English. Соколова Е.В. - 18 стр.

     He studied optics and physiology of the eye, the movements of waves. And this
was in the 15th century! He studied the structure of the human body. He also studied
the structure and working of the heart and speculated on the circulation of the blood.
Leonardo anticipated discoveries in almost every field.
     He was a military engineer and he drew sketches of primitive tanks and airplanes.
He is supposed to be a designer of the first parachute and to be a constructor of the
first elevator. To de-sign airplanes he studied the flight of birds, and for submarine
designs he studied how fish swam. As a civil engineer he had plans for a complete
system of irrigation.
     In science Leonardo had a notion of the principle of inertia, and nearly a century
before Galileo he understood that falling bodies accelerated as they fell. He consid-
ered that the moon shone by reflected sunshine; and the Earth was not the centre of
the Universe.
     He made designs for tunnels and canals, hundred years before the materials for
these things were thought of. Unfortunately, he kept his ideas to himself, writing
them in code notebooks so that his contemporaries knew nothing of his ideas. Be-
cause he was left-handed, Leonardo wrote all his notes from right to left. And all the
letters of the words were backwards, so that you could only read them if you looked
at the notes in a looking-glass.
     Between 1500 and 1505 Leonardo painted the portraits of two important ladies in
Florence. The first portrait is lost but the second now hangs in the Art gallery in
Paris. It is the "Mona Lisa" Leonardo worked on this portrait for three years When he
was painting the lady , music played. That’s why the eyes of the lady in the picture
are so mysterious and she has such a beautiful smile.
     During his lifetime Leonardo was greatly loved. He spent his last few years in a
castle given to him by the king of France.
     As a man he was handsome, tactful, athletic; he was popular with his friends, fol-
lowers and pupils. In fact, he was a complete man.

     4.10 Ответьте на вопросы

     a) What painting is Leonardo da Vinci famous for?
     b) What were his other interests besides painting and sculpture?
     c) What discoveries did he anticipate?
     d) What was Leonardo da Vinci like as a man?
     e) Why did his contemporaries know nothing about his ideas?




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