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Leonardo da Vinci : The First Scientist (Paperback)

by Michael White (Author) "If you follow a route west from the Tuscan city of Florence, you pass through a conurbation that stretches some ninety kilometres to the coast..." (more)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 370 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; illustrated edition edition (4 Jan 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0349112746
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349112749
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 122,199 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Though the Mona Lisa may be Leonardo da Vinci's most famous piece of work, some of his other projects have had a far greater impact on the way we live today. It's the scientific inventions that Michael White, who has also written biographies of Darwin, Einstein and Newton, wants to make sure that we don't forget. Leonardo, after all, invented the telescope, flying machine, tank and diving suit among other things.

The word scientist wasn't coined until the 19th century but White makes the assertion that Leonardo was not just a gatherer of random conjectures but the world's first scientist. He asserts that the methods used by Leonardo were as important as the discoveries. In describing an experiment for observing the refraction of light, he concluded: "And form your rule from that." This mirrors the scientific method: "Have your idea, do your experiment, create a hypothesis, develop a rule, repeat the experiment to verify; if not confirmed, then adjust experiment and hypothesis."

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'White's level-headed assessments of the scientific content of Leonardo's surviving works are characteristically clear and easy to follow . . . [White] sifts fact from opinion in the works of his predecessors, and conveys his own enthusiasm and admiration for his subject' LISA JARDINE in the LITERARY REVIEW 'A lively and often informative book' MIRANDA SEYMOUR in the SUNDAY TIMES
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If you follow a route west from the Tuscan city of Florence, you pass through a conurbation that stretches some ninety kilometres to the coast and Pisa. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly engaging portrait of the ultimate Renaissance Man, 27 Aug 2002
By DR DAVID N MICHIE (Perth, WA Australia) - See all my reviews
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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Da Vinci was a bit like the Mona Lisa., 28 Feb 2006
By Mr P R Morgan "Peter Morgan" (BATH, Bath and N E Somerset United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Renaissance man or nearly man?, 22 Aug 2007
By possiblejersey (Wales) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst read in quite some time
This book is definitely in the running for the "Worst Book Ever" nomination. It neither stands up as biography nor as good science writing. Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2005

2.0 out of 5 stars For Mr Everybody
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... Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2002

3.0 out of 5 stars Little scientific detail, but a good biography
As someone who is more used to reading technical/scientific texts and user manuals this book was quite heavy going, not least because White has a habit of demonstrating his... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2000

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