The inventions of Leonardo da Vinci

by Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith

Book by Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard

Genres: History, Art, Science

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith (22 March 1909 – 3 December 1981) was a British polymath historian of aeronautics and aviation.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Gavinõ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book on a whim with my Chi-chi in the library this weekend.

For many years, I have been searching for a book that expounded on the many inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci. He truly was a man hundreds of years ahead of his time and probably the most gifted polymath to ever live. Among his numerous sketches, I found his schematic of a cannon stave device and steam cannon to be the most interesting.

I also want to point out that I believe this book is especially important for the education of engineers. In the modern age, many devices are designed predicated on the addition of an electric motors or gas powered engine. However, in Leonardo ‘s day, these energy sources did not exist. This book provided a fascinating look into how engineers can circumvent the challenges of the physical world through the elements of simple machines.

[Andrew Ives · Rating 5 out of 5]

At around 100 pages, this is only really 'extended highlights' of Da Vinci's works, albeit still rather a sizeable amount. These are split by topic into 6 chapters - aeronautics, weapons of war, elements of machines, water, vehicles on land, investigations into nature and architecture. As one might expect, there are plenty of b&w illustrations and photos of Da Vinci's sketches and codex notebooks. Accompanying these, there are a good number of photographs of models, from the Museo della Scienza in Milan and IBM amongst others. As the title implies, Leonardo's artworks are entirely omitted. This book could easily be bettered, by including more drawings, a little more imaginative text, but for what it aims to be, this is still very decent, well-written, well laid out, and well worth reading by anyone interested in art, science or history. 4.5/5