A Cinquecento Event: lecture by Leslie Geddes - Expert in Italian Renaissance, Baroque Art and Architecture.

Abstract:

Professor Leslie Geddes' paper, Leonardo\'s Diversions, investigates the ways Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) thought about experiments, chiefly those concerning water. That is, it interrogates how he strove to expose some aspect of nature that would otherwise be difficult to perceive or study. Leonardo boiled water, placed obstacles in watercourses, and documented transient natural phenomena. Better to discern river currents, he records employing tactics such as tossing sticks into streams. The experiments Leonardo poses are written, suggesting the ease of verbal articulation for these procedures, while at the same time he adamantly foregrounds the role of vision. These passages reveal how he addressed challenges pertaining to the limits of vision and consequently how one renders what one sees and knows.