Abstract
When I set myself to the task of writing a historical introductory chapter to my second book, Robot Evolution, in the early 1990s, I had learned about Leonardo’s Robot Knight from Carlo Pedretti’s magnificent Leonardo Architect.1 I had seen the book in a book store, but it was in Italian and very expensive. Later I found a copy of it used and in English. After digesting it I leapt at the opportunity to delve into Leonardo’s Robot Knight, which was described near the end of the book. Taking a leap of faith that enough material had survived to reconstruct the robot, I made my way to the University of Minnesota’s Rare Books Collection on the top floor of Wilson Library. There, an elderly librarian, tasked with wheeling up from the stacks the twelve elephant folios of the Codex Atlanticus, nearly collapsed his cart beneath the volumes, which weighed several hundred pounds. From this awkward beginning I traced the faint fragments one by one, perhaps even discovering an overlapping figure that had been overlooked by Pedretti, and was able to make a road map of the design and publish the fragments. My book, Robot Evolution, which contained the Leonardo material, was well underway but not yet published by the winter of 1994.
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References
Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo Architect. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, 1985.
Carlo Pedretti, “Un angelo di Leonardo giovane,” in the Sunday Cultural Supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore, April 19, 1998, no. 106, p. 21.
Antonio de Beatis (1905) Die Reise des Kardinals Luigi d’ Aragona durch Deutschland, die Niederlande, Frankreich und Oberitalien, 1517–1518. In: Pastor, Ludwig (ed) Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen zu Janssens Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, vol. 4. Herder, Freiburg.
Kate Steinitz, Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, Los Angeles, Ward Ritchie Press, 1948, p. 12.
BBC, “Tomorow’s World.” August 12, 1998, producer: Lucy Dudman.
Cf. C. P., “Leonardo’s Robot,” in Achademia Leonardi Vinci, X, 1997, pp. 273–274, quoting Vasari, III. 375, as first noted by Simona Cremante, who suggests a relation with Leonardo’s later project for a bell ringer (Windsor, RL 12716 and 12688): “È anco di mano del medesimo [Verrocchio] il putto dell’ oriuolo di Mercato Nuovo, che ha le braccia schiodate in modo che, alzandole, suona l’ore con un martello che tiene in mano: il che fu tenuto in que’ tempi cosa molto bella e capricciosa.”
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giorgio Vasari. Edited and Annotated in the Light of Recent Discoveries by E.H. and E.W. Blashfield and A. A. Hopkins. Vol. II. Charles Scribner’s and Sons, New York, 1986, p. 377–379.
Vasari, Lives, IV. 46.
Attic Nights, X. 12, viii.
Leonardo da Vinci: The Madrid Codices, vol. 3. Commentary p. 106, McGraw Hill, New York.
Appian, Roman History: The Civil Wars, Book II 147, p. 499. New York, Macmillan Co.
Vitruvius, De Architectura. F. XXIII verso, Bronx: Blom, 1968.
Erwin Panofsky, The Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci’s Art Theory, London, The Warburg Institute, 1940.
Mark E. Rosheim, Robot Wrist Actuators, New York, Wiley, 1989. Dust Jacket illustration and p. 248–249.
The best account of Borelli’s work, in particular his innovative studies on the flight of birds, is still the one in Giuseppe Boffito, Il Volo in Italia, Florence, 1921, pp. 137–142 (with full bibliography). For a comparable account, see Galileo Venturini, S. J., Da Icaro a Mongolfier, Rome, Parte Prima, 1928, pp. 243–245, which concludes with a reference to Leonardo: “Nella pare che riguarda il volo, chi volesse fare un accurato confronto, troverebbe le stesse lines maestre, tracciate da Leonardo da Vinci: con questa differenza pero’, che mentre Leonardo ci da’ (ne’ poteva essere altrimenti) un ingegnoso trattatello, dove non se sa se piu’ ammirare la intuizione o la succosa brevita’ del poderoso autodidatta, il Borelli, che ha potuto far tesoro delle osservazioni sagaci di tanti predecessori, e che in quella materia se sente appieno in casa sua, ci presenta un completo trattato scientifico.” See also the preface to Paul Maquet’s English edition of Borelli’s De motu animalium (On the Movement of Animals), Berlin, 1989, pp. v–ix. Borelli was one of Galileo’s most prominent followers, not only as a member of the celebrated Accademia dell Cimento in Florence and as a friend and a colleague of Evangelista Torricelli, but above all as a pupil of Benedetto Castelli, whose treatise Della misura dell’acque correnti (1628) was at one time believed to have been based in part on Leonardo’s writings on the subject. Cf. Filippo Arredi, “Intorno al trattato ‘Della misura dell’ acque correnti’ di Benedetto Castelli”, in Annali dei Lavori Pubblici, 1933, fasc. 2, pp. 1–24, and L’idraulica di Galileo e della sua scuola, Rome, 1942, in particular p. 16. Borelli’s writings on hydraulics are included in the Raccolta d’autori italiani che trattano del moto delle acque, Bologna, 1822, vol. III, pp. 289–336. One of his treatises, a report on the Pisa and Livorno swamps (“Stagno di Pisa”), is yet to be examined in connection with Leonardo’s previous studies on the subject. Cf. Siro Taviani, Il moto umano in Lionardo da Vinci, Florence, 1942, pp. I–LXIV, in particular p. VI for the reference to Leonardo as having recognized before Borelli the general physiological laws of the muscular system.
V. P. Zubov, Leonardo da Vinci, Cambridge, Mass., Tr. David H. Kraus, 1968, pp. 184–185. A comparable, modern assessment of Borelli’s work comes from Clifford A. Truesdell, the author of a perceptive and well informed essay on “The mechanics of Leonardo da Vinci,” in his Essays in the History of Mechanics, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1968, pp. 324–325: “In the seventeenth century, statics was a well developed subject, and it was applied in a way then acceptable to many persons in many cases where any modern engineer would require laws of motion, then unknown. For example, we may cite Borelli’s book, On the Motion of Animals (1685), where the parallelogram of forces seems to be the only quantitative basis for two volumes on the subject named, and where, despite the title, we look in vain for any laws of motion. I do not mean at all to ridicule the book; it is not only truly scientific but also ingenious in many places; I adduce it as an example to show the work both intelligent and extensive can be done on a wobbly foundation, and that the existence of serious literature in a domain, leading to some measure of success, does not necessarily imply that the structure is sound.”
Paul Maquet, as cited in note 16 above.
See Michael Pidock, “The Hang Glider,” in Achademia Leonardi Vinci, VI, Firenze, Giunti, 1993, pp. 222–225, with an editorial introductory note and reproductions, figures 1 and 2, of photographs of a first test flight of the reconstructed hang glider (Sussex Downs, England, 20 October 1993). A version more faithful to Leonardo’s drawings has recently been built at Sigillo in Umbria by a local association of hang glider pilots. See Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo. The Machines, Firenze, Giunti, 1999, p. 29.
Federico Zuccari’s account of the lost Leonardo manuscript of the Codex Huygens type of kinesiology studies is given in his Idea, Turin, 1607, p. 31, as fully discussed and reproduced in Leonardo da Vinci, Libro di pittura. Edizione in facsimile del Codice Urbinate lat. 1270 nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana a cura di Carlo Pedretti. Trascrizione critica di Carlo Vecce, Florence, Giunti, 1995, pp. 42–43.
Leonardo’s memorandum in CA, f. 287 r-a780 r [780r], c. 1514–1515, used to be quoted, as Richter does, §7A, with the addition of the words “de vocie” (On Acoustics) taken to be the title of Leonardo’s book, when they are, instead, Leonardo’s “label” to an adjacent diagram. This is explained by Carlo Pedretti in his Commentary to the Richter anthology (Oxford, Phaidon 1977), vol. I, p. 107.
Mario Baratta, Curiositá Vinciane, Turin, 1905, pp. 179–184. See also Francesco Savorgnan di Brazzá, Da Leonardo a Marconi. Invenzioni e scoperte italiane, Milan, 1941, pp. 78–79, for the mention of Borelli’s project of a submarine as well.
Gustavo Uzielli, Ricerche intorno a Leonardo da Vinci. Rome, Serie seconda, 1884, p. 403.
The importance and originality of Borelli’s studies on the flight of birds were first recognized by E. J. Marey, La machine animale, Paris, Librairie Germer Baillière, Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale, 1873, and again, in a context that includes Leonardo’s comparable studies, in roman Le vol des oiseaux, Paris, 1890, pp. 234–235, a classic on the subject which is not recorded in Verga’s Bibliografia vinciana (1931). See also Modestino Del Caizo, Studi di Giovanni Alfonso Borelli sulla pressione atmosferica, Naples, 1886, and, by the same author, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli e la sua opera “De motu animalium,” Naples, 1908. Raffaello Caverni, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, Florence, 1891–1900, 6 vols., in particular vol. III, p. 402; Giuseppe Boffito, Il volo in Italia, cit. (as in note 11 above), pp. 137–142 (in comparison with Leonardo); Raffaele Giacomelli, Gli scritti di Leonardo da Vinci sul volo, Rome, 1935, pp. 206–207, and, by the same author, “Il De volatu di Borelli,” in L’Aeronautica, XIV, fasc. 3, 1934, pp. 1–15. For the wedge theory in both Leonardo and Borelli, cf. G. B. De Toni, Le piante egli animali in Leonardo da Vinci, Bologna, 1922, p. 137. In 1900 G. B. De Toni (“Osservazioni di Leonardo intorno si fenomeni di capillaritá,” in Frammenti Vinciani, I–IV, Padua, 1900, pp. 53–61) had already mentioned Borelli in connection with Leonardo’s experiments on capillarity. G. Pezzi, “La meccanica del volo nell’opera di Leonardo da Vinci e nel De motu animalium de Gian Alfonso Borelli”, in Minerva medica, LXIII, 1972, pp. 2184–2188, and Annali di medicina navale e coloniale, LXXVI, 1971, pp. 2750–2782. And finally: Useful information on the life and work of Borelli is still to be found in Giammaria Mazzuchelli, Gli scrittori d’ Italia, Brescia, Giambatista Bossini, 1762, vol. II, part III, pp. 1709–1714. See also Pietro Riccardi, Biblioteca matematica italiana, Modena, 1970, sub voce, and Le opere dei discepoli di Galileo Galilei. Volume Primo. L’ Accademia del Cimento. Parte Prima, ed. Pietro Pagnini, Florence, Giunti, 1942, pp. 21–22.
Kenneth D. Keele and Carlo Pedretti, 1979/1980, Corpus of the Anatomical Studies in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London and New York, Johnson Reprint Corporation (3 vols.), vol. I, p. 362. For other aspects of Borelli’s biological studies in relation Leonardo’s, see F. S. Bodenheimer, “Leonard de Vinci, biologiste”, in Lènard de Vinci et l’espèience scientifique aux XVIe siècle, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1953, pp. 172–188, in particular p. 175 (flight of birds), 179 (Leonardo’s studies on animal locomotion as compared with Borelli’s principles of “iatophysics”, i.e. the application of physics to medicine), 182 (Leonardo as precursor of Malpighi, Redi and Borelli). Cf. in the same volume the “Rapport final” by Alexandre Koyrè (p. 244).
Cfr. Windsor, RL 19070 v: “scrivi la lingua del pichio.” See also Windsor, RL 19115 r: “fa il moto della lingua del picchio.”
Cfr. Guglielmo Bilancioni, “Leonardo da Vinci e la lingua del picchio,” in Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali, XVII, 1926, pp. 1–12. Bilancioni does not mention Borelli, but for the explanation of the mechanism of the woodpecker’s tongue he gives full credit to Borelli’s pupil Lorenzo Bellini. The illustration in pl. V, fig. 11 (Fig. 9) is not based on that given by Ulisse Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae..., Bolgna, 1599, p. 838. According to Carlo Pedretti (oral communication), the way the complex mechanism of the bird’s tongue is shown in an overall view of the bird’s head, as seen three quarters to the right from above, is well in keeping with the type and character of Leonardo’s anatomical illustrations of c. 1510 (e.g. the sheet with studies of the palate, tongue and larynx, and hyoid bone, in Windsor, RL 19002 r (A. 3)).
Roberto Marcolongo, Leonardo artista-scienziato, Milan, Hoepli, 1939, pp. 197 and 294.
Leonardo da Vinci, I libri di meccanica nella ricostruzione ordinate da Arturo Uccelli, Hoepli, Milan, 1940.
Zubov, op. cit. (as in note 17 above), p. 184.
Pierre Duhem, Ètudes sur Leonard de Vinci. Ceux qu’ it a lus et ceux qui l’ont lu, Paris, A. Hermann, 1906, 1909 and 1913, 3 vols.
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(2006). Beginnings. In: Leonardo’s Lost Robots. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-28497-4_1
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