The Nexus of Knowledge and Praxis in Leonardo Da Vinci from Marxism to the Anthropocene

This chapter explores the relation between modern science, the raise of capitalism and technological developments in connection with the historiography on Leonardo Da Vinci. It focuses on Leonardo’s geology and technology as a case study that allows us to rethink and expand historiographic and philosophical interpretations of early modern technical ingenuity in general. Leonardo’s technological inquiries and natural speculations took place within the mobile courtly and political settings of fifteenth-century Italy, as this inventor, artist and proto-scientist consciously put his art and ingenuity in the service of governance and war. His ties with the ruler of Milan, with the military adventurer Cesare Borgia (the Duke of Valentinois), and, eventually, the King of France, indicate the proximity between his scientific activities and the interests of the most powerful princes. Machiavelli’s manifesto of political praxis for the prince, which took special inspiration from the actions of the Duke of Valentinois, look relevant to the technological praxis of Leonardo. Indeed, his surveys were meant to transform landscapes through river diversions and huge engineering projects for geopolitical reasons, his technologies were meant to serve defense and war, and his image of the intellectual looks very much organic to the power imperatives of hegemony construction. In this light, Leonardo can be seen as the embodiment of non-neutral science and technology, which arise and act on nature and society as forces of transformation. Briefly, his ingenuity was not the expression of individual exceptionalism as much as an exemplar of technoscientific praxis. One can even call it a political ecology because technoscience permitted the objectification of political-scientific action through its inscription in nature. In this perspective, this chapter also addresses debates on the cultural-natural dialectics of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.