TITLE:
Leonardo Depicted America: Misread as the Moon
AUTHORS:
Stefaan Missinne, Geert Verhoeven
KEYWORDS:
America, Codex Arundel, Da Vinci Globe, Leonardo da Vinci, New World
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Historical Studies,
Vol.8 No.4,
September
17,
2019
ABSTRACT: Leonardo da Vinci must have been aware that Columbus
discovered new territories in the West. Until now, no material evidence had
been found to substantiate this assumption. Here we show that Leonardo not only
read Amerigo Vespucci’s letter (derived from a painted star constellation), but
that he even drew a map including the New World, a drawing which was previously
interpreted as a depiction of the Moon. Finally, Leonardo engraved his notion
of this new continent on an ostrich egg globe (now known as the Da Vinci Globe)
and made a copper cast of this. Both the cosmographic and cartographic clues
demonstrate that Leonardo da Vinci knew about the fourth continent, to be named
“America” in 1507, less than a decade after Columbus embarked upon its shores.
This expansion of Leonardo’s cartographic legacy comes at a time of increased
interest for such multi-disciplinary insights, as the world commemorates in
2019 the 500th anniversary of his death.