The Innovation Gene
I am proud to lead a company that is built on innovation and great family values. I’m also interested in how innovation works, where it comes from.
Italy has been responsible for some iconic inventions over the years. Blue Jeans were not a product of the US. They were invented in the city of Genoa in the 17th century where the cloth was worn by sailors.
Newspapers can be traced back to Venice in 1556 and the government’s handwritten ‘avvisi’ news sheets. The Jacuzzi, the first whirlpool bath, was invented in 1949 by Candido Jacuzzi to help his son who had arthritis.
Guglielmo Marconi is the man behind the invention of the radio and Alessandro Volta created the first electric battery, the voltaic pile.
The first piano was built by Bartolomeo Cristofori in around 1700 and Italy was home to the first Banks, which arrived in medieval and early Renaissance Italy, the most famous being the Medici Bank founded in 1397. The oldest bank still in operation is the Monte dei Paschi di Siena which opened in 1472. And my list would not be complete without thanks to Angelo Moriondo who invented the espresso machine.
Innovation surrounds us. The UK is a world-class innovator, but intelligently thought-out and imagined advances can come from anywhere.
Today Italian innovation pushes the edge of technology, but that should come as no surprise.
Leonardo da Vinci invented the flying machine, the helicopter (aerial screw), the parachute, the armoured car, a more accurate clock, an animated robotic knight, a self-propelled cart, scuba gear and a revolving bridge. In some form, all of these inventions are in our world today. In his day, in the 1400s, most were seen as flights of fancy. He was innovating when the most advanced commonplace technologies were Ox carts.
His inventions are more at home today. Robotics are on the increase, we fly fixed-wing or in helicopters, parachutes and scuba gear are used in work, sport and leisure, armoured cars and self-propelled cars are commonplace, and we expect our clocks to be accurate.
I’m interested in where the invention ‘gene’ comes from. Leonardo da Vinci was born to an unmarried mother just outside Florence. His birth-status meant access to a good education was denied him. He didn’t let that stand in his way.
He became a master artist, a military engineer, an inventor. He painted the Mona Lisa and in the course of his search for accuracy in his anatomical recreations on canvas, he conducted more than 30 post mortems.
Painting, sculpting, studying science and exploring ideas. Pure innovation in an endless stream.
In 1482, the Duke of Milan commissioned da Vinci to build the largest horse statue in the world. da Vinci, designed a 24-foot bronze statue, and then went to work creating a clay model and cover it in bronze – 80 tons of it.
Every step of the way he was innovating to cope with the scale of the monument. Bronze had to be applied in an even thickness or the statue would be unstable. da Vinci used his experience designing canons to invent a new mould-making technique and invented an innovative oven to reach the temperature needed to heat bronze on this scale.
After solving all of the design problems and being ready to bronze, war intervened.
To hold off hostile troops, the Duke offered a bribe of Leonardo’s bronze – which the French ultimately used to make canons. The last thing Leonardo wrote about the Colossus was: «I will speak of the horse no more.»
Finally, in 1999, the horse, Colossus, was completed and given as a gift to the people of Milan, Italy.
da Vinci’s innovation didn’t come from formal education, but he learned, continually, from each position he occupied. He pushed himself and he looked for answers to questions not yet asked.
He believed in himself and he believed in continuous personal & professional development.
Before his time in so many ways.
