Plague of Strength

The greatest figures of the Renaissance would also be the greatest figures in your gym if they were alive today, because that is how humans are supposed to roll.  Both Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), two of the greatest intellectual and artistic figures in the history of humankind (but perhaps the two biggest in the Renaissance), were jacked, some-time strongmen, and incredible athletes, and their love of physical fitness was shared throughout all of the elite of Italy at the time (which later spread to France and England). If you’re unaware, Battista is considered to be the ultimate Renaissance man, mostly known for basically creating Renaissance style architecture himself, but also for being a mathematician, linguist, cartographer, cryptographer, legal scholar, humorist, and educator, while Leonardo is considered to be one of the greatest inventors in history, one of the two greatest painters in history and one of the most diverse intellectual greats in the history of homo sapiens.

Da Vinci (who seems to be referred to as Leonardo only in the art and TMNT worlds) was the strongman of the two, while Alberti was more of an athlete, but they were both built more or less like Georges St. Pierre.   Da Vinci stood 5’9″ and was apparently better looking than most of his models, but he was no fitness model- he used to amuse people by straightening iron horseshoes at random, and

“in his youth Leonardo could grasp iron door knockers in his large, man-sized hands and crush them with little to no apparent exertion on his part and was known to be earn extra money by challenging local tough guys to see who could throw a large rock the furthest.

Even as an older man, Leonardo retained much of the strength he had in his prime and would amuse himself by challenging visitors to attempt to lift large weights scattered around his workshop or by handing them a piece of iron and asking them to try and bend it. When the visitor invariably failed to do the latter, Leonardo would take the iron bar and mould it like soft clay into a decorative shape or simply tie it into a knot. When they failed to do the former, Leonardo would lift the weight with one hand and lightly place it onto a table” (Fact Fiend).

Leon Battista was more about training to fight, although he did it simply to stay in shape rather than to be the toughest, most tactical motherfucker in his local Wal-Mart.  He was known to have recommended it to everyone around him, not for the martial skill, but simple because it was the best form of exercise in his mind.  “In all training no end may be preferred to that of physical soundness,” he believed, and advocated “Games which require dexterity, endurance, strength, qualities of eye and nerve, such as fencing…” as a result. Battista was said to be able to tame and ride even the wildest horses, and could jump over a full grown man.

How’d they do it?

Battista and other 15th century humanists jocked the ancients hard as hell, so they constantly wrote about the the value of strength and conditioning.  In the main, they practiced lifting and throwing large stones, wrestling, and hard-as-fuck sparring with swords.  In addition to the traditional sports (running, jumping, lifting, and throwing), they did work with heavy rods that resembled clubbells, medicine balls exercises, gymnastics (including early pommel horse work for mounting and dismounting a horse in battle), and general fight training.

If you’re wondering how a person could train in armor and spend their remaining time throwing boulders without ending up looking more like Hercules than Apollo, it was by design. They might not have had the waist-trimming benefits of the endless cardio in CrossFit to keep them lean, but they did have social norms to keep in mind- in other words, they rocked the bodies that would pull the most ass rather than the one that allowed them to eat the most Ring-Dings.

“Curiously, despite the famous bulky size of 16th century armors such as those of Henry VIII, writing of the gentlemen in 16th century France, one historian of the Renaissance noted: ‘Even when he was in the best of health and in full armor, the gentleman of the Renaissance was not a very large man. The ideal of the Renaissance, descended from antiquity through the Italians, was that it was preferable for a man to be moderate in size. Men that were too big were likely to be clumsy and lacking in grace. On the other hand, a man should not be so small as to be unimpressive. For a gentleman to be completely acceptable as to physique, he should strike a golden mean of size…A gentleman’s prime claim to handsomeness is in the harmony and balance of his figure. If he does not have this, perfection of individual details like the eyes, teeth, nose, or lack of bodily odors will not make him attractive.’  Within Western culture this corresponded to the Greek ideal of the optimal man proportioned with broad shoulders and a narrow waist accompanied by long and strong limbs–the natural athlete” (ARMA).  

Neither of them were known to jerk their dicks to Spartans, probably because Leonardo could snap their bones with his bare hands and Battista could have beaten them down without breaking a sweat- Leonardo in particular bucked the tough guy image hard and wore bright colors and long hair.  So maybe in your efforts to get jacked this spring be a lot more Renaissance and a lot less Elite FTS- join me in reading a book between sets, or throw on an educational podcast during your warmup sets.  Worst case scenario, you learn something, and best case you might magically gain the ability to straighten horseshoes at random.  

Sources:

Alberti Wiki: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Battista_Alberti

Arma: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Battista_Alberti

Fact Fiend: http://www.factfiend.com/leonardo-da-vinci-could-kick-your-ass/

Leonardo Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

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