Da Vinci's work and life was incredibly complex and interesting, thanks for posting. I read a book about him some time ago and it mentions the codex of flight but didn't go into much detail, thanks for that, and for the link. Reading about Da Vinci maybe helps us realise we have lost a lot of art, by changing society in a way that does not encourage artisan thinking. Back then there would have been no distinction between Da Vinci's art, and his engineering, or even medical related scientific knowledge. Now we categorise everything for professions and profit. In his day he was funded by folk rewarding him for simply wowing them with what was in his head.
We might say his life was a kind of deliberate performance, it was all art.
I think the change in thinking to the more profit driven mode we know now came around the time of "The enlightenment", when instruments like "Occam's Razor" appeared, which is presented as something to cut down the amount of time we waste thinking about or working on useless (unprofitable) thoughts, when actually we need to explore all knowledge leaving nothing out, to get full value out of it, where value is defined by what most people really value, has nothing much to do with profit.
It is a characteristic of modern profit driven thinking to literally wipe out important ancient knowledge, it seems to me. I think the average person now assumes we were always profit driven, projecting that mindset onto the way all others think, or thought, which causes errors in the way we think about ancient civilisations, and even the way nature itself works now.
The big bang theory is something erroneous resulting from the same problematic profit conditioned mindset, it seems to me.
(I personally see this increasingly everywhere I look, some folk might see that as a kind of curse, but to me it is a superpower!)
Isn't it interesting that most people referencing the medical reference book, "Gray's Anatomy", won't be aware that most of the graphical images there were were originally sketches done by Da Vinci, done in the period of his life spent "illegally" interring and dissecting human dead bodies?
Further, if we do a simple search for "Gray's Anatomy" now in Google, perhaps wondering what it means, all we can find is references to a Walt Disney produced drama series of that name?
The for profit system is seriously screwing up our collective knowledge of all things, it seems to me.
There are folk who argue this is all down to technology, but it isn't, it actually traces to the simple instinct of greed, and the simplest mechanism empowering it; profit, warned about in pretty much every religion, all discounted using Occam's Razor during the "Enlightenment".
I look forward to the day coming very soon, when we will switch on to the full unlimited power of the sun, from the limited power of Earth, driven by the forces of nature now driving inflation in our currency, until we give in, and switch it at last to mimic the nutrients in plants, that carry the energy from the leaves to all things needing it in nature.
Then, I think we will regain a lot of the knowledge lost by the world of all things for profit screwing with our heads.
We might even see millions of new Da Vincis adding value to the world :)