Genius and Madness Have Always Shared a Workshop

We talk about Leonardo da Vinci like he was this serene Renaissance sage, calmly painting masterpieces while jotting down ideas for rudimentary helicopters. The truth is that while he was certainly brilliant, he was also a touch unhinged. He frequently dissected cadavers late into the night simply to understand biological nuances like how a tendon curves when a person smiles. A notorious perfectionist, he’d devote whole years to a painting only to abandon it halfway through because he was distracted by something as ordinary as a pigeon’s wing in flight. Leonardo proved genius is anything but tidy.

Pierre Antona on Unsplash

He Wrote Everything Backwards

Imagine leafing through his notebooks and realizing all the text runs right to left, with all his letters reversed as though viewed in a mirror. Leonardo wrote that way constantly, even noting his grocery lists in this bizarre script. Scholars say it was to keep his notes private, or because he was left-handed and didn’t want to smudge ink. When you imagine him sitting hunched over parchment, pen scratching in reverse, surrounded by sketches of cat skeletons and flying contraptions, it becomes easier to appreciate how unhinged he was.

He Tried to Build a Mechanical Lion

In 1515, King Francis I of France petitioned something to commemorate his recent visit from the Pope. Leonardo, being the innovator that he was, opted to create a robotic lion out of metal and wood. His intention was for the lion to walk forward, driven by weighted pullies and gears, open its chest and reveal a bouquet of lilies, the French royal symbol. He concocted this notion of animatronics before electricity was invented, yet surprisingly, his contraption worked—for a few seconds.

Leonardo da Vinci on WikimediaHis Diet Was Basically Nuts and Morality

Long before plant-based became a lifestyle brand, Leonardo was quietly living his life this way out of sheer compassion. According to his contemporaries, he’d even occasionally buy caged birds from the market and release them. Not only did he avoid eating meat, but he also avoided using products like leather and fur in his clothing. He even described human stomachs as “sepulchers for all animals.” We can admire his compassion, but his self-righteousness would have worn thin in a hurry.

He Was Terrified of Finishing Things

Leonardo had a staggering talent for not completing what he started. He abandoned The Adoration of the Magi and left Saint Jerome in the Wilderness unfinished. Even The Last Supper started disintegrating during his lifetime because he used an experimental fresco mix. He’d get so wrapped up in technical improvements that he’d neglect the artwork itself. There’s something deeply human in how perfectionism can morph into paralysis.

His Nighttime Obsessions Were Intense

He kept odd hours, practicing a form of polyphasic sleep involving multiple twenty-minute naps rather than a single lengthy night’s sleep. He’d spend the dark hours studying cadavers by candlelight, making sketches so detailed that modern surgeons still find them useful. In some of his notes, he observes, “The heart is the nut which generates the tree of the veins.” That’s less scientific observation than poetry mixed with a touch of madness—or sleep deprivation, more likely.