A World Lit Only by Fire

by William Manchester

However, it is worth noting that at a time when Europe was mired in ignorance, shackled by superstition, and lacking solid precedents in every scholarly discipline, this uneducated, illegitimate son of an Anchiano country girl anticipated Galileo, Newton, and the Wright brothers. He did it by flouting absolute taboos. Dissecting cadavers, he set down intricate drawings of the human body—God’s sacred image—and wrote his Anatomy in 1510. Meantime he was diverting rivers to prevent flooding; establishing the principle of the turbine by building a horizontal waterwheel; laying the ground work for modern cartography; discovering screw threads, transmission gears, hydraulic jacks, and swiveling devices; creating detailed, practical plans for breech-loading cannons, guided missiles, and armored tanks; building the world’s first revolving stage; developing a canal system whose locks are still in use; and, after exhaustive research into water currents and the flight of birds, designing a submarine, then a flying machine, and then—four centuries before Kitty Hawk—a parachute. Along the way he left an artistic heritage which includes The Adoration of the Magi, the Mona Lisa, and the Last Supper.