Leonardo da Vinci is known first and foremost as painter. His work includes the most famous portrait of all time, the Mona Lisa. Da Vinci was also a scientist and an inventor. More of his time was spent studying science than painting. Years after his death, it became known
that he had made important discoveries in many fields including anatomy, engineering and technology. His discoveries were found in notebooks that contain more than 13,000
pages of drawings, notes and observations.

It seems that da Vinci had planned to publish a great book of knowledge but this never happened. Instead after his death, his notebooks were scattered and can now be found in the museum collections. Although these books were very hard to read with their mirror image writing, incomplete notes, and strange spellings, the many drawings in the books prove that da Vinci had ideas for many advancements that would not have even been possible in during his
lifetime. This ideas included a helicopter, tank and solar power among others.

Below are a few of the sketches for various inventions that were found in his notebooks.