Leonardo da Vinci

Although Leonardo's drawings of textile machines in the Codice Atlantico in Milan and the recently discovered Madrid Manuscripts comprise only a very small and comparatively unimportant section of the great artist's work, they are nevertheless interesting as a group not only because they illustrate his amazing genius yet again, but also because, when looked at together, they throw an interesting light on the history of textile inventions.

In this book an attempt has been made to arrange the drawings in a logical order based on the sequence of textile processing, and in a short introduction the editor describes the natue of these processes. Each drawing is accompanied by a commentary and where applicable a translation of Leonardo's own notes. Although sometimes helpful, these often add to the difficulty of interpretation. The artists' notes to the Milan drawings have been newly translated for this book.