Imagine the picture: the noisy market of Florence, the 15th century and here right in front of you Leonardo da Vinci buys a cage with birds to immediately let them out. Artist, inventor, scientist – and another fighter for animal rights? Yes, this guy was a hundred years ahead of his time!
Leonardo da Vinci is not about just masterpieces like a “secret party” or a helicopter drawing. His first biographers, like Georgio Vasari, back in 1550, wrote that the artist had a huge heart, especially to animals. The most famous bike that many heard about how Leonardo bought birds in cells in Florence markets and released them to freedom. While merchants and onlookers clapped their eyes, the birds flew into the sky.
According to Juliano de Medici, Leonardo did not eat meat. A vegetarian in the 15th century, at the moment when everyone around was fried lamb? This is the same if you refuse today to use Wi-Fi!
Why was he not like everyone else
In those days, the Bible was interpreted as follows: animals – for humans, eat, use, do not worry. But Leonardo wanted to spit on these dogmas. The historian Keith Thomas writes that they began to regret animals only in the XVIII century, and Leonardo was already in the XV on its wave. He looked at the world wider: people are part of nature, not its bosses. His sketch of dog paw (about 1485, stored in the National Gallery of Scotland) is not just anatomy. It was as if he wanted to understand what the dog, which hurts.
Leonardo delights not only with paintings, but also the way he lived. He was a man who saw beauty in every creation, from a bird to a dog!
