Chapter summary:
In 1424, Mariano Taccola became secretary of the Casa di Misericordia, an appointment he held for ten years. As such, he would have become acquainted with influential visitors to Siena – such as Pope Eugenius IV, Giovanni Battisa Alberti (in 1443) and the Florentines Brunellschi and Toscanelli. Between 1430 and his death in 1454, Taccola produced a series of amazing drawings that were published in two volumes, De Ingeneis (of four books) and De Machinis. The range of his subjects is quite extraordinary. De Ingeneis was followed (c 1438) by De Machinis, a volume of drawings of mostly military machines. Taccola was a pivotal figure in the development of European technology and ensured the long stagnation of many technical practices of the middle ages came to an end.
Taccola’s drawings were certainly added to by Francesco di Giorgio after 1435. Di Giorgio was, in fact, a wholesale plagiariser. Di Giorgio’s picture of a collapsing tower is almost identical to Taccola’s; he similarly copies Taccola’s underwater swimmers and floating riders on horseback. His drawings, made after Taccola’s, employ the same distinctive trebuchet as Taccola. His hoists and mills,which transform vertical power to horizontal, and paddle wheel boats copy Taccola’s as do his devices for measuring distances, his weight-driven wheels and ox-drawn pumps. However, Di Giorgio was a very good draftsman adding details to improve the quality of the Taccola’s illustration.
The source of Taccola and di Giorgio’s inventions was, of course, the Nung Shu passed on by Zheng He’s fleets in 1434. In the book, the first drawing was of two horses pulling a mill to grind corn, just as Taccola and Di Giorgio had done. Every variation of shafts, wheels and cranks “invented” and drawn by Taccola and di Giorgio are illustrated in the drawings of the Nung Shu. This is epitomised in the horizontal water powered turbine used in the blast furnace. Every type of powered transmission described by Taccola and di Giorgio is shown in the Nung Shu. By comparing Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings with the Nung Shu, each element of a machine superbly illustrated by Leonardo had previously been illustrated by the Chinese in a much simpler manual.
In summary, Leonardo’s body of work rested on a vast foundation of work previously done by others. His mechanical drawings of flour and roller mills, water and saw mills, pile drivers, weight transporting machines, all kinds of winders and cranes, mechanised cars, all manner of pumps, water lifting devices and dredgers were developments and improvements upon di Giorgio’s Trattato di Architettura Civil e militare and his rules for perspective for painting and sculpture were derived from Alberti’s De Pictura and De Statua. His parachute was based on di Giorgio’s and his helicopter modelled on a Chinese toy imported to Italy circa 1440. Leonardo’s work on canals, locks, aqueducts and fountains originated from his meeting in Pavia with di Giorgio in 1490. His military machines were copies of Taccola and di Giorgio’s – but brilliantly drawn. Leonardo’s three-dimensional illustrations of the components of man and machines are a unique and brilliant contribution to civilization — as are his sublime sculpture and paintings. He remains the greatest genius who ever lived. However, it is time to recognise the Chinese contributions to his work. Without these contributions, the history of the Renaissance would have been very different, and Leonardo almost certainly would not have developed the full range of his talents.
Further reading:
The Invention of the Parachute, by Lynn White, Jr.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3101655
Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Treatise on Engineering and Its Plagiarists
Ladislao Reti and Francesco di Giorgio Martini
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3100858
Francesco di Giorgio – Codicetto
Place: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,Vatican City
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&indice=63&xsl=manoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=100559
Francesco di Giorgio – Opusculum de architectura
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&indice=63&xsl=manoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=100560
Mariano di Iacopo, called Taccola – De machinis
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&indice=63&xsl=manoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=100557
Francesco di Giorgio – Treatise of architecture and machines
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&xsl=manoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=100561
Mariano di Iacopo, called Taccola – Chain-pump
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&xsl=paginamanoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=101196
Mariano di Iacopo, called Taccola – Piston pump
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&xsl=paginamanoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=101215
Anonymous Sienese engineer – (after Taccola and Di Giorgio) – Drawings of machines http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&xsl=manoscritto&lingua=ENG&chiave=100565
