Co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminars on Diagrams Across Disciplines and the History of the Book

Abstract: For the mechanical and pictorial arts in early modern Italy, diagrams and proportional calculations assisted with a number of ‘inventions’, applying Euclidian principles and natural laws to practical problems. This talk will address improvements in diagrammatic reasoning for Leonardo da Vinci and his contemporaries, particularly with regard to systematic uses of Euclidian examples and proportion theories for mechanical and pictorial innovations.

Bio: Dr Matthew Landrus is Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College and the Faculty of History, University of Oxford, where he teaches early modern history. He is also a Senior Lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design. His publications address engagements between early modern visual culture, natural philosophy, engineering and technology, as well as the work of Leonardo da Vinci, in The Treasures of Leonardo (2006), Leonardo da Vinci’s Giant Crossbow (2010), Le Armi e le Macchine da Guerra: il de re Militari di Leonardo (2010), and Instruments and Mechanisms: Leonardo and the Art of Engineering (2013).