#000094
The Unknown Leonardo
Ladislao Reti (ed.)
When two long-lost Leonardo notebooks—the Madrid Codices—surfaced in Spain's national library in 1965, they reopened the case on Leonardo as engineer and scientist. This 1974 volume, edited by the historian of technology Ladislao Reti and published by McGraw-Hill, is the accessible companion to that rediscovery. Through generously illustrated essays it presents the 'unknown' Leonardo: the designer of machines, the student of mechanics, optics, anatomy, and hydraulics, the restless mind behind the familiar painter. It's a book that rewards browsing, full of Leonardo's own drawings and clear explanations of what he was actually trying to work out. For readers who love the Mona Lisa but have never met Leonardo the inventor, it's a revelation—and a reminder that his notebooks may be his greatest work of all.
more…less ▴
The editor
Ladislao Reti (1901–1973) was a chemist and historian of technology who became one of the leading authorities on Leonardo's scientific work. He was closely involved in studying the Madrid Codices after their 1965 rediscovery and edited McGraw-Hill's scholarly edition of them; this volume distills that expertise for a wider audience.
The book
The Unknown Leonardo, published by McGraw-Hill in 1974, is a collaborative, lavishly illustrated survey drawing on the newly available notebooks to present Leonardo as engineer, anatomist, and inventor. Reti assembled contributions from specialists, each tackling a facet of Leonardo's technical achievement, threaded together with his own drawings.
How it reads
Half a century on, some interpretive claims have been refined, but the book's core aim—to show the breadth of Leonardo's practical genius—still lands. The reproductions and the sense of discovery keep it fresh, and it remains a fine general introduction to the scientific Leonardo.
For more context
The Madrid Codices I and II were found in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in 1965 after being miscatalogued for centuries, adding roughly seven hundred pages to the known Leonardo corpus.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Ladislao Reti (ed.)
- Publisher
- McGraw-Hill
- Place of publication
- New York
- Year
- 1974
- ISBN
- 0-07-037196-2
- Shelf
- Art
- Location
- Maine