The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra

Capra, Fritjof. The Science of Leonardo. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

In the preface to this book, Capra discusses how in each era the Leonardo da Vinci has been reinvented and he will be reinventing the sage, too. Capra presents Leonardo as the first modern scientist. In this book is a picture of a Leonardo who not only anticipated the methods of the modern science established in the 18th century, but the mindset of 21st century science.

Before dealing directly with Leonardo’s scientific studies, Capra provides a short biography of his subject and an introduction to some of the artist’s works. While Leonardo’s science was ahead of it’s time in many ways, it was also shaped by the science of the Renaissance and the rediscovery of ancient texts that occurred. It also was in interplay with his art, his art inspiring his interest in the natural world and his observations informing his art.


Capra presents two major ways in which Leonardo’s science contrasted with his contemporaries and is comparable to modern science. First, Leonardo used a process of observing, hypothesizing and experimenting that is essentially the same as used by modern science. At the time, studying natural philosophy, or science, meant studying the ancient philosophers and scientists. Leonardo tested theory against experience and reformulated theories accordingly.

Leonardo also had a systematic and ecological worldview that is in keeping with emerging science. In some ways, this put him in the camp of his contemporaries, where and organic view of the world was more prevalent than the mechanical view that would dominate later science. However, combined with this more rigorous methods, he developed an understanding of how things in our world are interconnected that surpassed many of his contemporaries.

In this was, Capra thinks Leonardo could serve as a model for modern scientists. The power of science could be applied to understanding the organic, interconnected systems of a living world of which we are a part instead of approaching the world as a machine to be operated.

Though Leonardo was ahead of his time in some ways, he had almost no impact on science, especially in comparison to his influence on art. He never published his papers and his immediate successor made little headway in organizing them for publication. Within a couple of generations, they fell into indifferent hands that allowed them to be spread across Europe and much of them lost.