Leonardo Da Vinci

Any product of the creative mind of Professor McMurrich is certain to be valuable and interesting. His profound scholarship and his happy faculty of presenting the most recondite material in intriguing and interesting ways is invariably worthwhile and stimulating. Faced with the problem of evaluating the position of Leonardo da Vinci in the science of Anatomv, he has spent ten years in what must have been extremely difficult, as well as delightful, research. Referring constantly to the original sources, Professor McMurrich has given us a thoroughly docuinented and scholarly appraisal of one who, though by profession an artist, was a pioneer in science The history of the development of ideas is one of the most facinating of studies. It belongs at the heart of every science and should be part of the background of every true scientist. All too seldom do we find accurate and interesting expositions of growth through ideas. In the present volume, Professor McMurrich has given us a dynamic picture of one of the great minds of history. That Leonardo was preeminent as an artist has beern usually conceded; that he was at the same time one of the great scientific minds is inescapable after reading this account. The evidence for such a conclusion is presented with an acumen and a logical sequence which, combined with the erudite documentation, compels us to a true evaluation of Leonardo da Vinci. Born in I452, Leonardo rode the crest of an advancing tide of vivified intellectual activity. Apprenticed by his father to Verrocchio in 1470, he early demonstrated his genius, and gained much from his contact with his master, for the latter believed strongly in the study of surface miusculatures as a foundation for drawings of the figure. It can, therefore, be safely assumed that at an early stage Leonardo began the study of Anatomy, not for its own sake but for what it might teach him for his drawings. One of the foundation-stones of Leonardo's ability lay in his abiding curiosity. He sought in the objects of his environment, the solution of his artistic problems. In this he was continuing a revival initiated by Giotto in the field of art. But in the field of Anatomy he was a pioneer. His interest in this, at first but a means to an end, became eventually a liking for the thing itself. This was so strong that everywhere there is evidence …