As the standout example of the “Renaissance Man” ideal, Leonardo da Vinci racked up no small number of accomplishments in his life. He also had his eccentricities, and tried his hand at a number of experiments that might look a bit odd even to his admirers today. In the case of one practice he eventually mastered and with which he stuck, he tried his hand in a more literal sense than usual: Leonardo, the evidence clearly shows, had a habit of writing backwards, starting at the right side of the page and moving to the left.
“Only when he was writing something intended for other people did he write in the normal direction,” says the Museum of Science. Why did he write backwards? That remains one of the host of so far unanswerable questions about Leonardo’s remarkable life, but “one idea is that it may have kept his hands clean. People who were contemporaries of Leonardo left records that they saw him write and paint left handed. He also made sketches showing his own left hand at work. As a lefty, this mirrored writing style would have prevented him from smudging his ink as he wrote.”
Or Leonardo could have developed his “mirror writing” out of fear, a hypothesis acknowledged even by books for young readers: “Throughout his life, he was worried about the possibility of others stealing his ideas,” writes Rachel A. Koestler-Grack in Leonardo Da Vinci: Artist, Inventor, and Renaissance Man. “The observations in his notebooks were written in such a way that they could be read only by holding the books up to a mirror.” The blog Walker’s Chapters makes a representative counterargument: “Do you really think that a man as clever as Leonardo thought it was a good way to prevent people from reading his notes? This man, this genius, if he truly wanted to make his notes readable only to himself, he would’ve invented an entirely new language for this purpose. We’re talking about a dude who conceptualized parachutes even before helicopters were a thing.”
Perhaps the most widely seen piece of Leonardo’s mirror writing is his notes on Vitruvian Man (a piece of which appears at the top of the post), his enormously famous drawing that fits the proportions of the human body into the geometry of both a circle and a square (and whose elegant mathematics we featured last week). Many examples of mirror writing exist after Leonardo, from his countryman Matteo Zaccolini’s 17th-century treatise on color to the 18th- and 19th-century calligraphy of the Ottoman Empire to the front of ambulances today. Each of those has its function, but one wonders whether as curious a mind as Leonardo’s would want to write backwards simply for the joy of mastering and using a skill, any skill, however much it might baffle others — or indeed, because it might baffle them.
If you’re interested in all things da Vinci, make sure you check out the new bestselling biography, Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson.
Related Content:
Download the Sublime Anatomy Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci: Available Online, or in a Great iPad App
Leonardo da Vinci’s Bizarre Caricatures & Monster Drawings
Leonardo da Vinci’s Visionary Notebooks Now Online: Browse 570 Digitized Pages
Leonardo da Vinci’s Handwritten Resume (1482)
Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (Circa 1490) Is Much Cooler Than Yours
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
Why, after making a donation do I still get these annoying black screens asking for donations?
I may have an answer to the question of Da Vinci “backward” writing. I happen to be ambidextrous, and when very young, I would write frontward for a while with my right hand and when that hand got tired I would write with my left, often backward. Of course, teachers and others smacked my hands often enough for me to realize that it would be far better and less painful just to write with the right hand and always in the left-to-right direction.
I can still do this, although the left hand out neglect and lack of use is not used to writing and has not continued to develop the fine muscle skills that the right hand has so does not do well with paper and pencil any longer — but given a chalk board and chalk, I can still do both hands alone or simultaneously — both hands left to right or right to left, or two hands going in opposite direction.
I’m sooooo cold
Being a backward writer (and leftie!) myself, I do it just because it delights me. 😁
Most Likely wrote backward to keep it private.
Non of the above are true!
I have always been ambidextrous, a mirror writer and can write upside down. It is not learned. It is automatic. I have always been able to do this starting as a young child. I can write backwards so fast it boggles people. I also add backwards in my head and come up with the answers before other people do. The way the Chinese add. You are born that way. It’s just always been there. It’s not learned. My husband who is ex military said people in the military were trained to write backwards on plexiglass for command and control situations. They don’t need that anymore but my husband said that they would not have had to train me.
I’m sure that all might seem normal 4 u … and am glad that u are able to perform these tasks with such ease.
I myself perform well doing things differently so can identify … as a species we have learned how to improve on our tactics.
However,
The answer hasn’t got anything to do with being able to perform these tasks…
Am i the only one who knows ???
Neight_Artistism
I think he was left-handed because there is a lot of info that he is left-handed.
I think he wrote this Way, because he was a Lefthander. I also started writing “backwards”, before i came to School. For me it was correct, didn’t saw my ” Mistake”.
I was Blessed with this talent around 2017, not sure where this ability to write backwards with my right hand cr from, but it is a style of scripture in my own font.. It’s usually the same style when I write forward verses backwards.. It’s not written for others to understand my thoughts and feelings because it’s personal and unique to me, but it becomes … a special abstract form of artistry.
Your ability to write in this way is amazing.
Well done..
are you left handed or right ?
Well done!
are you left handed or right ?