1. Born on April 15, 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was fluently ambidextrous, meaning he could write easily with both hands and could draw forward with one hand while writing backward with the other. He wrote in this particular manner to safeguard his personal notes. This technique involves writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for the given language. It gets its name from the fact that to decipher it you have to use a particular object. What is it called?
2. Da Vinci was first presented at the Milanese court not as an artist or inventor but as an accomplished lyre player. The lyre is a string instrument recorded in texts since 2500 BC. It can be strummed with a pick or plucked with the fingers. The modern-day version of this instrument is usually depicted as being played by a certain type of benevolent celestial. Though there is no religious reason for this, it has become a popular trope in popular culture, especially in cartoons. Who are the beings and what instrument do they play?
3. The Codex Leicester is a mix of da Vinci’s observations and theories on astronomy, properties of water, rocks, and fossils, air, and celestial light. It is 72 pages, full of drawings and diagrams. In 1994 it set a record for the second highest sale price of any book, when it was sold for $30 million. The buyer scanned each page and distributed some as a special screen saver and wallpaper update to an operating system he released the next year. Since then the individual pages of the codex have been displayed at various museums. Who bought the codex and in what was it seen in 1995?
4. Da Vinci loved water: He developed plans for floating snowshoes, a breathing device for underwater exploration, and a diving bell that could attack ships from below. All these came from one period in time because he had to flee Milan during the Second Italian War in 1499 and settle in another city where he worked with his mathematician friend Luca Pacioli. He was employed as a military architect and devised methods to defend the city from naval attack. Which city, where he stayed only for a year, is the cause for all these aquatic inventions?
5. Da Vinci loved understanding and studying nature through research and observations. One day he observed sunlight pass through wood smoke. He went on to hypothesise that “the air itself is not ____. That is caused by the moisture that vaporises in tiny particles as it is hit by the sun’s rays. These illuminated particles become bright and mix with the background darkness, so that the X appears ___.” With this, what simple question was da Vinci the first to answer?
6. In July 2000, 38-year-old Adrian Nicholas fulfilled his life’s ambition to prove modern aerodynamics experts wrong when he used a design Leonardo had scribbled in his notebook 515 years earlier. Nicholas built a device using wooden poles, canvas and ropes and then stepped off a Hot Air Balloon in South Africa and descended 7,000 feet. Experts had warned that because of its triangular shape it wouldn’t work, but it did. What had da Vinci invented that Nicholas proved worked?
7. Da Vinci devised an improved form of the pound lock whose gates formed a V-shape when closed. He called these ‘Miter Gates’. These gates turned on hinges, like doors, and when closed they formed a V-shape pointing towards the force which made them self-sealing. The portcullis locks it replaced were inefficient, cumbersome and very heavy. The Miter Gates are in use even today especially in places where a particular form of transport has to move from one side to another. Give two of the largest and most well-known of these entities where the Miter Lock is used today.
8. Before he became famous as an artist, da Vinci was an armourer and a weapons expert. In 1482, at the age of 30 he wrote a letter with a list of his capabilities and sent it off to Ludovico il Moro, the Duke of Milan. The letter does not mention his achievements in arts but only those that meet the Duke’s needs. The letter was written to persuade the Duke to employ him. What is this 518-year-old letter believed to be the first of?
9. Da Vinci once tamed a certain type of reptile, fastened huge scales to it, dipped it in mercury so it trembled as it moved, added larger eyes, a horn, and a beard and then showed it to his friends to terrify them. What animal was this and what did da Vinci tell his friends it was?
10. Da Vinci designed a musical instrument called ‘XY’, which used a friction bell to vibrate individual strings (like in a ‘X’), with the strings selected by pressing keys on a keyboard (like in an ‘Y’). This instrument was never built but similar ones exist such as the ‘hurdy-gurdy’. What are ‘X’ and ‘Y’?
Answers
1. Mirror writing
2. Angels playing harps
3. Bill Gates, Windows 95
4. Venice
5. Why is the sky blue?
6. Parachute
7. Panama and Suez Canals
8. A Resume
9. A lizard made to look like a dragon
10. Violin and Organ — ‘Viola Organista’
A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley
