Thu 06 Jun 2007A Dublin debut for Da Vinci showThe
Leicester Codexof Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci
comes to the Chester Beatty Library next week, offering a unique
window on his work, writes
Arminta Wallace.'What I'd like people to take away from this exhibition," says
the director of the Chester Beatty Library, Dr Michael Ryan, "is
the idea that Leonardo da Vinci was an extraordinary genius. Maybe
a peculiar genius in some ways, in that he did too much and rarely
finished anything. But he wasn't a spaceman or a Roscrucian or a
descendent of Mary Magdalene or a chap who was plugged directly
into the secrets of the Earth. He made the kind of meticulous
observations, with the naked eye and the pencil, which other people
didn't come even close to for several centuries afterwards. And he
had a background - an intellectual context. That's what I'd like
people to take away with them."