Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci

(b. Vinci, near Empolia, Italy, 15 April 1452; d. Amboise, France, 2 May 1519)

anatomy, technology, mechanics, mathematics, geology.

The reader may find helpful a preliminary word of explanation on the treatment being given the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The range of his knowledge was such as to recommend individual treatment of specific areas, but it is not that which is exceptional about the article that follows, for other articles in this Dictionary have been divided among several scholars specializing in appropriate disciplines. But the case of Leonardo is sui generis even in the context of the Renaissance, hospitable though its climate was to the growth of personal legends. It would be well to agree, before trying to penetrate Leonardo’s sensibility, that it is anachronistic to ask whether he was a “Scientist” and, although we may use the word “science” for convenience, it is largely irrelevant to wonder what he contributed toward its development. Strictly speaking, a thing cannot be a contribution unless it is known; and until the notebooks came to light, much was rumored but very little known of Leonardo’s work except for his surviving paintings and (perhaps) certain features of his engineering practice, together with the well-founded tradition that he was learned in anatomy.

Rather than attributing this or that “discovery” to Leonardo, the interesting matter is to learn what Leonardo knew and how he knew it. It is to fulfill that purpose that the present article was composed. The task is important because it measures the scope of an extraordinary intellect and sensibility. Beyond that, it is rewarding because the study of Leonardo enables us to estimate what could be known at that particular juncture. Indeed, the opportunity is unique in the history of science, at least in its extent, for scientists and philosophers who advance their subjects by completing and communicating their work normally obscure in the process the elements with which they began. Not so Leonardo, whose art in drawing and artlessness in writing open windows to the knowledge latent in the civilization of the Renaissance.

The editors consider that they have been fortunate in persuading Dr. Kenneth D. Keele to write an introductory section on the lineaments of Leonardo’s career together with a more detailed treatment of his studies in anatomy and physiology. Drs. Ladislao Reti, Marshall Clagett, Augusto Marinoni, and Cecil Schneer then develop in comparable detail the aspects of Leonardo’s work that pertain to technology and engineering, to the science of mechanics, to mathematics, and to geology.

Charles C. Gillispie