Most people think of art when they hear the name Leonardo da Vinci, (you know, Mona Lisa, Last Supper) but did you know that he was also an inventor? Da Vinci was truly a “Renaissance Man” who excelled in anatomy, botany, engineering and, yes, art. Some of his ideas, such as airplanes and diving suits, were well ahead of the time. He invented an array of gadgets, gears, pulleys and other devices that led the way for many of the technologies we still use today. He was a prolific sketch artist and doodler and his intriguing notebooks are writing in a backwards, mirror writing style—in Italian. There has been a resurgence of interest in da Vinci’s work and several traveling shows with working models of his designs are on display.

Co-authored by Cynthia Phillips, PhD, a SETI Institute scientist with the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe (LITU).