Leonardo: The First Scientist

by Michael White

Book Overview

Argues that the great renaissance man was in fact the first great modern man of science.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312203330
• ISBN13: 9780312203337
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Da Vinci was a bit like the Mona Lisa.

It is appropriate that Leonardo da Vinci painted the woman with the mysterious smile, the Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting of all time. For just as there are many questions surrounding the subject matter, and why she is smiling (or is she), and whether her eyes follow you around the room, there are also many unknowns surrounding the artist. He is an enigma himself, so THAT is why he painted the Mona Lisa. Michael White gives a broad picture of the artist, and how he broke new ground, both within art, and also is his investigations. Da Vinci also managed to bridge science and art. He was able to see science from the perspective of an artist, to visualise art with the mindset of a scientist, and capture architecture from the viewpoint of the artist-scientist. White postulates that da Vinci was the first scientist. However, we have to remember that the 21st century of a `scientist' is very different to that in 15th century Florence, or Milan. There was still the scope for individuals to engage in an all-embracing approach, so the body of knowledge was sufficiently small as to be able to be grasped. Furthermore, this was so for about 250 years after da Vinci's time. Da Vinci was a very talented man, and it is tempting to question what he might have achieved if he had been more focussed. He tended to flit from one thing to another, leaving many incomplete projects, and ever two or three books-in-the-writing, not finished, or indeed, hardly started. White does bring out the breadth of the tasks that the Italian tackled, correctly giving emphasis to some achievements not generally known. However, whereever you look, there is the enigma that is da Vinci. He is a peculiar mix of old and new, showing in his studies of eyes that he was far ahead of his time. Da Vinci goes some of the way towards the notion of blood circulating, but not quite making the impossible leap that William Harvey was to make over 200 years later. What White does is show that da Vinci was one of the first to systematically investigate, to move from the cognitive to the experimental scientist. Da Vinci left a huge collection of notes, drawings and "scribblings", and these were firstly lost for over 200 years, and then dissipated into private collections and archives. It is always possible to show tenuous links with hindsight. Maybe there is some over eagerness on White's part, but da Vinci was a marvellous man. Geology, rain, water and clouds, anatomy, fortifications and machinery of war, canals, and the list goes on. He was forward looking, and many have claimed that da Vinci invented helicopters, and other diverse items of machinery. Yet he was steeped in the Aristotelian view of the four elements; earth, air, fire and water. He also did not spend large amounts of time investigating cosmology, as many of his age did. Da Vinci had feet of clay, yet a very freethinking mind. He used science to aid him, to help him as an artist. His only published work, a book on ar

Leonardo: The First Scientist

I find this book very aweinspiring. It reveals the unpublished works of this great artist, engineer and scientist.

A good book about an incredible mind.

I liked this book - it is well written and easy to read - but I do have a few complaints. Frankly, I can't see how the author concludes that Leonardo was homosexual based on the lack of nude females (and the abundance of nude males) found in his existing notebooks. We know that many of Leonardo's notebooks are missing or incomplete, so it's quite likely that many of the female nudes were simply ripped out (remember: these notebooks got passed around quite a bit back in the days before photography and Playboy centerfolds). Furthermore, it is hard for me to believe that the man who painted the Mona Lisa and other women with such loving care did not spend a lot of time studying the female body. So I really doubt that the absence of evidence here should be construed as evidence of absence. Besides, who really cares? My other gripe centers around the author's attempt to prove that Leonardo was the first "real" scientist. I'm not sure why such a classification is so important (unless of course the author felt he needed a new "angle" of some kind for writing about Leonardo). After all, when viewing the totality of a person's life, it's hard to say when someone can be considered a "real" scientist 100%. For example, I would venture that there are thousands of biologists who attend church on a regular basis, but I doubt we would dismiss their scientific sincerity simply because they partake in something as totally unscientific as religious ritual, chanting, school vouchers, rattling beads, etc. But don't get me wrong. Despite my complaints I still enjoyed this book and felt well rewarded for my efforts, gaining a deeper look into the mind of this old master, scientist or no.

A Great Work about A Great Man

Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the reasons we have so many of the scientific, medical, and artistic principles that we use every day. Though I have always enjoyed Da Vinci's work as an artist, I have only known briefly of his accomplishments as a person who kept pushing the boundaries of what makes our world and our human physiology work. This book only highlights his vision as a artist, but allows the reader who might be an artist to better understand the role that human anatomy played in his work. White is an excellent writer, making this very complex and fascinating man come to life for a new century.