Attention deficit disorder and dyslexia: what the great Leonardo suffered

As you know, Leonardo da Vinci was a diversified, highly gifted person, and his talent manifested itself in a variety of fields, from music and painting to engineering. But at the same time, contemporaries noted that the great master often could not complete the project that was started and bring the brilliant idea to life, as this was prevented by the next brilliant idea. Researchers from King’s College in London carefully studied the writings of Leonardo’s contemporaries, his career and concluded that the master suffered from a very common neurological disease in our time - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

It is this circumstance, according to researchers of the genius’s biography, that led Leonardo to often not finish his grandiose projects and among his contemporaries was considered not the most conscientious performer of the works commissioned to him. In addition, the master slept very little and worked hard, devoting a lot of time to planning his future work, which can also be attributed to the symptoms of such a disease. His friends noted that Leonardo had long cherished a plan for a future project of a painting or sculptural work, planned, made sketches, but after starting work he quickly lost interest in it and was completely absorbed in a new idea.

Leonardo Da Vinci left quite a few unfinished paintings, and there is also reliable evidence that he often did not finish religious paintings in the temples that ordered him. In his youth, he often moved from one city to another, leaving unfinished frescoes and even taking a fee for the unfinished work, as happened with the order for painting the chapel in Florence.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is most often a children's diagnosis, and the disease itself disappears as a person grows older. But there are rare exceptions when such a neurological disorder persists until the end of life. Scientists believe that this is exactly what happened with Leonardo da Vinci. It is worth noting that this is not the only health feature noted by researchers of the biography of a brilliant Italian. Previously, it was possible to find out that Leonardo was an ambidexter, that is, a person who equally owns both his left and right hands. The artist painted with his left hand, but it was established that he painted his paintings with his right hand. In addition, the famous master experienced dyslexia - a violation of the letter, manifested in specific spelling errors and mirror writing, in which the letters are written in a distorted form, and such text is easier to read with a mirror. Similar violations of writing are sometimes found in modern people, but researchers at Leonardo’s biography are sure that they should not be considered a sign of mental retardation, because the great Italian, despite all his health problems, was a man of genius in many ways.