Elenco Mechanical Butterfly User Manual

Genius is Timeless

Mechanical

AGES 8+

Butterfly

Instruction manual

Contents

• About Leonardo Da Vinci

• Da Vinci’s Notebooks

• MECHANICAL BUTTERFLY

• Components

• How To Assemble

• How to Operate the Mechanical Butterfly

• Da Vinci Series Kit

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P.15

i

(April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519)

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water

loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen;

even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”

Leonardo

Leonardo da Vinci

an artist, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, sculptor,

architect, botanist, musician and writer. He has often been described as a perfect

example of a Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled

only by his powers of invention and observation. Da Vinci is widely considered

to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely

talented person to have ever lived.

At an early age, Da Vinci’s talent for drawing became evident, and his father

apprenticed his young son to a noted period artist, Andrea del Verrocchio.

Through the coming years, the young Leonardo learned much from his mentor and

at the age of thirty, Da Vinci left Florence and settled in Milan and established

a workshop. During the following years, he earned his living painting

commissioned pieces. He soon came to the conclusion that it was not possible for

him to earn steady income doing this and began his search for employment.

He began by writing a letter to the Duchy of Milan, Duke Ludovico Sforza,

known by the nickname, the Moor. In this correspondence, Da Vinci stated that

he had studied machines of war and had come up with improvements that would

was born April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy. Da Vinci was

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strengthen the Moor’s position in battles. The letter hinted at inventions that

included portable lightweight bridges and improved designs for bombards, mortars,

catapults, covered assault vehicles and weapons. The Moor eventually became

Da Vinci’s patron and kept him busy with everything from designing a heating

system to painting portraits, to overseeing production of cannons and even

decorating the vaulted ceilings in his castle.

It was during this time that Da Vinci began writing and drawing in his journals.

These volumes became repositories of the outflow of Leonardo’s gifted mind.

He was a voracious student of the universe and his observations led to magnificent

plans and concepts. Da Vinci’s notebooks consist of more than 20,000 sketches,

copious notes and detailed drawings. Some of his conceptual designs led to the

greatest inventions of his day, while others came to fruition hundreds of years after

his initial concepts were penned, simply because the machinery needed to build

and power them were not yet invented. Leonardo’s notebooks clearly illustrate his

genius of not only improving upon existing inventions, but also

conceiving a myriad of new ideas and designs.

Ultimately, the Moor was captured by the French and

Da Vinci left Milan in search of a new patron. He traveled

through Italy for more than a decade, working for several

Dukes and rulers, including Cesare Borgia, a General

intent on conquering central Italy. Leonardo traveled with

Borgia as a military engineer, designing weapons, fortresses

and artillery, but became disillusioned and quickly left his

service with the General. It seems that despite Da Vinci’s

design for artillery and weaponry, he was actually a

pacifist and detested war and its destruction.

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Da Vinci later took positions with King Louis XII and Pope Leo X and ultimately

with the King of France, Francis I. It was the King who offered Da Vinci the title,

Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect of the King. Francis I valued

Da Vinci’s great mind and his sole function was to engage in conversations about

Renaissance culture and art with the benevolent royal.

ARTISTIC MASTERPIECES OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

It is important to remember that Da Vinci is not only

a great inventor, but is considered to be one of the

most acclaimed artists to ever have lived, creating

such masterpieces as The Last Supper (c.1498) and the

Mona Lisa (c.1503). Leonardo's drawing of the

Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, only a small number of Da Vinci’s

paintings have survived. Leonardo experimented with

new techniques, most of which did not yield

long-lasting results. The master painter was also somewhat of a perfectionist

with fastidious attention to detail. It is believed that when painting the Mona

Lisa, the artist spent ten years perfecting the lips of this masterpiece.

Virtruvian Man (circa 1487)

The Mona Lisa (circa 1503) The Last Supper (circa 1498)

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Da Vinci’s Notebooks

Da Vinci’s notebooks are now more than 500 years old.

Most of them are not bound the way a typical book would be

today, but rather comprised of loose sheets of paper

gathered into collections and wrapped with fabric.

Paper was scarce in Da Vinci’s time, so he used

every available space in a page for drawings,

observations, even recipes and shopping lists, making

them somewhat difficult to interpret. Adding to the

difficulty in deciphering his works was the fact that

Da Vinci’s scripted notes were written backwards, or in

a mirror image, and read from right to left. His reason for

this remains a mystery, but it is thought that Leonardo’s

theories sometimes went against church teachings and his secret writing could

have been a way to avoid scrutiny. Da Vinci also might have feared that someone

would steal his designs and publish them under

their own name. Ironically, Da Vinci addressed

an imaginary readership in the margins of his

notebooks urging the reader to make sure his work

was printed into a proper book. It is presumed that

he meant for the notebooks

to be published after

his death.

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Da Vinci’s Notebooks

Several common themes recur in the now fragile

notebooks: nature, technology (including gears,

cogwheels, screws and pulleys), aviation and vision,

to name a few. Upon the death of Leonardo Da

Vinci, the notebooks were given to his long-time

friend, Count Francesco Melzi. After his death, Melzi's heirs did not fully

comprehend the value of the information and the manuscripts were dispersed.

They placed the notebooks in an attic where they were viewed by guests

who sometimes took pages with them as souvenirs.In a few years Melzi's family lost

all the manuscripts and soon pages were scattered across Europe.

Da Vinci’s notebook extracts were published in

1883 and about half of them have not yet resurfaced

so far. It is easy to imagine that had the notebooks

been published earlier, the history of science might

have been completely changed.

In his drawings, Leonardo strived for

saper vedere or “knowing how to see.”

Da Vinci’s illustrations are unparalleled

and some experts believe that no one has

since been better.

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MECHANICAL BUTTERFLY

Codex Atlanticus, folio 1051v

Da Vinci was the first person to apply himself to the study of animal flight and human

flight with such passion. Throughout his life Da Vinci dreamt of building a flying

machine which would enable man to fly. In spite of being unable to fulfil this task, Da

Vinci has the distinction of being the first person in the history of human flight to study

the subject from a scientific point of view, investigating every possible solution. He even

devised plans for muscle powered flying, where the pilot of the machine tries to replicate

the beating of a bird’s wings, gliding, without moving the wings, and mechanical flight,

where the machine flies without a pilot but only thanks to the movement of mechanical

parts like gears and wings. In his manuscripts, Da Vinci drew many contraptions, not

all of which need a pilot. Many flying machines are merely preliminary studies, where,

most of the time, Da Vinci tried to imitate the anatomy of an animal; a bird, a bat or an

insect, such as a dragonfly.

One of these projects for a flying

machine with no pilot is the Mechanical

Dragonfly, on folio 1051v of the Codex

Atlanticus. Da Vinci himself advised

where one can admire these incredible

flying insects: To see four-winged

flying, look near ditches and you will

see dragonflies. It is extremely difficult

to create a mechanical replica of the

natural movement of an animal. The

beating of the dragonfly’s four wings is

particularly complex and Da Vinci was

well aware of how difficult it would be

to create this machine, he himself

described it in great detail.

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