Fritjof Capra

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Acknowledgments

Photographic Acknowledgments

Preface

Figure P-1: Leonardo’s Self-Portrait, c. 1512, Biblioteca Reale, Turin

Introduction: An Interpreter of Nature

PART ONE
LEONARDO, THE MAN

ONE
Infinite Grace

TWO
The Universal Man

THREE
The Florentine

FOUR
A Well-Employed Life

PART TWO
LEONARDO, THE SCIENTIST

FIVE
Science in the Renaissance

SIX
Science Born of Experience

SEVEN
Geometry Done with Motion

EIGHT
Pyramids of Light

NINE
The Eye, the Senses, and the Soul

EPILOGUE:
“Read me, O reader, if in my words you find delight”

Appendix: Leonardo’s Geometry of Transformations

Notes

Leonardo’s Notebooks: Facsimiles and Transcriptions

Bibliography

Also by Fritjof Capra

Copyright

To Elizabeth and Juliette

First I shall do some experiments before I proceed farther, because my intention is to cite experience first and then with reasoning show why such experience is bound to operate in such a way. And this is the true rule by which those who speculate about the effects of nature must proceed.

—LEONARDO DA VINCI, C.
1513

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I began my research for this book, I entered a field that was completely foreign to me, and I am grateful to many friends and colleagues for helping me orient myself in the world of Leonardo scholarship.

I am especially grateful

to my wife, Elizabeth Hawk, for helping me identify the leading contemporary scholars, research institutions, and special libraries;

to Claire Farago for clarifying many basic questions about Leonardo’s language and about the scholarly editions of his Notebooks, and especially for introducing me to the Elmer Belt Library at the University of California, Los Angeles;

to Carlo Pedretti for valuable conversations and correspondence about the history and dating of Leonardo’s drawings and texts;

to Domenico Laurenza for his encouragement and support, for illuminating discussions and correspondence about various aspects of Leonardo’s science, and for valuable help in translating certain passages from the original manuscripts;

to Linda Warren, Head Librarian of the Elmer Belt Library, and to Monica Taddei, Head Librarian of the Biblioteca Leonardiana in Vinci, for giving me unrestricted access to their collections of the complete facsimile editions of Leonardo’s manuscripts, and for their generous help with bibliographical research;

to Eduardo Kickhöfel for valuable research assistance at the Biblioteca Leonardiana, and for many interesting discussions of Leonardo’s science;

to Franco Bulletti at Giunti Editore in Florence for a fascinating discussion of the production process of their facsimile editions of Leonardo’s manuscripts;

to Clara Vitulo, curator at the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, for arranging a special viewing of Leonardo’s self-portrait, the Codex on the Flight of Birds, and other original drawings in the library’s collection;

to Rowan Watson, Head of Documentary Materials at the Victoria and Albert Museum, for showing me the Codices Forster in the collection of the National Art Library, and for an interesting discussion of their history;

and to Françoise Viatte, Director of the Department of Graphic Arts at the Louvre, for her encouragement and for helpful discussions and correspondence about Leonardo’s works in the Louvre’s collection.

During my research and writing, I discussed various areas of contemporary science and technology and their relevance to Leonardo’s work with colleagues and friends. I am especially indebted

to Pier Luigi Luisi for inspiring conversations during the very early stages of the project, and for his warm hospitality in Zurich and Rome;

to Ugo Piomelli for numerous enlightening discussions of Leonardo’s fluid dynamics;

to Ann Pizzorusso for informative correspondence about the history of geology;

to Brian Goodwin for illuminating discussions of morphogenesis in botany;

to Ralph Abraham for a critical reading of the chapter on Leonardo’s mathematics;

to George Lakoff for many inspiring conversations about contemporary cognitive science;

and to Magdalena Corvin, Amory Lovins, and Oscar Motomura for stimulating discussions on the nature of design.

I am also very grateful to Satish Kumar for giving me the opportunity to teach a course on Leonardo’s Science of Quality at Schumacher College in England during the spring of 2006, and to the participants in the course for many critical questions and helpful suggestions.

I wish to thank my literary agents, John Brockman and Katinka Matson, for their encouragement and valuable advice.

I am deeply grateful to my brother, Bernt Capra, for reading the entire manuscript and for his enthusiastic support and numerous helpful suggestions. I am also very grateful to Ernest Callenbach, Amelia Barili, and to my daughter, Juliette Capra, for reading portions of the manuscript and offering many critical comments.

I am indebted to my assistant, Trena Cleland, for her careful and sensitive editing of the first draft of the manuscript, and for keeping my home office on an even keel while I was concentrating on my writing.

I am grateful to my editor Roger Scholl at Doubleday for his support and advice, and for his superb editing of the text.

Last but not least, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my wife, Elizabeth, for countless discussions on Renaissance art, for helping me select the book’s illustrations, and for her patience and enthusiastic support during many months of strenuous work.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Royal Collection © 2007, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Figs. I-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-1, 4-1, 4-2, 4-5, 5-1, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, 7-2, 7-3, 7-7, 8-2, 9-1, 9-4, E-1)

Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris, France (Figs. 2-5, 6-6, 6-7, 7-1, 7-4, 8-5, 8-6, 8-7, 9-2)

Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY, Louvre, Paris, France (Figs. 1-2, 2-4, 4-3)

Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano (Figs. 2-3, 8-1, 8-3)

Biblioteca Reale, Torino, with permission from Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali (Figs. P-1, 4-4, E-2)

Laboratorio Fotográfico, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid (Figs. 6-5
left
, 7-6)

Polo Museale Fiorentino (Figs. 1-1, 3-2)

V& A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Fig. 7-5)

The British Library Board (Fig. 8-4)

Klassik Stiftung Weimar (Fig. 9-3)

Archivio Fotografico IMSS Firenze, Fotografia de Eurofoto (Fig. 6-5
right
)

Archivio Fotografico IMSS Firenze, Fotografia di Simon Hazelgrove (Fig. 6-8)

Museo d’Arte Antica, Castello Sforzesco, Milano (Fig. 2-6)