4 Chapter 3 The Wider World

Chapter 3 The Wider World Leonardo stayed at Verrocchio's workshop a long time—thirteen years. He became a master and a member of the guild. But he didn't move out to start a studio of his own. Perhaps Verrocchio's studio felt like a home to Leonardo, a place where he belonged and was wanted. Verrocchio was a kind master, and the two were probably quite close. Florence was also an exciting place to live. It was full of new ideas. It was also a city with books. Lots of books. Until the mid-1400s, there were no printed books. Every book was copied by hand. Sometimes beautiful pictures were painted on the pages. The result was a work of art in itself. But it took a long time to make a single book.

Then, around 1450, in Germany, a man named Johannes Gutenberg made a discovery. He figured out how to build a printing press. It used letters made of pieces of steel. They could be moved around to create different words. An inked page of type could be printed onto paper many times. The Bible was considered the most important book. So the first title printed was a Bible.

Very quickly, however, other books were printed as well. Books on math. Books of maps. Books by great thinkers of the past, like Plato and Aristotle. With more books available, more people started learning to read.

As a child, Leonardo had been taught to read and write. He also knew simple math. But that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to learn about everything. He couldn't attend a university. But he could teach himself. So he started buying and collecting books. He continued to do this all his life. Artists needed math in order to make paintings look three-dimensional, or 3-D. In the Middle Ages, paintings didn't look realistic. The people in them looked flat, like a king or a queen on a playing card. The buildings looked flat, too, like pieces of scenery in a play. But in the 1400s an artist named Filippo Brunelleschi figured out a way to make paintings appear to have depth. A person looking at a painting would be tricked into thinking it was something in real space. For instance, figures close-up had to be much bigger than figures that were supposed to be far away. This is called painting in perspective. A painter needed math to measure out the correct spaces for figures on the wood panels.

该页暂无翻译

THE REBIRTH THE FRENCH WORD RENAISSANCE MEANS "REBIRTH." IT IS THE NAME GIVEN TO ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING PERIODS IN HISTORY. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GIVE EXACT DATES. BUT THE RENAISSANCE LASTED FROM THE EARLY OR MIDDLE 1400S TO AROUND 1600.