Free Leonardo Da Vinci by Kathleen Krull Page B

arrived at similar conclusions, received the credit.
    Leaving a paper trail—sharing knowledge with others—is a critical part of science. Leonardo himself wrote, “Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.” But for many reasons, he never submitted his work for judgment by the outside world.
    Still, it is hard to argue with the notion that, had the notebooks been published earlier, the history of science would have been completely different. Anyone, not just hardcore scientists, who sees pages of a Leonardo notebook is spellbound. People want to run out and do an experiment or draw something from nature. Even today, scholars studying the notebooks are unveiling more and more connections between Leonardo’s thoughts and current science. One historian called him “a man who wakes too early, while it is still dark and all around are sleeping.”
    Okay, he was a genius; this much is obvious. But does that explain Leonardo da Vinci? No. Someone so phenomenally gifted will always evade rational explanation.
    True, he was like a surfer on a huge wave—the spirit of intellectual tolerance fostered by the Renaissance, the empowering access to information supplied by the new printing presses. Yet he always remained out of step: a left-handed, illegitimate, homosexual, antiwar vegetarian with extraordinary artistic talent. His outsider status took him on paths others couldn’t even see.
    So many tantalizing questions remain. If he had lived a century later, would he have been less of an outsider, more influential as part of the scientific mainstream? Would he ever have shared? Submitted his theories for review by peers? Published his work in a scientific journal?
    In the final analysis, Leonardo can be credited not so much for specific discoveries as for a way of thinking. His devotion to scientific methods—investigating, observing, experimenting, and then forming conclusions—was revolutionary. He was open-minded, willing to toss out long-standing theories if he could disprove them.
    Most intriguing of all is the question: What would Leonardo be doing if he were alive today?

LEONARDO’S NOTEBOOKS AND WHERE THEY ARE NOW
    LEONARDO’S MANUSCRIPTS TODAY are nothing like the way they appeared and were grouped together during his lifetime. Although many pages are permanently lost, a chance still exists that priceless pages could turn up—anywhere in the world. Be on the lookout.
    Today the notebooks are divided into ten different assortments, as follows.
    CODEX ARUNDEL
    The name comes from Lord Arundel, an English collector who pounced on Leonardo’s work for King Charles I as well as for himself. In this notebook—really just an assortment of pages—Leonardo designs a complete new city for King Francis I of France. “Let us have fountains on every piazza,” he remarks. Besides architecture, these pages deal with geometry, weights, sound, and light. The pages, some 238 of them, have been sliced from other manuscripts and bound in leather. You can find them at the British Library in London. But if you go to Turning the Pages at The British Library, http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation.html#leo , you can come close to the sensation of physically turning the pages of this Leonardo notebook yourself.
    CODEX ATLANTICUS
    This notebook is the work of Pompeo Leoni, a sixteenth-century sculptor with nerve. Taking original Leonardo manuscripts from 1480 to 1518, Leoni used his own judgment in separating the scientific sketches from one, concerned with nature, anatomy, and the human figure. In this codex, made up of what he thought of as scientific materials, are some 1,119 sheets on astronomy, botany, zoology, geometry, and military engineering. Leoni titled his creation “Drawings of Machines, the Secret Arts, and Other Things by Leonardo da Vinci, collected by Pompeo Leoni.” It has since been renamed the Atlanticus, and today the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan is home to its twelve leather-bound