Technikatörténeti szemle 13. (1982)

TANULMÁNYOK - Szabadváry Ferenc: Leonardo da Vinci: Efficiency Problems of Technological Inventions

inventions. Although he was payed in Milan by Lodovico Sforza as „ingenarius ducalis", served as military engineer to Cesare Borgia, and his official position in Rome, and finally in the French royal court of Francis I was always that of court engineer, nobody ever demanded any practical engineering work from him; at the atmost, his advice was asked now and then in questions of fortification, or else for example in Amboise, he was asked to construct fancy machines for court entertainments (moving lions and so on). As a painter, Leonardo was highly appreciated already in his lifetime. The Renaissance sovereigns rivalling with one another to have celebrated artists and scientists at their courts were happy to receive him; they gave him much freedom to live according to his own style, to contemplate and meditate. Wherever he went, he made notes and drawings of what he saw and sketched the ideas which these observations stirred up in him. I imagine that he planned to write a grand book, „the perfect book". Well, everybody will know the type of people, who are continually talking about their far-fetching projects with the deepest conviction and eloquence. They talk about some perfect work they consider to perform and for which they are preparing themselves continually. Their fellow-men believe them and trust them. Conditions are provided for them to work in peace, to live free from care. They are regarded with great reverence, knowing that this is a great man preparing himself for his great accomplishment. With time, however, reverence turns into an indulgent smile, and finally into a slightly depreciating gesture indicating that this is a man who only talks but will never achieve his aim. He, the disparaged man still believes in the masterwork he intends to complete. In his innermost, however, it is maybe clear to him that his project will never come to anything. At some moment he perhaps realizes that he has wasted his life with collecting material, with contemplation, with preparation, and won't have the time to systematize the material, to create and to complete. Such men have existed in all ages and still exist nowadays, particularly among scientists and artists. It is very regrettable, and when the man in question is a true genius, it is a great loss for society, for humanity. In fact, the truth is that in science and technology — and presumably in all domains of human activities — the imperfect thing achieved is of more value than the non-achieved perfect thing. Perfection, in its ontological sense, doesn't exist in reality. In my opinion, Leonardo was the type of man who always made preparations to create „the prefect". It is certain that he was an extraordinary genius who is rightly placed into the first ranks of the history of human civilization, even though he mostly left behind only the sketches of what he intended to create. In these sketches, however, the masterpiece is recognizable. SOURCES Agricola, G.: De re metallica libri XII. Basel, 1556. (Facsimile edition: Düsseldorf, 1961.) Dibner, B.: Leonardo Prophet of Automation. Norwalk, 1969. Duhem, P.: Etudes sur Léonard de Vinci. Paris. 1906—13. Feldhaus, F. M.: Leonardo, der Techniker und Erfinder, Jena, 1922. Gille, B.; Les ingénieurs de la Renaissance. Paris, 1964. (German translation Wien— Düsseldorf, 1968.) Hart, I. B.: The Mechanical Investigations of Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1925. Keele, K., Réti, L. and Clagelt, M.: Leonardo da Vinci (in: Dictionary of Scientific