Day 6 –Florence/Vinci - Wednesday, January 8th 2014: Linda Vining

Every day opens doors as we travel north in Italy. The highlight of today was a visit to the small village of Vinci in the Tuscan Hills, famous as the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452.

In the museum that is dedicated to him we saw many of his inventions, models made from his sketches, everything from flying machines, to machines for grinding corn, to the first steam engines, to instruments for the measurement of humidity.
The Italians do everything with great style and the Leonardo museum is an elegant monument to a brilliant man.

Leonardo started off in humble beginnings, in fact he was illegitimate. His nobleman father dallied with a servant and Leonardo never had any formal schooling yet he was always curious and one of the greatest thinkers of his time. He left 7000 pages of sketches of his inventions and only 15 paintings. First and foremost he was a mathematician of ratios and he loved inventing things.

The following quote is from Leonardo's writings . . .

"Knowledge is the only thing that will grow in old age, and not diminish.".


Dr Linda Vining St Paul's College Board