Leonardo in Vinci
Leonardo’s interest in hydraulics most likely began when he was very young, in Vinci, where numerous mills harnessed the water power of the streams that still flow down from the Montalbano towards the valley today.
Leonardo devoted much of his thinking to mechanics and the study of the basic components of machines, analyzing their principles and operating criteria. In his drawings, individual machine elements such as the screw, the toothed or pinion wheel, the spool, the pulley, and springs combine to create mechanisms and tools capable of performing more or less complex operations.
His study of movement and its transmission led Leonardo to conceive pulley systems for lifting heavy loads, mechanisms for motion transformation, and methods to eliminate or reduce friction.