] Inspiration for such a weapon most likely stemmed from the fact that Leonardo grew up in Italy during the 15th century. This meant he was a witness to the constant warfare between the many city-states in his area. Thus, Leonardo put extensive time and effort into designs that could both protect his fellow citizens and greatly harm the enemy. The Giant Crossbow supports this theory in that the intended enormous size of the weapon was meant to invoke fear and panic in its enemies to keep them away, but it would still have the capability to cause great damage and injury had it been actually constructed and used. [11]

Working replicas

After a prototype of the Rapid Fire Crossbow built in 2013, the first working model was released on 24 June 2015 during a demonstration [12] at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. [13] The working replica of the infantry weapon was the culmination of a study conducted by Edoardo Zanon of the Leonardo3 study center in respect of the processing and assembly techniques available at the time of Leonardo.

The model allows precision shooting and is equipped with a fast internal spanning mechanism, non-existent even in most modern handheld crossbows. [14] The working model built is on display at the Leonardo3 – The World of Leonardo museum at the Piazza della Scala in Milan, Italy. [15]

As for the Giant Crossbow, it was never constructed by its designer; either as scaled model or as a fully fledged siege weapon. However, a working model was built to a scale of 1:1. It was shown in the ITN documentary Leonardo's Dream Machines , which was aired for the first time in February 2003 by Channel 4. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonardo da Vinci</span> Italian Renaissance polymath (1452–1519)

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castello Sforzesco</span> Castle in Milan, Italy

The Castello Sforzesco, also known in English as Sforza Castle, is a medieval fortification located in Milan, Northern Italy. It was built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on the remnants of a 14th-century fortification. Later renovated and enlarged, in the 16th and 17th centuries it was one of the largest citadels in Europe. Extensively rebuilt by Luca Beltrami in 1891–1905, it now houses several of the city's museums and art collections.

<i>Portrait of a Musician</i> Unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci (1483–1487)

The Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in oils, and perhaps tempera, on a small panel of walnut wood. It is his only known male portrait painting, and the identity of its sitter has been closely debated among scholars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Trivulzianus</span> Manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci

The Codex Trivulzianus is a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci that originally contained 62 sheets, but today only 55 remain. It documents Leonardo's attempts to improve his modest literary education, through long lists of learned words copied from authoritative lexical and grammatical sources. The manuscript also contains studies of military and religious architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio</span> Italian painter (1467–1516)

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio. According to Giorgio Vasari, he was of an aristocratic family and was born in Milan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci</span>

The Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) left thousands of pages of writings and drawings, but rarely made any references to his personal life. The resulting uncertainty, combined with mythologized anecdotes from his lifetime, has resulted in much speculation and interest in Leonardo's personal life. Particularly, his personal relationships, philosophy, religion, vegetarianism, left-handedness and appearance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci</span> Leonardo da Vincis inventions and his relationship to science

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an Italian polymath, regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in numerous diverse areas of study. While most famous for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, Leonardo is also renowned in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Atlanticus</span> Set of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci

The Codex Atlanticus is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was used for atlases. It comprises 1,119 leaves dating from 1478 to 1519, the contents covering a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry to musical instruments and from mathematics to botany. This codex was gathered in the late 16th century by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who dismembered some of Leonardo's notebooks in its formation. It is now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

<i>Divina proportione</i> Book on proportions by Luca Pacioli, illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci

Divina proportione, later also called De divina proportione is a book on mathematics written by Luca Pacioli and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci, completed by February 9th, 1498 in Milan and first printed in 1509. Its subject was mathematical proportions and their applications to geometry, to visual art through perspective, and to architecture. The clarity of the written material and Leonardo's excellent diagrams helped the book to achieve an impact beyond mathematical circles, popularizing contemporary geometric concepts and images.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mario Taddei</span> Italian academic (born 1972)

Mario Taddei is an Italian academic. He is an expert in multimedia and edutainment for museums, a Leonardo da Vinci devotee and scholar, and an expert in the codexes and machines of da Vinci and ancient books of technology.

<i>La Bella Principessa</i> Portrait attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

La Bella Principessa, also known as Portrait of Bianca Sforza, Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress and Portrait of a Young Fiancée, is a portrait in coloured chalks and ink, on vellum, of a young lady in fashionable costume and hairstyle of a Milanese of the 1490s. Some scholars have attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci but the attribution and the work's authenticity have been disputed. Supporters of the theory that it was by Leonardo have propositioned that Bianca Maria Sforza is the woman depicted in the drawing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harpsichord-viola</span> Hybrid musical instrument based on the designs of Leonardo da Vinci

The harpsichord-viola is a hybrid musical instrument based on the designs of Leonardo da Vinci on folio 93r of the Codex Atlanticus. It's a different project from the viola organista. It is about the size of a child's toy piano. It weighs 33 pounds and straps to the musician's chest. It's unlike anything else in the orchestra. It has the strings of a violin but is played with a keyboard, and it's powered by the musician's legs as he walks. It's built with the materials that Leonardo would have had on hand, including wooden pegs and gears run by twine. In the folio of Leonardo, you can see that the instrument has a harness. So it was invented as a way to play a stringed instrument while marching. The leg pumps a wooden motor, which moves a long loop of horsehair through the instrument. When the player presses the keys, the strings move up against the loop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salaì</span> Italian artist (1480–1524)

Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, better known as Salaì was an Italian artist and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci from 1490 to 1518. Salaì entered Leonardo's household at the age of ten. He created paintings under the name of Andrea Salaì. He was described as one of Leonardo's students and lifelong companion and servant and was the model for Leonardo's St. John the Baptist, Bacchus and Angelo incarnato.

Carlo Vecce is Professor of Italian Literature in the University of Naples "L'Orientale", he taught also in the University of Pavia, the D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara and the University of Macerata. Abroad he was visiting professor at Paris 3 (2001) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) (2009).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sala delle Asse</span> Room decorated by Leonardo da Vinci in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan

The Sala delle Asse, is a large room in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the location of a painting in tempera on plaster by Leonardo da Vinci, dating from about 1498. Its walls and vaulted ceiling are decorated with "intertwining plants with fruits and monochromes of roots and rocks" and a canopy created by sixteen trees.

Augusto Marinoni was professor of romance philology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, a member of the Commissione Vinciana and the Accademia dei Lincei. He is considered one of the greatest scholars of Leonardo da Vinci.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonardo3 Museum</span> Interactive museum in Milan, Italy

Leonardo3 is an interactive museum and exhibition center at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Piazza della Scala, Milano, Italy. The museum was inaugurated in 2013, and is devoted to Italy’s notable personality Leonardo da Vinci, who is portrayed both as an artist and inventor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonardo's aerial screw</span> Archaic helicopter design

The Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci drew his design for an "aerial screw" in the late 1480s, while he was employed as a military engineer by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499. The original drawing is part of a manuscript dated to 1487 to 1490 and appears on folio 83-verso of Paris Manuscript B, part of the papers removed from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1795 by Napoleon and still held by the Institut de France in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonardo da Vinci's Vineyard</span> Leonardo Da Vincis Vineyard

Leonardo da Vinci's Vineyard is a vineyard the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Maria Sforza best known as Ludovico il Moro, gave as a gift to Leonardo da Vinci in 1498 while he was working on the painting of Last Supper in the nearby refectory of the cathedral and Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. It was a gesture to give credit for the many admirable works Leonardo had been creating for the Duke.

Pietro Cesare Marani is an Italian art historian and curator. He is among the leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci having written of over 200 publications on the artist. These include book-length studies on the Portrait of a Musician and The Last Supper, an overview on Leonardo's time in Venice, and one of the two modern catalogue raisonné of Leonardo's works, the other being by Frank Zöllner.

References

  1. ↑ (in Italian) Balestra gigante Archived 2010-04-02 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ "Milano, dal Codice Atlantico all'animazione: ecco la balestra di Leonardo". Repubblica Tv - la Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2015-06-24. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  3. ↑ Landrus, Matthew (2010). Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow . Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p.  5, 17,33. ISBN   9783540689157.
  4. 1 2 Landrus, Matthew (2010). Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow . Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p.  5. ISBN   9783540689157.
  5. ↑ Landrus, Matthew (2010). Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow . Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p.  9, 21. ISBN   9783540689157.
  6. ↑ Foley, Vernard; Palmer, George; Werner, Soedel (1985). "The Crossbow". Scientific American. 252 (1): 104-111. Bibcode:1985SciAm.252a.104F. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0185-104.
  7. ↑ Landrus, Matthew (2010). Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p. VIII.
  8. ↑ Landrus, Matthew (2010). Leonardo da Vinci's Giant Crossbow . Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p.  3. ISBN   9783540689157.
  9. ↑ "Rapid-Fire Crossbow". Leonardo3 Museum. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  10. ↑ "La Balestra Veloce di Leonardo da Vinci" (PDF). Leonardo3 – Il Mondo di Leonardo (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-02-14.
  11. ↑ Stuart, Nathan (2016). "The Engineering Genius of a Renaissance Man". The Engineer. Online.
  12. ↑ All4shooters Italiano (2015-07-16), La Balestra veloce di Leonardo da Vinci (in Italian), retrieved 2018-07-16{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ↑ "Dal Codice Atlantico alla realtà Funziona la balestra di Leonardo". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  14. ↑ "In funzione la balestra veloce di Leonardo - Tecnologie - Scienza&Tecnica". ANSA.it (in Italian). 2015-06-30. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  15. ↑ "Leonardo3 – The World of Leonardo | Milan Museum Guide". Milan. 2016-01-04. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  16. ↑ IMDb, Leonardo's Dream Machines
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.