Leonardo: why the inventor failed to innovate

Abstract

Purpose

Aims to demonstrate how a foremost “Renaissance man”, Leonardo da Vinci, an artist who also fathered inventions by the score, was destined to have his conceptions remain largely either on paper or in his head.

Design/methodology/approach

Describes the creative work of a major polymath of the Italian Renaissance: Leonardo was painter, sculptor, designer, geometer, architect, natural scientist, anatomist, physiologist, diarist and sometime chronicler.

Findings

Leonardo was more than a painter and sculptor: he was a prolific inventor of tools, instruments, public works, even spectacles and occasionally entire festivals. Yet the author of so many novel contraptions, devices, systems and events left virtually no material trace of his inventiveness.

Originality/value

An analytical portrait enables the author to proffer some answers to the question of why Leonardo's non‐artistic bequest to civilization remains so intangible.

Citation

Richardson, J. (2005), "Leonardo: why the inventor failed to innovate", Foresight, Vol. 7 No. 5, pp. 56-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636680510623379