The curious Leonardo had come to the right man. In Verrochio’s workshop, where so many crafts were learned at the same time, his powers of observation were able to develop; his hunger to know about mathematics was fed. In Verrochio, Leonardo found a teacher who would encourage these investigations and urge him to study a wide variety of subjects. Leonardo now felt his lack of a fuller education. He started to borrow mathematics textbooks and to seek out men who could teach him what he needed to know. After each day’s work was over, Leonardo would continue on into the night, catching up on his neglected studies and discovering for himself new areas of thought such as anatomy, movement and weight, botany, and another subject which was to occupy much of his later years—_hydraulics_, or the useful application of water power.
In these early years, Leonardo commenced his famous _Notes_. He had developed his own “secret” writing in his childhood at Vinci. These notes—consisting of observations, proportions, and reminders to himself—were inscribed on his drawings. They were, however, unreadable to the eye—until held up to a mirror. Leonardo was lefthanded and could write fluently in this strange manner. It could have been for many reasons that he did so—perhaps from a natural desire for secrecy, perhaps for reasons of safety from possible enemies. In those days, plots and counterplots of all sorts were commonplace—a rumor or a whisper in the right ear could destroy a reputation or financially ruin a career.
Leonardo was popular in Florence. He traveled with the young men of the town, and his handsome appearance and enormous strength (he could bend a horseshoe in his hands) made him a welcome figure in many houses. He continued to play the lute and the lyre. He wrote poetry, composed his own music, and sang with a pleasing voice. His blue eyes were kind and his manner gentle. He always avoided arguments and competition when he could. When he walked through the marketplace and came upon the caged birds, he would buy them—just to set them free. Indeed, his love of animals had become so great that he no longer ate meat.
During these years in Verrochio’s service, Leonardo grew in stature as an artist and rapidly developed into a scientist of promise. He amazed his master when he painted an angel in an altarpiece that had been assigned to Verrochio. He painted it in the new oil colors recently acquired from the Flemish painters. So astounded was Verrochio with its grace that the master vowed he would never lift a brush again if a “mere child” could so surpass him. In this picture there is a tuft of grass beside a kneeling figure, also painted by Leonardo, which indicates by its careful attention to detail the amount of research he did before committing it to canvas. In other paintings he made beautiful drawings of a lily and studies of animals and crabs, giving a hint of what was to come. For, in these preparatory works, Leonardo could not be satisfied until he had thoroughly studied the characteristics of plants and animals in general. Later in life, he was to become more and more absorbed in these researches until they occupied the greater part of his time.