This entry may surprise you; after all, Leonardo da Vinci is universally revered as one of the greatest minds in human history. The notion that he was an unappreciated genius ahead of his times seems silly. But in fact, although he was respected as an artist in his time, da Vinci was not recognized as a great genius. He went through life getting commissions for paintings and sculptures, but his reputation did not extend beyond that of a talented painter and sculptor.
Part of the reason for this is that Leonardo kept his best work secret. He kept notebooks of his ideas, but to keep his secrets he used a trick called “mirror writing”—he wrote backwards. Here, for example, is an entry in his notebooks on his design for a helicopter:
Look closely and you can see that the writing is backwards. This was meant to keep his ideas secret from wandering eyes.
Moreover, none of his most exciting ideas were ever built. His most ambitious sculpture, a huge figure of a man on a horse, was never cast in bronze. Compared to his contemporary, Michelangelo, da Vinci didn’t produce much.
Leonardo initiated many more projects than he completed. He was never satisfied with his works, often leaving them unfinished because of his dissatisfaction. He often began a project and then abandoned it when he was satisfied that he understood the idea he intended to explore with the work. He was often accused of procrastination, but in truth, his vice was instead perfectionism.
