Da Vinci Gardens
Last week Curtis send me this note:
Hi!
Jace and I found a great sim that I want to
share with our friends.
Okay, to begin with, this is a sim called
Da Vinci Gardens. Lots to see here. But what I specifically wanted to share with
you is the Seahorse Tour of Atlantis.
It's just amazing.
You can ride one seahorse if you're alone,
or ride as couples. It's more fun with two, of course.
Turn your AO off, and then jump on the
seahorses. It's about a 15 minute ride.
And you can stay on the seahorses even when you get back to the starting
point. We rode them 3 times. And each time the camera angle is just slightly
different. I suggest turning the music
on, but that's optional. I enjoyed the
music.
Curtis
the Land Mark
Da Vinci Gardens is not a new place but I
never bin there. So Tim and I went there
yesterday.
Enjoy SL in this region full of diversity -
but with one main style: A mixture of romance, mysticism and adventure. Enjoy!
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May
2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian
Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist,
mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer,
botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure,
epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as
the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable
curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely
considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most
diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen
Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and
"his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself
mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci states that while there is much
speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical
rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual
for his time.
We landed near the seahorses and took the
tour.
Among the works created by Leonardo in the
16th century is the small portrait known as the Mona Lisa or "la
Gioconda", the laughing one. In the present era it is arguably the most
famous painting in the world. Its fame rests, in particular, on the elusive
smile on the woman's face, its mysterious quality brought about perhaps by the
fact that the artist has subtly shadowed the corners of the mouth and eyes so
that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. The shadowy quality
for which the work is renowned came to be called "sfumato" or
Leonardo's smoke. Vasari, who is generally thought to have known the painting
only by repute, said that "the smile was so pleasing that it seemed divine
rather than human; and those who saw it were amazed to find that it was as alive
as the original".
We just did one ride. We clicked the vase that
lies near the seahorses and went up to the surface area.
Journals and
notes
Renaissance
humanism recognized no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and
the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are as impressive
and innovative as his artistic work. These studies were recorded in 13,000
pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the
forerunner of modern science), made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's
life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him.
Leonardo's
writings are mostly in mirror-image cursive. The reason may have been more a
practical expediency than for reasons of secrecy as is often suggested. Since
Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it is probable that it was easier for him to
write from right to left.
His notes and
drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as
mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as
intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are
compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces
and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations,
whirlpools, war machines, helicopters and architecture.
Leonardo Da Vinci
has been credited with designing the first Helicopter in 1493. It was all
theory, and never actually built, but it was still way ahead of its time. It
was based on what may have been a childs toy, known up to 100 years before this
design.
With its slightly
strange spiral single wing - it somewhat resembles an Archimedean screw
designed for the air. It was designed to be made with reed, and covered with
taffeta (a kind of rough cloth made from scraps and rags) - these materials
were to ensure it was a fairly light and resilient design. The central screw
was intended to be 13 feet (thats just over 2 meters) in diameter.
Leonardo's
Helicopter would have been powered by four men on a capstan, pushing bars
around the central shaft - turning the spiral.
From his own
notes: "A small model can be made of paper with a spring like metal shaft
that after having been released, after having been twisted, causes the screw to
spin up into the air."
At Da Vinci Garden Leonardo's copter has a steam engine. Our second tour.
After this great
tour over the sim, we went to the Egypten part with the pyramide. Maybe you
know Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indiana Jones braves
an ancient Peruvian temple filled with booby traps to retrieve a golden idol.
Remember that when you enter the pyrimide to find the tombe of the farao.
Tim and I had a
great time. Da Vinci garden is more than worth to explore and to undergo.
Great made, lots
of details, spooky, riddles and sometimes even funny.
There is much
more to see, so we sure will return to explore other parts of Da Vinci Gardens.
One day I made the decision that the two cities had to become ONE and that I had to remove the old city and make a new one. There is second reason why I wanted to rebuild the city. I will tell you that in the next post.
