>>Dr. Kerry Magruder: Thank you for joining
me in the History of Science Collections of
the University of Oklahoma Libraries. Let's
look at a few treasures from the vault that
throw light on the story of science and art
in the Renaissance.
As the printing revolution was transforming
every field of science, Leonardo da Vinci
published no books. Even though Leonardo's
notebooks remained unprinted, in manuscript
form only, you may read them in this comprehensive
12-volume, full-color facsimile series, published
by Trec.
Despite a lack of publications, Leonardo's
fame grew as word of his notebooks spread.
The first work by Leonardo to be printed was
this Treatise on Painting, published in 1651,
a century after his death. This work conveys
Leonardo's views on mathematical proportion
and the human body, the physiology of vision,
and plant physiology.
And here is the second edition. Given Leonardo's
understanding of art as an intellectual endeavor
carried out in imitation of nature, it is
impossible to separate his art theory from
his understanding of science.
Yet Leonardo did publish something during
his lifetime, with a little help from a friend.
This work by Luca Pacioli, The Divine Proportion,
printed in 1519, contains the only material
of Leonardo's printed during his own lifetime.
Pacioli, a friend of Leonardo's, explains
that Leonardo provided the geometrical figures
reproduced in the book. Pacioli was a teacher
of a teacher of Copernicus. This treatise
applies geometry to principles of beauty and
artistic composition, including typefaces
and perspective drawing.
This is The Institutes of Geometry by Albrecht
Dürer. As another landmark work on perspective
drawing, a generation or so before Galileo,
this book is similar in its scope to the slightly
earlier book by Pacioli. In this diagram,
we see the making of a drawing of a lute with
true perspective by means of a string drawn
from the object, through the canvas, to the
vanishing point on the wall.
This beautiful work by Sirigatti, published
in 1596 when Galileo was a young man, brings
the tradition of perspective drawing represented
by Pacioli, Leonardo and Dürer up to Galileo's
time. Galileo studied this treatise by Sirigatti,
and the principles of perspective drawing
shaped his approach to science.
The work contains 64 full-page copperplate
engravings, applying the principles of perspective
to architecture and drawing. The geometrical
diagrams in Sirigatti's work are shaded beautifully,
a celebrated example of chiaroscuro, the Renaissance
technique of depicting light and shadow.
Historians are persuaded that Galileo's training
in the visual arts played a critical foundation
in his astronomical discoveries and in the
development of the new physics.
Science is a story. What stories do you want
to hear and tell about science and Renaissance
art?
