From the West ancient to the islamic world and return through the mechanics of Leonardo and mechanics of renaissance engineers

Abstract

The opportunity for this work originates from the recent discovery of two codices on wheels for perpetual motion in Tehrān and in Manchester by G. Ferriello, whose paper will follow in this issue. Now the similarity of the drawings existing in these manuscripts with known ones on the same topic by Leonardo and by other Renaissance engineers requires some reflections on possible relationships and on the transmission of knowledge between East and West in the field of Mathematics and Engineering in the Early Modern age.

The substantial studies on Renaissance engineers do not refer anything to researches on technical-scientific development in the Islamic world, nor particularly in the Persian world, which we will deal with. This certainly did not happen for lack of documentary material, but of interest of scholars to sources in not European languages, with the consequent lack of comparisons between historical-cultural contexts that have shared a lot in the past, inheriting and transmitting Classical and Hellenistic texts that were acquired, translated, integrated and then returned to their original sphere.

The studies on the Renaissance, favoured by the interest in machines intended in a philosophical - as well as technological - key and extended to the experimentation of machines in building sites, have made known a vast documentary heritage, consisting of writings and drawings; these works have also promoted the interest in Mechanics applied to the building subject and for its protagonists, from Taccola to Francesco di Giorgio to Leonardo; but not always adequate emphasis has been given to the means of transmission of the sources, that have been somehow forgotten after the translation of ancient texts into Latin or vernacular, or even denied for religious or political reasons in Catholic Europe: thus has been lost, in many cases, the added value represented by the passages through the scientific culture of the Near East.