The genius of Leonardo da Vinci has never been rivalled. In the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he created some of the most iconic images in Western art but his brilliance extended well beyond these masterpieces. His extraordinarily diverse writings covered the fields of anatomy, medicine, engineering, botany, music, architecture and natural history, and his notebooks are among the most precious documents in the world.

This edition features the 1938 Edward MacCurdy compilation and includes over 100 colour drawings carefully selected from the Royal Collection, one of the largest holdings of da Vinci drawings in the world.

A self-taught genius, the illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant woman from the small town of Vinci, Leonardo had no formal education bar his painting apprenticeship, which began at age 14. However, it was this lack of education that caused him to rely on his own observations and experience, rather than written authority - a revolutionary new method that was far ahead of its time.

Da Vinci made deductions that are uncanny in their accuracy: ‘The sun does not move,’ he noted, 100 years before Galileo reached the same conclusion. He also found that ‘every weight tends to fall towards the centre by the shortest way', 150 years before Isaac Newton propounded the same theory and, in carrying out anatomy experiments, da Vinci realised that blood circulated around the body - a medical breakthrough confirmed by William Harvey in 1628.

Published by the Folio Society in 2019 (2nd printing), The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, translated and arranged by Edward MacCurdy, three volumes - contents include:
VOLUME l (376 pages)
Philosophy
Anatomy
Human proportions
Medicine
Optics
Acoustics
Botany
Geology

VOLUME ll (519 pages)
Flying machines
Mathematics
The nature of water
Hydraulics
Experiments
Inventions
Warfare

VOLUME lll (458 pages)
Precepts of the painter
Colour, light & shade
Perspective
Sculpture
Architecture
Music
Jests
Fables

Each volume bound in quarter green leather over illustrated cloth boards with gilt titles on spines and gilded page tops, contained in a three-volume grey-green slipcase with printed image on front

There is a little very light foxing to the top edges (see photos), otheriwse books and slipcase are all in very good condition

Due to the weight, I will be dispatching via courier (2-4 days delivery), where I am charging for postage, this is always at cost and I will try and minimise it on multiple purchases and pass on any savings - if you would like to buy multiple items, please request a combined invoice and I'll happily issue one with the most economical postage, alternatively I will refund any savings when I despatch them

I'm happy to answer any questions, many thanks for your interest