| Leonardo's Lost Robots reinterprets Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical design work, revealing a new level of sophistication not recognized by art historians or engineers. By identifying da Vinci's major technological projects, this book reinterprets Leonardo's legacy of notes, showing that, apparently, unconnected fragments from dispersed manuscripts actually comprise cohesive designs for functioning automata. Using the rough sketches scattered throughout almost all of Leonardo's notebooks, Mark Elling Rosheim reconstructs Leonardo's programmable cart, which is the platform for other automata: a Robot Lion, a Robot Knight, and a hydraulically powered automaton for striking a bell. Through a readable, lively narrative, the author explains how he reconstructed da Vinci's designs. The Foreword by world-renowned Leonardo scholar Carlo Pedretti interprets the significance of these reconstructions for our understanding of Leonardo's oeuvre. |
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