Leonardo Da Vinci was considered to be a genius. He mastered art, engineering, and mathematics. Many objects in Da Vinci's archives are considered cutting edge designs during the Renaissance, and even today. There are some artisans today who believe that they can recreate one of DaVinci's strangest and most complex machines.

Historians associate Da Vinci with Italy, because it was where he was born, and where he spent most of his professional life. Italy wasn't the only place that he spent his time. He created one of his boldest creations in Amboise, France, and there, he did more than just paint.

Much of Da Vinci's work were centuries ahead of their time. He created a design for a flying machine over 500 years before the airplane was invented. He was on the right track with his designs, and the Wright brothers finished his work centuries later.

Sketches from the end of Da Vinci's life were found, and one was the design for a mechanical lion. He built a couple of versions of the lion for King Francis I of France. The prototypes were said to be incredible.

Today, Da Vinci's home at Chateau Clos Luce is a museum. The museum president, Francois Saint-Bris, has had a fascination with the lion automatons ever since he saw it. Without electricity, the lions could walk, move their heads, and their tails, which Saint-Bris found to be incredible.

In 2009, Francois had a pretty daring idea. He wondered if it would be possible for him to recreate the lion automation based on the original blueprints. Over the years, historians and art critics found this one Da Vinci code impossible to solve. The staff at the Clos Luce tracked down a genius craftsman, whose intellect could rival Da Vinci's.

The museum staff got in touch with a French artist named Renato Boaretto. He was a veteran designer, who made a name for himself by using old-fashioned technology to create incredible machines. One of his most lifelike features was a magician who can make a woman levitate to a musician capable of moving his bow across a cello. When the museum contacted him about the lion, he couldn't resist the offer. He didn't have much to work with since only fragments of the original blueprints were available. It would be up to him to fill in the blanks.

Over the years, Renato had sculpted many detailed faces, which made the task of making the lion lifelike wouldn't be too difficult. He was a bit worried about the design of the machine; however. He knew that based on the dimensions of the real-life lion, he would need to be at least 130-pounds. He also had to make sure that there was enough space inside to keep the delicate gears and pulleys from getting crushed. Also, the blueprints for the mechanics that would make the lion walk were gone forever. This meant that Renato would need to use designs from his own past inventions to make the lion walk.

It took Renato many months to bring the lion together and make his art and engineering appear lifelike. To get the large automaton to move, the mechanics would be powered by a simple key. This was the way Di Vinci was said to have done it, so Renato wanted to do it the same way. He says that the only way to truly replicate what Di Vinci had in mind for the lion, he had to do things exactly the same way. On the day of the demonstration, he prayed that the key would work and the lion would begin moving. With one turn of the key, he would find out if his automation would be a success or a colossal failure. After all of those months of work, he prayed for success.

When Renato turned the key, the lion walked. He could walk about ten steps at a time, without the need for additional power or a track. Da Vinci's lion robot hides a special surprise that was all Renato's idea. He wanted the lion to replicate Da Vinci's as much as possible but wanted to add his own signature also. At the end of the lion's walk, a compartment in his side opened that held a bouquet of lilies, which is the national flower of France. Everyone at the museum was thrilled by what Renato pulled off, and they were also impressed. They hoped that the lion was going to work the way that it may have when Di Vinci first created the blueprints. Now, the museum has Di Vinci's lion on display, which is pretty amazing.
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