Ch6-Thousands of Ideas

CHAPTER SIX Thousands of Ideas. A low fire burned in the hearth. Sunlight slanted across the warm room. Jack caught his breath as he looked around Leonardo's studio. There were mirrors, wooden trunks, globes, paint pots, and brushes. Sketches, paintings, and handmade maps were all over the walls. There

were stacks of old books, half-built furniture, piled-up papers, theater masks, pieces of costumes, and musical instruments. "Oh, man," murmured Jack, "I love this room." "Me too," said Annie. "Please, sit at my table. Let me get you something to eat," said Leonardo. He pushed a bunch of things to the side of a long wooden table and pulled up two chairs. "Thanks," said Jack. He and Annie sat down. Leonardo took the cheese and bread from the basket by the door and gave some to Jack and Annie. The cheese was dry but tasted good. And the bread was really delicious—hard and crackly on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside.

Hmm, I wonder how they make it like this, Jack thought. "So why do you want to leave Florence, Leonardo?" Annie asked, her mouth full. "Because I will no longer be respected here," said Leonardo. "Last week, the council told me I must finish my fresco soon. And now I will not finish it at all. Just recently Michelangelo accused me of never finishing anything!" "Michelangelo? The great artist?" said Jack. Leonardo snorted. "You think Michelangelo is a great artist? Have you seen his statues? Those men with their big muscles? They look like sacks of walnuts!" Jack and Annie laughed.

Leonardo tried to hide a smile as he looked at them. "In truth, Michelangelo is a great artist," he said. "Still, he should not accuse me of never finishing anything… even if it is true." "Why don't you finish things?" asked Annie. "Well, I shall not finish my battle scene now because I experimented with my paint," said Leonardo. "I am experimenting all the time. And often my experiments lead nowhere." "So is that your main problem?" asked Annie. "One of them," said Leonardo, sighing. "The other is that there are too many things I want to do, and there is never enough time!" "What else do you want to do?" asked Jack.

"Oh, I have thousands of ideas," said Leonardo. He put down his bread and cheese and crossed to a wooden trunk in the corner of his studio. He raised the lid of the trunk and stared for a moment at its contents. Leonardo turned back to Jack and Annie. His eyes were bright again. Whatever was in the trunk had made him happier. "Come, look," he said. Jack and Annie walked over to the trunk and peered inside. It held dozens and dozens of plain black books, large ones and small ones. "Notebooks," said Leonardo. "I have filled over a hundred of them with my ideas." "Oh," said Jack, his eyes wide. "Jack keeps notebooks, too!" said Annie.

"Do you mind if we look at them?" asked Jack. "No, not at all," said Leonardo. Jack and Annie started picking up the notebooks and turning the pages. The pages were crammed with doodles and writing. They showed sketches of people's faces, animal heads, flowers, trees, rivers, mountains, the sun, and the moon. One notebook was filled with drawings of horses. Another had sketches of bridges and buildings. Another had drawings of birds and machines. Many of the drawings in the notebooks had labels written in a strange language.