The real genius of Leonardo

Unique edition of the Codex Atlanticus - Codice Atlantico

The son of a landowner and a peasant, Leonardo received training in painting, sculpture, and mechanical arts as an apprentice to Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1482, having made a name for himself in Florence, he entered the service of the duke of Milan as “painter and engineer.” In Milan his artistic and creative genius unfolded. About 1490 he began his project of writing treatises on the “science of painting,” architecture, mechanics, and anatomy. His theories were based on the belief that the painter, with his powers of perception and ability to pictorialize his observations, was uniquely qualified to probe nature’s secrets.

The Codex Atlanticus is the largest collection of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, compiled at the end of the 16th century by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who pulled apart many original notebooks.

In its actual form, it consists of 1119 sheets, and is currently preserved in Milan’s Ambrosiana Library. The contents of the Codex date from 1478 to 1519 and cover a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry to musical instruments and from mathematics to botany.

Amo-as, diligo-is > per amare. Audio-as > per odire. Transcribing these simple conjugations, the middle-aged Leonardo da Vinci struggled to learn Latin, aspiring to read classical treatises on optics and mechanics. At the time, he was also trying to master algebra, and to improve his employment prospects by studying a book of letter-writing tips.

While admirable, these efforts hardly fit Leonardo’s other-worldly reputation, most memorably expressed by the Renaissance biographer Georgio Vasari 31 years after Leonardo’s death in 1519. “He has been specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not attained his pre-eminence by human teaching or the power of man,” let alone – Vasari declined to mention – by self-administered grammar lessons.

The Leonardo we usually find in museum exhibitions reinforces Vasari’s portrayal, and who can really complain? The master’s sublime paintings are rightly famous, as are his visionary drawings of weapons and flying machines. Yet one might argue that despite this, Leonardo is underrated, and that his various pieces fail to do his genius justice when seen in isolation.

Now an extraordinary five-year series of exhibitions at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan remedies this, providing an expansive new perspective.  As three Benedictine nuns work to dismantle the codex, dozens of scholars are taking turns at curating exhibitions loosely organised around subjects such as “Weapons and machines of war”, “The sun and the moon” and “Leonardo’s library, times and friends”.

Currently on view are Leonardo’s “Machines for architecture and for the territory”, including numerous hydraulic studies, sketches of quays and bridges, and his design for a three-speed winch to erect Filippo Brunelleschi’s soaring domes. Ultimately, by 2015, all 1119 pages of the codex will have been shown – most of them for the first time ever.

One special feature that makes Leonardo’s notes and sketches unusual is his use of mirror writing. Leonardo was left-handed, so mirror writing came easily and naturally to him—although it is uncertain why he chose to do so. While somewhat unusual, his script can be read clearly with the help of a mirror and should not be looked on as a secret handwriting. But the fact that Leonardo used mirror writing throughout the notebooks, even in his copies drawn up with painstaking calligraphy, forces one to conclude that, although he constantly addressed an imaginary reader in his writings, he never felt the need to achieve easy communication by using conventional handwriting. His writings must be interpreted as preliminary stages of works destined for eventual publication that Leonardo never got around to completing. In a sentence in the margin of one of his late anatomy sketches, he implores his followers to see that his works are printed.

Another unusual feature in Leonardo’s writings is the relationship between word and picture in the notebooks. Leonardo strove passionately for a language that was clear yet expressive. The vividness and wealth of his vocabulary were the result of intense independent study and represented a significant contribution to the evolution of scientific prose in the Italian vernacular. Despite his articulateness, Leonardo gave absolute precedence to the illustration over the written word in his teaching method. Hence, in his notebooks, the drawing does not illustrate the text; rather, the text serves to explain the picture. In formulating his own principle of graphic representations—which he called dimostrazione (“demonstrations”)—Leonardo’s work was a precursor of modern scientific illustration.

Although he made strenuous efforts to become erudite in languages, natural science, mathematics, philosophy, and history, Leonardo remained an empiricist of visual observation. It is precisely through this observation—and his own genius—that he developed a unique “theory of knowledge” in which art and science form a synthesis. The crux of the matter is his intellectual force—self-contained and inherent in every one of his creations—a force that continues to spark scholarly interest today.

Posted by Andrew
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