(Thanks, C. :)

Again, we only know-about (as opposed to straightforwardly 'know') events of the past by virtue of history stories handed to us by someone else.

Did DaVinci "plagiarize"? Did Bach? Did Shakespeare? Or is it just that (a) some problems have common solutions, ones that may be thought of independently by more than one person; and (b) we're always standing on the shoulders of those who came before. Did Bach plagiarise the 12-tone scale? :)

Wikipedia says, about George Harrison:

Later in the 1970s, "My Sweet Lord" was at the centre of a heavily publicised copyright infringement suit due to its similarity to the Ronnie Mack song "He's So Fine", a 1963 hit for the New York girl group the Chiffons. In 1976, Harrison was found to have subconsciously plagiarised the song, a verdict that had repercussions throughout the music industry. He claimed to have used the out-of-copyright "Oh Happy Day", a Christian hymn, as his inspiration for the melody.

"Subonsciously plagiarised" - preposterous idea, really, or at the least, a very slippery slope. :) "My Sweet Lord" certainly resembles both "He's So Fine" and "Oh Happy Day" musically, but it's clearly not the same song overall.

Whether DaVinci 'borrowed' heavily from the Chinese is not particularly important. He, and those he may have borrowed from, are all dead, now. Can we not allow him credit for contemplating and in some cases refining all those ideas, illustrating them beautifully and accurately, and bringing those illustrations together, so that they could be effectively communicated to others?

Reader C. writes and sends us:

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Re: (very cool :) 5-min video: 'Leonardo da Vi....

Menzies is a fan of Da Vinci. He writes:

In my youth, Leonardo da Vinci seemed the greatest genius of all time: an extraordinary inventor of every sort of machine, a magnificent sculptor, one of the world’s greatest painters and the finest illustrator and draughtsman who ever lived. Then, as my knowledge of Chinese inventions slowly expanded, more and more of Leonardo’s inventions appear to have been invented previously by the Chinese. I began to question whether there might be a connection – did Leonardo learn from the Chinese?

Leonardo drew all the essential components of machines with extraordinary clarity – showing how toothed wheels, gear wheels and pinions were used in mills, lifting machines and machine tools. All these devices had been used in China for a very long time. In the Tso Chuan are illustrations of bronze ratchets and gear wheels from as early as 200 BC which have been discovered in China.

.............
Comparisons of the machines of Leonard with earlier machines from China reveal close similarities in toothed wheels and gear wheels, ratchets, pins and axles, cams and cam-shaped rocking levers, flywheels, crankshaft systems, balls and chains, spoke wheels, well pulleys, chain devices, suspension bridges, segmented arch bridges, contour maps, parachutes, hot air balloons, “helicopters,” multi-barrelled machine guns, demountable cannons, armoured cars, catapults, barrage cannon and bombards, paddle wheel boats, swing bridges, printing presses, odometers, compasses and dividers, canals and locks.

Even the most devoted supporter of Leonardo (like my family and I!) must surely wonder whether his work’s amazing similarity to Chinese engineering could be the product of coincidence.

......
Menzies draws a multi-generational link between Leonardo and the Chinese:
My research revealed that Leonardo had owned a copy of di Giorgio’s treatise on civil and military machines. In the treatise, di Giorgio had illustrated and described a range of astonishing machines, many of which Leonardo subsequently reproduced in three-dimensional drawings. The illustrations were not limited to canals, locks and pumps; they included parachutes, submersibles tanks and machine guns as well as hundreds of other machines with civil and military applications.

This was quite a shock. It seemed Leonardo was more illustrator than inventor and that the greater genius may have resided in di Giorgio. Was di Giorgio the original inventor of these fantastic machines? Or did he, in turn, copy them from another?

https://burners.me/2015/11/01/the-truth-about-da-vinci/

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