Leonardo da Vinci: He Wrote Backwards and Dreamed of Flying… 400 Years Too Early

More than 500 years ago, a man filled his notebooks with backwards writing.

To read it, you need a mirror.

Why did he do it?

Nobody knows for sure.

This is the story of Leonardo da Vinci.

Welcome to brightlivesenglish.com, where we teach real English using real-life stories.

Mirror writing. Mirror writing goes from right to left, so it is easiest to read in a mirror.

He wrote his notes in mirror writing.

Curiosity. Curiosity is a strong wish to know or learn about something.

His curiosity had no limits.

Sketch. A sketch is a quick, simple drawing.

He made sketches of almost everything he saw.

Anatomy. Anatomy is the study of how the body is built.

He made anatomy drawings of the heart, the skull and the muscles.

Masterpiece. A masterpiece is a work of art of the very highest quality.

The Mona Lisa is his most famous masterpiece.

Now, one pattern: must have and might have.

We use them with a past participle to guess about the past.

Must have means we are almost sure.

Might have means maybe.

Many pages survive, and many were lost.

He must have filled thousands of pages.

Ready? Let's begin.

Leonardo was born in 1452, near the small town of Vinci, in Italy.

His parents were not married, and he had little schooling.

Later, he called himself "a man without letters", someone who learned from experience.

As a teenager, he joined the workshop of the famous artist Verrocchio, in Florence.

There he learned to paint and to make sculptures.

In one of his master's paintings, young Leonardo painted an angel.

His curiosity had no limits.

He made sketches of almost everything he saw: faces, plants, water, horses and machines.

One of his to-do lists says: "Describe the tongue of the woodpecker."

He wrote his notes in mirror writing, from right to left.

To read them, you need a mirror.

Why did he write backwards?

People have asked that question for 500 years.

He wanted to know how the body works.

He said he studied more than 30 human bodies.

He made anatomy drawings of the heart, the skull and the muscles.

One of his ideas about the heart was only rediscovered in 1912.

He was also a great painter.

In Milan, he painted The Last Supper on a wall.

In Florence, he began the Mona Lisa, and he kept it with him for many years.

The Mona Lisa is his most famous masterpiece.

And he dreamed of flying.

He studied birds and bats, and he wrote more than 35,000 words about flight.

Giorgio Vasari, who wrote about his life, says Leonardo even bought caged birds just to set them free.

He drew wings that flapped like a bat's, a giant screw to lift a man, and a parachute shaped like a pyramid.

But as far as we know, none of them was ever built.

No person's arms are strong enough to flap such wings.

Still, his ideas were centuries early.

The first airplane flew about 400 years later.

And in 2000, a British skydiver jumped from a balloon with a parachute built from Leonardo's drawing.

It carried him smoothly down for more than 2,000 metres.

So why the mirror writing?

Nobody knows for sure.

He was left-handed, so he might have wanted to keep his hand out of the wet ink.

He might also have wanted to keep his ideas private.

In his last years, he lived in France as a guest of King Francis I, and he died there in 1519.

He must have filled thousands of pages.

More than 7,000 survive today, and many more were lost.

Let's review. He wrote his notes in mirror writing.

His curiosity had no limits.

He made sketches of almost everything he saw.

He made anatomy drawings of the heart, the skull and the muscles.

The Mona Lisa is his most famous masterpiece.

And remember: he must have filled thousands of pages.

Leonardo da Vinci's story teaches us: never stop asking questions.

Want more interesting lessons?

Go to brightlivesenglish.com.

Please subscribe and learn with us.