Mario Taddei

It's a pretty simple thesis. Take all the writings and drawings that you can find of machines that can be attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and make models of them to see if they will work. The diagrams and pictures are, quite simply, fantastic. The authors/artists have done an incredible job of translating Leonardo's ...sometimes rather sketchy drawings into real working models ....or at least 3D drawings.
A few things struck me. One was the incredible imagination and incredible drawing ability of Leonardo. (I was already aware of the fact that Leonardo drew very heavily on the work of engineers designers who were contemporary with him or lived slightly before him. (See "The innovators behind Leonardo " by Plinio Innocenzi...another great book). So not all his designs are totally original. Maybe most of them are adaptations of others. But Leonardo certainly excelled in his drafting abilities. he seemed incapable of doing a crude drawing...even where he clearly copied other works he couldn't help turning the copy (of a crude set of water wings for example) into a modest work of art.
The other thing that struck me was that virtually none of these inventions were actually made into real world objects....Leonardo was a designer not a producer. (I think some of his critics suggested that he never finshed anything. Well not quite true...he did complete a number of paintings and murals..."the last supper" for example). And many of his inventions lacked a decent power supply. he had to rely on men working treadmills or working hand cranks etc., or horses or oxen walking around in circles to provide the motive force for many of his inventions. He would have been in heaven with a gasoline engine or electric motor!
Fair to say, I really enjoyed the book. Happy to give it 5 stars...the diagrams/pictures, alone, are worth that.… (mais)