Leo's resume

Yesterday: Leo DiCaprio. Today: Leonardo Da Vinci.

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

So, nearly 550 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 unfolding to you my secrets, and thereafter offering them at your complete disposal, and when the time is right bringing into effective operation all those things which are in part briefly listed below:

OK, da Vinci was apparently a master of the run-on sentence, among his other talents. But from there, he laid out specific things he thought he could offer Sforza if he were retained:

1. “Plans for very light, strong and easily portable bridges…”

2. A way “in the course of the siege of a terrain, to remove water from the moats…”

3. “Methods for destroying every fortress or other stranglehold unless it has been founded upon a rock or so forth…”

4. “Types of cannon, most convenient and easily portable, with which to hurl small stones almost like a hail-storm…”

5. “Means of arriving at a designated spot through mines and secret winding passages constructed completely without noise…”

6. A way to “make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable, which will penetrate the enemy and their artillery…”

7. “[S]hould the need arise, I will make cannon, mortar and light ordnance of very beautiful and functional design…”

8. “Where the use of cannon is impracticable, I will assemble catapults, mangonels, trebuckets and other instruments of wonderful efficiency not in general use.”

9. “[S]hould a sea battle be occasioned, I have examples of many instruments which are highly suitable either in attack or defense…”

10. “In time of peace I believe I can give as complete satisfaction as any other in the field of architecture, and the construction of both public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another.”

We think of da Vinci as an artist and painter — but that’s not what Sforza was looking for at the time. So da Vinci tailored his resume and talked almost exclusively about how his talents could be applied to military engineering.

I say “almost exclusively,” because he did wind up the letter asserting, as an afterthought, his ability to “execute sculpture in marble, bronze and clay. Likewise in painting, I can do everything possible as well as any other, whosoever he may be.”

Anyway, there’s a happy ending. Da Vinci worked for Sforza for years, and the Milanese duke also became a great patron of his art. In fact, it was Sforza who commissioned The Last Supper.

I came across da Vinci’s letter a few years ago, from Shaun Usher’s great book and blog, Letters of Note.

And, I filed it away, both inspirationally and infuriatingly, as a reminder that great people are often distracted from pursuing their greatness because they need to put food on the table.

Random examples include Winston Churchill, Ulysses S. Grant, actor Geoffrey Owens from The Cosby Show who went viral a few years ago when customers at a Trader Joe’s spotted him working there, and tried to humiliate him with a video.

Plus, it’s a good resume: specific, employer-centered and tailored, clear and direct, brief enough once we get past the verbose beginning.

Obviously they didn’t have resume keyword scanners in the 15th century, but if they had I think da Vinci’s resume would have made the cut at “Sforza Enterprises LLC.”

Oh, and while I don’t anticipate ever having any practical use for this knowledge, I have to admit: I’m now very curious about how to remove water from moats.

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Other things:

• French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations that include spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning. (AP)

• Homeland Security is targeting American citizens with a secretive legal weapon: In October, a 67-year-old retiree sent a polite email to a DHS attorney to urge mercy for an asylum seeker he’d read about in a news article. Then DHS subpoenaed his Google account with an administrative subpoena and sent investigators to his home. (The Washington Post)

• I wish I’d seen this in person: A federal judge in Minnesota hauled government attorneys to his courtroom to find out why ICE is failing to comply with court orders to swiftly release wrongly detained immigrants, and asked why he shouldn’t be holding officials in contempt for their “alarming” failures. One government lawyer’s response? “I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep,” said attorney Julie Le. “The system sucks, this job sucks, I am trying with every breath I have to get you what I need.” (The Independent)

• ICE plans to acquire a 1-million-square-foot former Amazon warehouse to use as a detention facility for 9,500 people. It’s part of a plan to build seven facilities to warehouse 80,000 ICE detainees. “We need to get better at treating this like a business, like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings,” the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, said of his agency’s detention process last year. (D Magazine, The Washington Post)

• U.S. Manufacturing Is in Retreat and Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t Helping: Levies on imports were supposed to bring back a golden age of U.S. manufacturing. They haven’t worked, so far. (The Wall Street Journal)

• President Trump said that he’s “not ripping down” the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts but insisted it needs to shut down for about two years for construction. The comments follow a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president took over leadership of the arts institution. (AP)

• Wildlife officials say a “lizard in a blizzard” has been rescued after a man discovered the large cold-blooded reptile buried in snow in Rhode Island, somehow surviving the frigid temperatures. “He is now resting comfortably and finally warm, which makes all the difference!” a wildlife center said in a social media post. “We will be rooting for a good outcome and will share updates as we have them.” (AP)

Thanks for reading. Art by Leonardo Da Vinci. Today’s was a low power mode edition; if you recognized it, I love you. See you in the comments.