Leonardo da Vinci : The First Scientist

Leonardo's scientific ideas take priority in this fascinating book but his life as an artist is also discussed. As White points out, even his art was infused with his understanding of science. "His last and greatest paintings were paeans to his paired skills as an artist and a scientist, celebrations of his twinned talents." --Alex Gray

Reader Reviews:

Renaissance man or nearly man? (1/1 people found this helpful)

The take-home message of this book can be summed up as follows: Leonardo was an orgy of contradictions -- a pacifist who designed machines of war but was troubled by the thought that his technology might be used by man for destructive ends; a man who sneered at second-hand knowledge but devoured books; a misanthrope who by all accounts was far from being a hermit and who worshipped the human form; a scatterbrain with a short attention span who could look at a painting for hours without lifting his brush -- the nearly man of the Renaissance who almost, but not quite, discovered many things. Or is that harsh? Is it in fact the author who almost, but not quite, discovered many things about Leonardo? A lot is inferred from Leonardo's "latrine fillers" comment. (It's mentioned a few times in the book.) But can we really judge a man from a few scribbled references to how horrible people are? Perhaps he was having a bad day?

The truth is that most of the conclusions drawn in this book rely most heavily on Leonardo's few words about his own feelings. How much do we know about the character and motives of contemporary public figures? Our Prime Minister, for example. We have millions of words about, and photographs of, him and I'm none the wiser. What if we extracted two-dozen sentences from his diary and maybe another dozen from one of his chum's and tried to write a biography from that? The point is that Da Vinci was a great painter, but that he was just a human being. He was as nice and as awful as everyone else. Was he a scientist? Depends on your definition. I think it's the wrong question to ask. The question we should be asking is: "That hat? What possessed you?"

I enjoyed reading it.

Da Vinci was a bit like the Mona Lisa. (3/3 people found this helpful)

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 art gives views ahead of his time, on distance, perspective, light and shade. That in itself would have made the man worthy of praise. He also continued to study, to both aid his art, and for scientific discovery. The fact that he was a bridge between the old and the new is another facet of the enigma that is Leonardo.

Worst read in quite some time (6/11 people found this helpful)

This book is definitely in the running for the "Worst Book Ever" nomination. It neither stands up as biography nor as good science writing. The author frequently reverts to supposition and conjecture where there is little or non-existent documentary evidence. Speculation and over-active imagination seemed to have played a major role in compiling the material for this book, rather than documented and reported fact or use of reliable sources. Extensive use of a thesaurus doesn't compensate for what a good editor should have chopped down to a short essay, preferrably for circulation only amongst Mr.Whites closest acquaintances.
An otherwise nice day at the beach ruined!!!

Highly engaging portrait of the ultimate Renaissance Man (10/10 people found this helpful)

I was never particularly interested in Leonardo da Vinci before reading this book. But within a few pages of starting it I was completely hooked. Michael White has the rare skill of making history come alive, and his portrayal of Leonardo and the major figures of the time really is engrossing. I find some of the other Amazon reviews alarmingly misleading. If you're an academic researcher looking to split hairs, you will of course succeed - but the ordinary reader will find this book provides a vivid and captivating story not only of Leonardo, but of the times in which he lived.

For Mr Everybody (4/9 people found this helpful)

This book is written to appeal to the broadest possible spectrum. It has no real academic authority, and includes very basic errors, White stating at one point that there was no such word as science in Rennaisance Italy, and two pages later offering up a quote from Leonardo that contains the word! He is also fond of starting sentences with words such as "Naturally..." whereas in any serious academic study there is no 'naturally', Whites assumptions should be backed up by fact, not couched in language designed to comfort the reader's preconceptions. The only real utility of such a work is to offer the 'who, what, where, and whens of Leondardos life. The rest reads like a film by James Ivory.

Leonardo da Vinci : The First Scientist

Michael White

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