The Science of Leonardo

August 20, 2007
Capra, author of the classic The Tao of Physics
, makes the case in this fascinating intellectual biography for the great artist Leonardo being the unsung “father of modern science.” Drawing on approximately 6,000 pages and 100,000 drawings surviving from Leonardo's scattered notebooks, Capra explores the groundbreaking research of this quintessential Renaissance man. Illegitimate, born in a Tuscan village in 1452, Leonardo did not receive a classical education, a fact that, Capra notes, later freed him from the intellectual conventions of his time and allowed him to develop his own holistic, empirical approach to science. Apprenticed with Verrocchio in Florence around the age of 15, Leonardo became an independent artist when he was 25, but his intellectual appetites demanded more. He taught himself Latin and began the famous notebooks, a record of his artistic and scientific explorations. The recurring patterns he saw in nature led him to create what Capra calls a science of “wholeness,” of “movement and transformation.” Capra expresses his own intellectual kinship with Leonardo's “multidisciplinary perspective” on science, one that “recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all natural phenomena”—a view he sees as particularly relevant today. Illus.

September 1, 2007
Capra, since his first book, "Tao of Physics" (1975), has argued against the reductive approach to scientific inquiry that has been prevalent in experimental science since the scientific revolution of the 16th century. He continues that discussion in his biography of Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist. Drawing from secondary sources, anecdotal material, and Leonardo's notebooks, Capra describes a Renaissance man who integrated traits that we view as peculiar to a scientific mind with the sensitivity and skill of a great artist. With few ties to accepted schools of scientific thought (he did not read Latin), Leonardo exemplifies for Capra what science needs today, an "integrative, systemic thinker." Capra asserts that new areas of inquiry, such as deep ecology, that employ pattern recognition within complex systems rather than reductive approaches are following in Leonardo's footsteps on a path that embraces the full array of intellectual and spiritual effort. A theoretical physicist who transitioned to popular science writing, Capra has an engaging style and a thorough understanding of the science behind Leonardo's inventions and thinking. Recommended for public and academic libraries. (Index not seen.)Sara Rutter, Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa Lib., Honolulu

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2007
Leonardos place in art history is secure, but his placein science history is less so, which Capra aims to rectify. Part of the problem, he observes, is the loss of half of Leonardos writings, and another is that Galileo and Newton have overwhelmed Leonardos reputation for originating the scientific method. Accordingly, Capra considers Leonardos surviving writings and drawings against the intellectual attitudes toward nature that prevailed in his times. Aristotelian notions dominated but passed over Leonardo in his youth, perhaps, as Capra implies, because he read neither Greek nor Latin. As Capra outlines in his biographical section, Leonardo observed nature directly, and his precocious drafting ability and his fathers connections gained him entr'e to the Florence of the Medici and, subsequently, to other centers of Renaissance ferment in Italy.In Leonardos studies of anatomy, optics, mechanics, and fluids, Capra detects precursors of the scientific spirit, to whichhis generous supply of Leonardos illustrations willinduct readers interested in this iconic personality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)