Lessons of Leonardo

Picture of Slave Castle in Cape Coast

This last Christmas I had an opportunity to visit my family currently living in Accra, Ghana. While there we had the sobering opportunity to visit a slave castle located in the city of Cape Coast. This year, 2019, marks 400 years since the first slaves were forcibly removed from Western Africa and transported to the United States of America. Coincidentally, this year also marks 500 years since the death of Leonardo Da Vinci. Now, I know that the events surrounding those two dates are not correlated in any way, but I started thinking about what messages did Da Vinci try to share in his lifetime that were not understood not only 100 years after his death but also 500 years after his death - today? 

Da Vinci was widely known for his intrepid experiments in engineering, but he also preached the need to create structures that complement the environment around us, as opposed to ones that impede the world. Also, as a true humanist, he desired the betterment of his fellow men and detested unnecessary suffering. In his painting, "The Last Supper" you see the emotion on the faces of each apostle, and their value as humans is communicated through the unique emotions.

East Coast of Atlantic Ocean 

There are still many in the world who do not understand what Da Vinci understood. Needless suffering, abuse, human trafficking, and slavery are still running rampant in the world. The need to protect the environment and work with the environment is lost on seemingly all governments. As I sat at the foot of the slave castle looking out into the Atlantic Ocean I saw mounds of garbage and plastic floating near the shore.

It struck me that one lesson was lost in this very spot several hundred years ago - the value of the human soul and that another important lesson is being lost - the value of the world we live in. If we each took the time to be just a little more learned about a few more things, could we leave a better world than we found?

Leonardo Da Vinci is the ultimate example of the "Renaissance Man". As more people seek a greater breadth of understanding of the world around us, as he did, we can all better embrace ideas that were realized by him more than 500 years ago. By doing so we can avoid mistakes both 400 years old, and those unique to our time.