Dusk was beginning to gather in the valley at the foot of Monte Albano as young Leonardo turned toward home. Stopping by a rushing stream to wash the dust of the day’s explorations from his face, he laid aside his cap and his leather pouch and plunged his hands into the cold mountain water. He felt the force of the current and watched the whirl and flow of bubbles around his bare arms. There was the same feeling, he thought, to the flow of air he had experienced blowing around the rocky crags of the mountains.

This evening, however, there was no time to sit awhile and think. He was in a hurry to get home. Hastily scooping the water in his cupped palms, he splashed it over his head and face, then shaking the water from his hair he rose and picked up his cap. He took a satisfied look in his pouch, slung it over his shoulder and headed down the stony trail to the village of Vinci.

Vinci was a small hill town situated on a spur of Monte Albano. Its castle and the bell tower above the houses seemed like sentinels guarding the slopes of vineyards and olive groves spreading down into the valley.

Leonardo da Vinci, which means “Leonardo from the town of Vinci,” thought about his home. He knew that he had been born in Anchiano, near Vinci, on April 15 of the year 1452, to a peasant girl named Caterina. At the age of five, he had been sent for by his natural father, Piero da Vinci, to come and live at his family’s house in Vinci, a comfortable and roomy place with a spacious garden. Piero, five years before, had married Albiera di Giovanni Amadori, a girl of sixteen. They had had no children of their own, and Leonardo was welcomed into the home with affection by his young stepmother.

When Leonardo was about eleven, young Albiera died, leaving a darkened and saddened house. Two years later his father married another girl by the name of Francesca Lanfredini. Although laughter and song soon replaced the grief, Leonardo never forgot the love of his first stepmother.

Also in the house lived Antonio, his grandfather, who was eighty-five, his grandmother, his uncle Allessandro Amadori and family, and, best of all, his uncle Francesco. The da Vincis, who could trace their beginnings in the town back to the thirteenth century, had always been respected lawyers and landowners. Because Uncle Francesco was neither a lawyer nor a great landowner, the people of the town said he did nothing; but he tended the family vineyards, and, to the delight of Leonardo, he raised his own silkworms.

As Leonardo entered the main gate, he noticed that the oil lamps were being lit above the stalls of the marketplace, and the lively confusion of the last hours of business was in full swing. People nodded and smiled to him, for as a boy of fifteen he was already a striking figure. He was tall with long, auburn hair falling to his shoulders and his face was so charming that it was frequently compared to those of the angels painted in the chapels of the church. The music of his lute, the sound of his voice, and the gentleness of his person were such that all hearts and doors were open to him.

Tonight, however, Leonardo avoided the usual invitations to stop and chat. His father would be back from Florence; he had been going there more and more frequently as his fame as a lawyer grew. Now Leonardo was thinking that he had almost finished the assignment his father, half jokingly, had given him many weeks ago—so many weeks ago that he was sure his father had forgotten about it. At that time a peasant, whose skill in providing fish and game for the table of Piero’s big household was greatly appreciated, had asked a favor of him. This man had a round, wooden shield cut from a fig tree and he had asked Piero to have a design painted on it for him in Florence. Piero, who had noticed the sketches his son was making of plants, rock formations, and scenes in his wanderings about the countryside, decided to test his son’s ability and gave the shield to the boy. In the secrecy of his room, into which no one was allowed, Leonardo had smoothed and prepared the wood, and on it he was painting a monster.

Scrambling over rocks, through streams, and into caves, Leonardo had been in the habit of gathering all manner of creeping and crawling life. Patiently he would bring these home in his leather pouch and carefully study and draw them. Maggots, bats, butterflies, locusts, and snakes added to the confusion of the boy’s already cluttered room. Everywhere he went he collected the things that aroused his curiosity; and as a result, his room was always filled with rocks, dried plants, flowers, the skeletons of small animals—and his pages of notations and drawings. Now Leonardo had combined the features of these small forms of life to make a monster—emerging from a dark grotto and breathing fire and smoke—a thing more terrifying than if done from imagination, for each feature was a duplicate of a reality in nature.

Unobserved, Leonardo reached the privacy of his room and emptied this day’s collection on a table beside the shield. He lit a candle and examined his catch—a lizard and a large grasshopper. These would complete his picture; and, the most extraordinary find of the day—a fossil seashell found high on the slopes of a mountain! How did it get there? Was it a result of the flood about which his religion had taught him? Had an immense wave deposited this ancient sea-life high on the Albano mountains? Looking more closely he saw that it was a type of sea-snail and in almost perfect preservation. This he would have to think about and examine later.

Now, however, the picture must be completed, for he hoped to surprise his father in the morning. But just then, Leonardo heard the family stirring below and his father calling him to dinner. Reluctantly he left his table, made himself presentable and went downstairs.

“Ah, Leonardo,” his father said when he appeared in the family dining room. “I saw Benedetto dell’Abbaco on the way in town and he tells me you haven’t been to school as often as you should—is that true?”

“Yes, Papa—but I’m not doing badly.”

“Signor Benedetto might agree, at least in your mathematics. He tells me you ask him questions that often make him stop and think. But Leonardo, you have other subjects—Latin, reading, and writing—as well as arithmetic. You mustn’t neglect the others, my boy. But come—let us eat.”

Together they sat down with the rest of the family—a large, prosperous, and happy gathering. When dinner was over Leonardo made hurried excuses to all the family, protesting that he was too tired to sing, and escaped back into his room. For a long time he worked, unaware that the house was growing quieter. Finally he laid down his brushes and his maul stick, pushed his chair back and smiled a triumphant smile. The shield was finished. Tomorrow he would ask his father in to look at it.

Conscious now that everybody had gone to bed, Leonardo blew out his candle and opened the shutters. The night sky was a panoply of stars and only here and there was the dark loneliness of the valley relieved by pinpoints of light. Leonardo leaned his head against the window frame and stared at the blue infinity above him. What exactly were the stars? Did all of them move around the earth? What was the haze that obscured the horizon ever so faintly? What was that sea-snail doing in the mountains? Why? How?

The next morning Leonardo found his father and Uncle Francesco in the garden deep in conversation about their vineyards and olive groves.

“Papa, I have a surprise for you up in my room—can you come now?”

“Yes, Leonardo. What is it you have found now—not a better way to raise my grapes, I’ll wager!”

The elder da Vinci put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and went with him up to the door of his room.

“Wait here, Papa, until I say to come in.”

Leonardo unlocked his door, lifted the cloth from the shield standing on the easel and opened the shutter just a trifle so that a soft light filled the room.

“Papa—you can come in now.”

Piero entered—he had long forgotten the round piece of wood—and suddenly he froze in the middle of the room.

“Have mercy on me!” he said when he saw the horrible fire-breathing creature. In the dimness of the room, the monster and the murky cave from which it was emerging were terribly real. Piero actually started to back out of the room in fright, when Leonardo laid a hand on his shoulder.