th data and drawings, and the visual intensity that was always his starting point reveal his other scientific interests: firearms, the action of water, the flight of birds (leading to designs for human flight), the growth of plants, and geology. Leonardo's interests were not universal: theology, history, and literature moved him little. All his interests had in common a concern with the processes of action, movement, pressure, and growth; it has been rightly said that his drawings of the human body are less anatomical than physiological.In 1513 Leonardo went to Rome, where he remained until 1516. He was much honored, but he was relatively inactive and remarkably aloof from its rich social and artistic life. He continued to fill his notebooks with scientific entries. The French king, Francis I, invited Leonardo to his court at Fontainebleau, gave him the titles of painter, architect, and mechanic to the king, and provided him with a country house at Cloux. Leonardo was revered for his knowledge and influence on younger artists more than for any work he produced in France. He died on May 2, 1519, at Cloux. ...
