Another Day at the Museum

The Leonardo Museum, this time. Crappy weather today again.

Went in a search for a bookstore to buy me a good map, can't rely on g++gle maps once I'm in the wild, then literally stumbled on the Leonardo Museum on Ortigia island. Well, it's nothing flashy, but to me it was quite amazing. I always knew da Vinci was a genius, a genius and a genius... maybe he was a genius, too. But I was never that much interested in his works to study it, so I was surprised to see some stuff I've never heard of it before. Mostly are just scale models, built by Niccolai Artisans of Florence, using only materials available at the age of da Vinci. This one was a shock.

 As I learned there's still a dispute about the "bicycle of Leonardo", the page with its drawing in one of the many "da Vinci Codes" is unanimously recognized a fake, but very possibly being a copy been made by one of his pupils. Why would it be plausible? because there's no fail that Leonardo knew all about chain transmission of the movement. Built from a verified drawing.

 Warfare. The first tank, human powered, ever designed, never built (as far as I know and I know little, just that some 100 years later the first armored ship was built in Korea). This one I would really love to see in full scale.

 There was a model of a "perpetuum mobile non existens" and I didn't want to take a picture of it. Too many people would be more than willing to point at it and start drooling the like he was one of  the zionist communist reptilian aliens that live in the hollow Earth and THEY killed him at the tender age of almost 70 to not give humanity free power from perpetuum mobiles ... That's stupid folks for you (=average person), when confronted with someone clever, the only way out is to demonize him. Or her. OK, never mind, about the perpetuum. Leonardo had no clue about gravity, but he sure knew what friction is, so he used bearings even in the unpictured  perpetuum. Yep, he invented the bearings.

 With whom would you associate this boat, with Mark Twain or with Steamboat Willie? Wrong, with Leonardo da Vinci!

 And if you fall of that boat...

 Don't know the proper name, we used to call this a self grip, the heavier the load the stronger the hold. Guess who invented it...

 Fans of opera, drama and concerts... another guess, who invented the spotlight? Or reflector, as it was called at the time. Dude made some good dough from famous stages at the time.

 Back to real life... a water powered saw. If there was something like patenting at his time, his descendants would own the world. WAIT! They already do, since he...  he was one of  the zionist communist reptilian aliens that live in the hollow Earth

 A dream to never come true.

 A dream that came true. The differential gear. Actually this one blasted me much more than the bicycle, now that I think about it. It's just so unobtrusive as invention...

Infinity screw to lift weights...

 Another infinity screw to transform circular motion to linear...

 Lift with automatic stop

And a way of transmission I just can't remember the name - it's a proper anvil and a heavy sledgehammer, but turning the handle is a piece of cake (they put a piece of felt on the anvil, if every visitor is as keen as me the stuff would probably go crazy)

 Another bad picture, but you'll have to get used to them. Blame the fucking Mexicans who stole my camera. A precious gift from my son. I hope they will die from diarrhea. No, I hope they already died. Never mind, just to make clear I'm still a bit fucked up. OK, yes, it's a bridge. yes, it's just a model, the sticks about 50 cm long. They are NOT glued, NOT screwed, NOT nailed, NOT tied. The joints are just carved to keep the "logs" in place, it's the weight added that makes it really stable. In the workshop you can build one and feeble as it may look I was able to step on it withot breaking it apart.

 Leonardo wasn't a bunch of roses. He invented the log-arched-bridge for blietzkrieg. Contrary to the warfare logic of his time ( yeah, I know, he was one of  the zionist communist aliens that live in the hollow Earth) he believed in sneak and swift attacks. And he believed in the value of human life, he did think of a lifebelt for sailors, did'd he? Or an armored "vehicle".... Also for warfare he made the "extendible ladder" as a siege weapon, so well balanced that it couldn't be pushed away from the city walls...

Hmmm.. since I'm in Archimedes' city, let's drop it with Leonardo. Ever heard of  ostomachion? It looks like a puzzle, 14 pieces of different shapes, called also Ioculus Archimedeus...

....always treated as a sort of game, but it could have been a tool of Archimedes for the combinatory calculus and the basis for his geometrical and mathematical theories. But... we do know he... he was one of  the zionist communist aliens that live in the hollow Earth

Sicily!

I promised myself that I would be posting a bit more frequently... if there will be something interesting to write about. So I decided to make notes regularly, of any kind of curiosities... and I started this note as soon the train left the Trieste station. I bought the ticket to Rome online and I wanted to see what's the difference in price (I wouldn't be surprised to realize that I actually paid more online than at the ticket machine). I touched the screen of the vending machine and the thing greeted me: "Beware of pickpockets!" And, after all, I was lucky, for once. The online ticket was less than half of the station price. Cool, I boarded the train, car number 3, seat 67.  Weird.. the car has only 65 seats... AND my ticket is not valid. Sounds familiar? Well, this time it was my fault - I printed the wrong part of the ticket, some code number is missing. Is that a problem? Well, it should be... but hell, who cares, have a nice trip!
Thank you, Trenitalia :D
Well, I didn't like Rome so I immediately left for Napoli. Same there. Stopped in Salerno for a few days in a monastery...former monastery, now a funky looking hostel and I behaved as a proper tourist, walking the lungomare and visiting museums.

 A grater from the bronze age. Why would they need a cheese grater if they didn't know how to make pasta? (Being it a cheese grater is just my wild imagination!)

 A reminder to the right-wing traditionalists and religious morons who think that homophopbia is as old as humanity... it's not.

And it was time to leave for Sicily. My first glimpse of the island and the city of Messina.

 Catania, boring. Let's move to Siracusa, the city of Archimedes. Again, a tame tourist, yesterday checked the Temple of Apollo on the Ortigia island....

 ... and spent all the afternoon at the archaeological park.

 The Greek theater.

 With strong sun in my face. It's hot here. I mean really hot.

 The Ear of Dyonisos.

 The Roman theater.

 More than half of the paths in the park are like this, closed. The park itself is kept really badly so paying the ticket felt quite like a cheat.

 And then... THIS OPPROBRIUM! No, I'm not trying to sound intellectual - I actually had to look for the translation to opprobrium, because the first word that cane to mind after seeing this church was the italian obbrobrio and I really wanted to use it.

Today is raining, a quiet morning at the LOL hostel in Siracusa. If the rain stops I'll go to the museum and one more time to the Ortigia island, I heard there's a place that makes "the best ice-cream in the world". Hopefully on Sunday the weather turns nice - I have 50 or so km trek waiting for me.