An observant eye, an incredible mind

Richard Collins on the quintessential Renaissance man

IT’S often said that we are only flesh and blood or skin and bone but, in fact, we consist mostly of water. No form of life is possible without water. Now, a famous treatise on the subject of this extraordinary liquid is on show at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin.

The 72-page Codex Leicester was written 500 years ago by one of the most extraordinary individuals ever to have lived; Leonardo da Vinci. Written with the letters reversed and reading from right to left on the page, this dog’s breakfast of observations and off-the-wall speculations covers everything aquatic from the mechanics of falling drops to the future fate of the Mediterranean, which Leonardo believed once flowed into the Red Sea. At times he is highly speculative. He thought, for example, that rivers are the veins and arteries of the Earth, a living entity whose breathing is manifested in the tides. Then he comes down to earth, offering advice on the draining of marshes and the movement of water through conduits.