Following in the fingerprints of Leonardo

Confession: I often eat at my computer. (That could be part of the reason I have to buy a new laptop every year, but never mind that right now.) My favorite breakfast-at-the-computer is a pot of Earl Gray tea accompanied by two pieces of crunchy, crumbly whole-grain toast slathered with sticky orange marmalade. That's what I had this morning, and that's why I had to wet my finger and clean a tiny orange blob off my Backspace key just a little while ago.

Before shock and disgust compel you to close this window, please allow me to share what I learned today at MSNBC. It seems scientists have pieced together a print of Leonardo da Vinci's left index finger from a couple of hundred partials photographed on documents the artist is known to have handled. And one of the things that has already come to light is the fact that Leonardo often ate on the job.

I can't tell you how it amuses me to imagine him chowing down on a ham sandwich and slurping coffee while drawing the Vitruvian Man.

I have some more work to do now, but I'm thinking about slicing an apple and cutting a few small squares of cheddar to bring back here to my desk. This propensity to eat while working (yes, I can type one-handed) may be the only thing I'll ever have in common with Leonardo, but at least it's something.


Technorati Tags: Leonardo+da+Vinci, fingerprints