Leonardo da Vinci - a Renaissance Man

How can Leonardo da Vinci be characterized as a true Renaissance Man?


Leonardo can be characterized as a true Renaissacne man, by looking at how interested he was in the world around him, and by looking at all of his inventions. The interest in the world shows that Leonardo was a Renaissaance man, since during the Renaissance, people began to explore everything, and not just try to survive. Leonardo looked at every single detail of the human body, animals and a lot of other things. He drew what he saw, which then helped him and other people to understand things like how muscels "behave" in a certain situation, etc. Not only looking at the world around him, but also trying out different things, which then often led to new inventions. When the Duke of Milan asked him, to desing new weapons, he had to find something "new" or better. He then for example invented or better to say; had the idea of building a truck. Leonardo da Vinci was a real Renaissance man - he explored every little deatail of everything. 

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Brunelleschi's Dome

Virtuosity: a technical skill, fluency or style brought about by special knowledge of or interest in art or craftsmanship

Creative leadership: showing people the way though imagination and originality

Courage: the ability to do something in the face of fear, danger and/or disapproval

Risk-taking: taking actions that may have undesired or unpleasant results, but at the same time provide an opportunity for a positive outcome

Through all these characteristics, Brunelleschi was able to build and construct his master piece, the Dome atop of Santa Maria de Fiore.

From all these qualities and characteristics, I think courage mostly prompted Brunelleschi succeed in the construction of his masterpiece. Without courage and bravery, he would have never tried something new, but he would have kept "thinking inside the egg". But because he had courage, he thought "outside the egg" and took a risk, in making something new, which no one ever did and accomplished before. He had the idea to build the dome without cement or anything similar to that, and he wanted to build an outer and an inner dome, to support it. Brunelleschi needed a lot of courage for this, because not every body could understand his way of thinking, his ideas an concepts, and not every body support him. He also needed a lot of courage, when he made the decision to build the dome without cement or anything like this, but only bricks, it was exiting until the last second to see, if the dome would collapse or not. It was a risk, but also needed courage. He needed bravery for this, because  when he put the last brick into his place in the dome, everything could collapse, the dome, as well as his fame. Courage was needed for a lot of Brunelleschi's work, for the dome, his masterpiece, but also for inviting the linear perspective.





"How do the actions and decisions of people effect change?"


Actions and decisions of Brunelleschi effected change, such as the cracking of "the egg of the Middle Ages", and not keeping framing one certain job. Filippo broke the egg of the Middle Ages, which kept all ideas and thought in a shell, and didn't allow people to look at the world around them, but just try to survive, at least two times in his life. One, by deciding to take the challenge to build the dome atop of Santa Maria de Fiore, and two, by inventing the linear perspective. By taking the challenge of building the dome, Brunelleschi effected a lot of change. He brought more tribute, money and people to Florence, but he also was the pioneer of a new era, the Renaissance. Also his decision to break the egg, allowed new ideas to float out, and helped people to think in a different way. Also by inventing the linear perspective, there was a big change. Drawings became more realistic and easier to refer to. It was a big step, Filippo made, when he invented the new perspective. Also the decision of Brunelleschi of not focusing or framing on one job brought a big change to florence. If he never had stopped to be an artist and an goldsmith, probably only years later, a solution for the "dome problem" would have been found. So he changed his job many times in his life, and always got a new experience, which might have helped him to create his master piece, the dome of Santa Maria de Fiore. Many of Filippo Brunelleschi's actions and decisions effected change in Italy, as well as in the rest of Europe, but today, decisions and actions of people bring a lot of change too, we could call it "the new Renaissance" and another egg will be cracked.

Santa Maria de Fiore

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Where do new ideas come from?

I think, new ideas come from personal experiences, things that happened during the time a person wrote a story or book, and if a person is creative, of course from his or her imagination. For example in "The Sniper" the civil war played a big role for the IRA sniper, but as well for Liam O'Flaherty because he was part of it once. An author or anybody else, also needs personal experience to write a story, novel, song, etc. because you can't for example write a love song, if you never have been in love before. The author has to know how a person feels and/or acts in a certain situation because only by knowing that, the author can get close and capture the audience or readers. But if there is nothing exciting happening while a person writes a story, or he/she already wrote about all of his/her personal experiences in life, authors can also make up stories. Of course not only authors need new ideas, also teachers or other people need ideas. For example if you need to design a catalog, you really need ideas too, because otherwise the catalog won't look good or the client is not happy with it. Everybody needs new ideas, and they can come from everywhere, but the three things I've listed, I think are the main sources where people get their new ideas from.

My Favorite Story- What makes a good story?

My favorite story is "Lamb to the Slaughter" which we read in our humanities class. We read three stories, but I like this one best, because the author builds a lot of tension which leads to the climax. I liked the characters, how Roald Dahl described them and makes them more interesting with making Mr. Patrick a police officer and Mary an obsessing housewife, that she easily gets upset when something isn't in the correct order or something is unusual, and how she thinks of a plan, so that no one can tell, that she killed her husband. I liked the foreshadowing, Roald Dahl made by Mary notice something "strange" about how her husband acts when he comes home. I also liked the words, the author used to describe the setting and characters, so it is easy to visualize a picture. The story had a lot of tension in it, and I could easily empathize how the characters felt in certain situations, that's why "Lamb to the Slaughter" is my favorite short story.