I had a chance to visit Vinci, Italia this past weekend, the hometown of one of GrapeThinking’s great inspirations, Leonardo Da Vinci. Below, I share my thoughts and sights on his balanced way of thinking and being, leading to unmatched accomplishments in both the arts and sciences. Everything he did was in brilliant harmony, whether it was the science of painting or the art of engineering and exploring human anatomy. He was a true master of the mind… and body.
My theory is he used his infinite curiosity as a feedback loop to direct his body, hands, and eyes to work and operate in a balanced fashion (ambidexterity), which resulted in greater structural and energetic harmony between the two sides of his mind. This allowed him to have clear and simple insights into innovation…. lol, I know. Just being there filled me with a type of inspirational energy I’d never felt before.
Odd Art Plaza outside of Museum
Vitruvian Man, the ESSENCE
Birthplace of Leonardo
There was a wedding in Da Vinci’s home the day we were there
Striking view from Da Vinci’s home
Full Moon on the ride home
Vitruvian Man in Vinci
The Vitruvian man
The essence of a human being
Practically you see he’s inside of a cube and a sphere at the same time
It was Da Vinci’s way of saying that the anatomy, the shape, the essence of a man, of a human , of a woman… is perfect.. it’s the essence of the universe… it’s the chiave, the key
It’s probably one of the most well recognized symbols in the world other than the Coca Cola brand
We are here in Vinci, Italia, which is the small town where obviously Leonardo Da Vinci was born and raised, and nurtured his genius
You see right here we’ve got the vigneto, the vineyard, and the olive trees
It’s what the locals here in Italia say is the key to their good health… olives and good wine
Leonardo’s Home
Now we’re at the house where Leonardo was born. We’re a couple kilometers outside of Vinci.
You’re probably wondering why… was Vinci, Leonardo Da Vinci, called Da Vinci. Da Vinci means from Vinci.
And it’s cause he was just kind of a common guy, kind of like a peasant I guess.
And he took his dad’s name. It was like Leonard Di Piero, I think… Ser Piero. Ser Piero Da Vinci… and then he just shortened it to Da Vinci… from Vinci.
See here are some gorgeous olive trees… I wonder if that had anything to do with his genius?
There’s his house right there.
Another really interesting thing, I mentioned ambidexterity earlier, was that he mainly actually wrote with his left hand. He was known like Michelangelo to switch, from his left hand to his right hand. Back and forth… kind of like that, ha.
Yeah, anyways, another interesting thing was that he actually wrote (some Italians are looking at me over there) he actually wrote from right to left, right to left… opposed to left to right. And he wrote backwards.
And they say it was so that he could disguise all of his major plans so they couldn’t read them.
I think it was because it exercised the other side of his mind… the right side… the creative side.
I don’t know… those are just a few facts. I’m here… this is the birthplace of the greatest genius in the history of our time.
Olive trees, ambidexterity, good wine… I tend to think it’s the simple things that converge into genius.
But who knows?
Ciao
Wedding
(Wedding cheers)
That’s pretty cool
We’re here at the house where Da Vinci was born.
The greatest genius in the history of humanity… LOL
Where he was born
And of course, we’ve got all the olive trees goin on down here
Lexus and the olive tree
Just had a wedding here
Full Moon
And on the way back from Vinci, we’ve got a little Luna Piena, piena? Luna Piena? (Si)
Luna Piena or Luna Nuda… full moon
Tags: ambidexterity, Art, elixir, genius, italia, Left brain, Leonardo Da Vinci, olives, right brain, science, Vinci, vinoRelated posts