'I can do everything'

Leonardo da Vinci's resume, the unemployment rate, and 7 other things worth your time.

He was a brilliant artist and inventor, and he was looking for work.

So, 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci pulled together his resume.

Maybe I’m oversimplifying. I don’t think there was such a thing as a resume then, but sometime between 1482 and 1484, when he was in his early 30s, da Vinci wrote a one-page letter that served as a job application.

The position he sought was to work in the court of Ludovico Sforza, who was the (rather ruthless) ruler of Milan at the time, and who was looking not for an artist but a military engineer. Here’s how da Vinci’s letter started:

My Most Illustrious Lord,

Having now sufficiently seen and considered the achievements of all those who count themselves masters and artificers of instruments of war, and having noted that the invention and performance of the said instruments is in no way different from that in common usage, I shall endeavour, while intending no discredit to anyone else, to make myself understood to Your Excellency for the purpose of unfol…