Leonardo da Vinci - beyond the artist

Wikipedia's article on Leondardo da Vinci

Free e books at Project Gutenberg:
Leonardo's Notebooks (text only)

Online Sites:
Leonardo's Machines <--nice site
A good many Leonardo da Vinci illustrations at this site, including medical illustrations (anatomical drawings).

I found this interesting, about where Leonardo got his books and what was in them-->Leondardo Da Vinci and Ancient Printed Medical Tests HTML version of a PDF

Of course Da Vinci was an artist..
but he was also ( schooled in / skilled at ) mechanics, anatomy, geometry and a wide range of subjects. I read his notebooks my first year at college -- not ALL of it, mind you.. there is so much there to absorb -- but just seeing the wide range of subjects and taking some of it in, is enough to spark anyone into some sort of creative thought ;o)

Odd though.. my sketchbooks did start to look more and more like that afterwards! They still do.

I read in my book 'The History of Mathematics' that most of the math Leonardo did in his notebooks, was incomplete. He would get to a point where he couldn't figure out the calculations, and just trail off... He would get frustrated. I identify with that. Then he would go build a model, or work on something else for a while. He was a genius, true, but even geniuses must get stumped once in a while, on something. He never lost his curiosity though - and that is important. He always wanted to know, or at least to seek, even if he found he could not always understand.

Back to sketching...