L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 5 I'm a book person, having devoted pretty much all of my adult life to them in one capaci- ty or another, from working as the book-buyer and manager of independent bookstores, to edit- ing them, to publicizing them, to writing them. And while I appreciate the portability of e- books, I'm convinced that print- ed books remain the best way of accessing (and enjoying) signif- icant material. Indeed, numer- ous recent studies have shown that readers' retention and com- prehension of material read on paper surpasses that of readers using electronic devices. Y et, in s pite of all this , I must say I can't imagine a better presentation of the work of one o f t h e g r e a t e s t m i n d s humankind has ever produced t h a n T o u c h p r e s s ' s r e c e n t l y updated application for iPads e n t i t l e d L e o n a r d o d a V i n c i : Anatomy. To present in book f o r m a l l 2 6 8 o f L e o n a r d o ' s anatomical drawings as clearly as this application manages to do on a screen would require a large, heavy and costly printed edition. But the 268 high-reso- lution reproductions are just the beginning of what this excellent app has to offer. O f c o u r s e , t h e d r a w i n g s alone—among them Leonardo's f a m o u s V i t r u v i a n M a n ( t h e nude whose four outstretched a r m s a n d l e g s a r e i n s c r i b e d within a square and circle, and owned by Venice's Accademia Gallery)—are well worth the $13.99. The interactive capacity of digital publishing allows you to sort the images any way you choose and zoom in for the kind of close look you could never have gotten in person at the exhibition of the original draw- ings in England in 2013. But the app also offers new in s ig h t in to th e c o p io u s a n d beautifully-formed notations with which Leonardo surround- ed most of his drawings. For those who'd like to try reading L e o n a r d o ' s o r i g i n a l I t a l i a n s c r i p t w r i t t e n i n h i s f a m o u s "mirror" (or backward) hand, the app provides a moveable box which, when held over the text, reverses the letters to their legible order. Another button translates all of the original text into English exactly where it originally appears on the page. Yet what makes this applica- tion truly extraordinary, I think, and of interest to a far broader range of people than the stu- dents of art, medicine or science for which it seems essential, is the way in which Leonardo's arduous and iconoclastic pursuit of know ledge is mas terfully contextualized within a larger historical and cultural frame- work. And shown to inform, to this very day, the way we see our world. An interactive 3-dimensional computer model of the body ( c o n f i g u r a b l e b y m u s c l e s , organs, vessels or skeleton) can be compared side-by-side to Leonardo's own drawings to reveal exactly how they differ from or anticipate our contem- porary knowledge of anatomy. Other interactive 3D models show, for example, the beating heart in motion to demonstrate how blood flows through the heart and show exactly where Leonardo fell just short in his otherwise ground-breaking com- prehension of the circulatory system. I n s u c c i n c t a n d w e l l - p r o - duced video clips, a surgeon, an anatomist, and two scholars pre- s e n t v i v i d d i s c u s s i o n s o f Leonardo's work from the view- point of their own expertise, act- ing as audio-visual supplements to Martin Clayton's excellent introductory essay. And though w e a l l k n o w a l r e a d y t h a t Leonardo was a genius, Clayton m a n a g e s t o f o r e g r o u n d Leonardo's humanity even as he explains the staggering discov- eries Leonardo made in the least promising of circumstances and with the most basic tools. In fact, Clayton's account of how Leonardo came to under- take his anatomical studies, his original aims in doing them, and his methods, is nothing less than a dramatic, and inspiring, tale of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and dedication. T h e s t u d y o f a n a t o m y through dissection had become a n i m p o r t a n t p u r s u i t b y Leonardo's time, but it was a messy, difficult and very con- f u s i n g o n e . N o t l e a s t o f a l l because the great mass of infor- m a t i o n o n t h e b o d y i n Leonardo's day had been hand- e d d o w n f r o m G r e e k a n d Roman times, and had more to do with metaphysical ideals than direct observation. Adapting a technique he'd l e a r n e d f r o m t h e c a s t i n g o f bronze sculptures, Leonardo devised a method of injecting wax into the brain and heart to allow him to study chambers that otherwise would have col- lapsed. He was the first person ever to fix tissues in this way and the discoveries it allowed him to make were profound. A m o n g h i s m a n y o t h e r "firsts," Leonardo was the first to use multiple cross sections of a human body part to demon- strate how it was constructed— 500 years before the CAT scan and MRI. From architectural drawing, he borrowed the principles of e l e v a t i o n , p l a n a n d s e c t i o n , thereby developing a complete- ly new approach to convey and conceptualize bodily forms in three dimensions. And with each new discov- ery, each new technique, each n e w c o n c e p t u a l f r a m e w o r k , Leonardo blazed a path away from the dogmatic, metaphysi- cal system of knowledge he had inherited. In its place he devel- oped one based on direct obser- v a t i o n a n d h e l p e d l a y t h e groundwork for scientific inves- tigation. At a time when the rigorous intellectual and scientific tradi- tion left to us by Leonardo da Vinci is under attack both by fundamentalists of all sorts and m a s s i v e c o r p o r a t e i n t e r e s t s determined to co-opt its free- dom of inquiry and its findings, when the pleasures of learning and the pursuit of knowledge are dismissed by commercial interests selling us (and our c h i l d r e n ) d i v e r s i o n s t h e y p r o m i s e w i l l b e m u c h m o r e "fun", this application serves as an important reminder of what we are in risk of losing. True, none of us is likely to be another Leonardo da Vinci. But as an example of unflag- ging curiosity, of diligent obser- vation and spectacular ingenu- ity, of a life-long pursuit of knowledge (he was in his 50s when he made his most impor- tant anatomical discoveries) and its many pleasures, he is an unparalleled role model. A l l o f w h i c h m a k e s Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy an i d e a l g i f t f o r a l l s t u d e n t s . Whether those students will be g r a d u a t i n g t h i s s p r i n g , o r whether they're pursuing their o w n i n d e p e n d e n t s t u d i e s o f human life, long after leaving school. T o s e e T o u c h p r e s s ' s f u l l range of educational apps for iPad, visit: http://www.touch- press.com/ F o r m o r e a b o u t l i v i n g i n V e n i c e , v i s i t S t e v e n V a r n i ' s blog: veneziablog.blogspot.com Genius in your backpack: an inspiring app lets you take Leonardo Da Vinci everywhere STEVEN VARNI A collection of 268 drawings, touch da Vinci's notes to translate them and use the mirror lens tool to decode his reverse handwriting Interactive drawings. Compare Leonardo's theories against modern knowledge with fascinating animations and state-of- the-art 3D models of human anatomy

• Cover