Uplifting New Da Vinci Invention Design Found

By Miles Vandichout

June 10, 2010

FLORENCE, ITALY—A new invention design by Leonardo da Vinci was recently discovered hidden amongst the over 13,000 pages of his journal. The design was found during using a chemical preservation treatment pioneered at the University of San Giovanni in Florence, Italy. The treatment disclosed drawings of a complex machine as well as words written in Da Vinci’s trademark mirror-image cursive. The main text of the drawing states, “Per i miei critici, al fine di renderle il più vicino possibile a Dio.” (“For my critics, to bring them as close as possible to God.”)

The drawing depicts an intricate, approximately 12-foot frame built to bear great weight, with a single crank attached to eight individual pulley systems, each rigged with cables and self-closing hooks—cousins to the modern ropework carabiner. The hooks are portrayed as attaching to the back flap of an individual’s pants or underpants. Dr. Alfonso D. Monteverdi, Da Vinci expert and dean of San Giovanni’s College of Da Vinci Studies, interprets the invention to have one clear use: to cause simultaneous discomfort to eight Da Vinci critics by “lifting them off the floor and lodging their underpants or other clothing between their buttocks with the simple turn of a crank.” Monteverdi suggests that “only Da Vinci could have been capable of administering so many wedgies at once. He is truly a genius. Our genius!”

Da Vinci detractors have challenged the drawing’s authenticity and the validity of Monteverdi’s interpretation, citing the fact that, as Bulbi Vicentiezo stated, “Leonardo was immature, but this is beyond even ‘the Master’ himself.” Monteverdi responded that “It looks like [Vicentiezo] wants to be off the hook, as it were.”