errantember

While Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, is well known as a genius and perhaps the most significant artist of the Renaissance, less is known about his science and design. The Science of Leonardo: Inside the Mind of the Great Genius of the Renaissance takes us on a grand tour of his life and work, revealing the seamless integration of art, science, engineering, and reverence for nature that made up his worldview.

Although very public about his artistic technique, da Vinci was far more secretive about his science, and when the thousands of his notebooks he left to a close friend were scattered to the wind by a relative, those secrets were trapped in dusty libraries across the globe while the world moved on. Only now, with painstaking research, do we discover that he was the first to develop the modern scientific method, the pre-cursors of calculus, enormous advances in the geometrical and physical science of sight, and designs for flying machines that work when executed with modern materials, all hundreds of years ahead of those to whom these feats are historically attributed. Most amazingly, the synthesis of his work across the boundaries of multiple disciplines, and the observations of the interconnectedness of disparate subjects reflects a Systems Theory that we are only beginning to grasp ourselves at the forefront of today's science. Inside are his life's history from several different perspectives, including his important relationships, patrons, environs, and well-supported suppositions about his state of mind and interests as he journeyed through his amazing life. If Leonardo da Vinci isn't the first person you'd visit with your time machine, he will be after you've finished this amazing book.