Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was obsessed with water. The famed Italian Renaissance artist meticulously drew every aspect of rivers, from the nature of water drops to the ways currents create and destroy the earth’s surface. His obsession led him to become a professional hydraulic engineer and an expert on the physics of water. He disproved Aristotle’s 1,800-year-old theory of the water cycle and developed the one we use today. He discovered the nature of erosion and heretically disproved the biblical flood. He created beautiful maps and drawings of river currents and of his audacious plans to reroute the Arno River for war and peace.

It is obvious to David Ladensohn, who has been fly-fishing for forty years, that Leonardo would have made the perfect fishing guide. The artist’s keen sense of humor and winning personality would have made him a wonderful companion. He knew more about how rivers work than any person before him and would have been outstanding at reading the water to figure out where the fish are. Beginning with Leonardo’s remarkable biography—from underprivileged child to celebrity whose company was sought by competing rulers in Italy and France—and taking readers through the inspirations that led him to fall in love with waterways, Ladensohn makes the connection between the artist’s life and his own deep knowledge of the art of fly-fishing. His adventures have led him to seek out the most unique, storied, and traveled fly-fishing locales in the world, including Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Bhutan, Italy, Slovenia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bahamas, Ireland, England, and Mongolia.

Ladensohn's research on Leonardo led him to native rivers in Italy to scholars at Oxford and the inside of Windsor Castle, where he studied the finest of Leonardo’s original water drawings. The illustrations, which remain little known even today, are reproduced here in color, many for the first time. Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci is meant to inform and entertain anyone interested in the artist or fly-fishing and their unlikely intersection.
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Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was obsessed with water. The famed Italian Renaissance artist meticulously drew every aspect of rivers, from the nature of water drops to the ways currents create and destroy the earth’s surface. His obsession led him to become a professional hydraulic engineer and an expert on the physics of water. He disproved Aristotle’s 1,800-year-old theory of the water cycle and developed the one we use today. He discovered the nature of erosion and heretically disproved the biblical flood. He created beautiful maps and drawings of river currents and of his audacious plans to reroute the Arno River for war and peace.

It is obvious to David Ladensohn, who has been fly-fishing for forty years, that Leonardo would have made the perfect fishing guide. The artist’s keen sense of humor and winning personality would have made him a wonderful companion. He knew more about how rivers work than any person before him and would have been outstanding at reading the water to figure out where the fish are. Beginning with Leonardo’s remarkable biography—from underprivileged child to celebrity whose company was sought by competing rulers in Italy and France—and taking readers through the inspirations that led him to fall in love with waterways, Ladensohn makes the connection between the artist’s life and his own deep knowledge of the art of fly-fishing. His adventures have led him to seek out the most unique, storied, and traveled fly-fishing locales in the world, including Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Bhutan, Italy, Slovenia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bahamas, Ireland, England, and Mongolia.

Ladensohn's research on Leonardo led him to native rivers in Italy to scholars at Oxford and the inside of Windsor Castle, where he studied the finest of Leonardo’s original water drawings. The illustrations, which remain little known even today, are reproduced here in color, many for the first time. Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci is meant to inform and entertain anyone interested in the artist or fly-fishing and their unlikely intersection.
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Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci

Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci

by David Ladensohn
Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci
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Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci

Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci

by David Ladensohn

Overview

Leonardo da Vinci was obsessed with water. The famed Italian Renaissance artist meticulously drew every aspect of rivers, from the nature of water drops to the ways currents create and destroy the earth’s surface. His obsession led him to become a professional hydraulic engineer and an expert on the physics of water. He disproved Aristotle’s 1,800-year-old theory of the water cycle and developed the one we use today. He discovered the nature of erosion and heretically disproved the biblical flood. He created beautiful maps and drawings of river currents and of his audacious plans to reroute the Arno River for war and peace.

It is obvious to David Ladensohn, who has been fly-fishing for forty years, that Leonardo would have made the perfect fishing guide. The artist’s keen sense of humor and winning personality would have made him a wonderful companion. He knew more about how rivers work than any person before him and would have been outstanding at reading the water to figure out where the fish are. Beginning with Leonardo’s remarkable biography—from underprivileged child to celebrity whose company was sought by competing rulers in Italy and France—and taking readers through the inspirations that led him to fall in love with waterways, Ladensohn makes the connection between the artist’s life and his own deep knowledge of the art of fly-fishing. His adventures have led him to seek out the most unique, storied, and traveled fly-fishing locales in the world, including Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Bhutan, Italy, Slovenia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bahamas, Ireland, England, and Mongolia.

Ladensohn's research on Leonardo led him to native rivers in Italy to scholars at Oxford and the inside of Windsor Castle, where he studied the finest of Leonardo’s original water drawings. The illustrations, which remain little known even today, are reproduced here in color, many for the first time. Fly-Fishing with Leonardo da Vinci is meant to inform and entertain anyone interested in the artist or fly-fishing and their unlikely intersection.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781595343062
Publisher: Terra Firma
Publication date: 11/05/2024
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 208
File size: 64 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

David Ladensohn is a mediator, retired executive, and entrepreneur. He was recently a Next Horizons Scholar at Oxford University. He lives in San Antonio, Texas, and outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Read an Excerpt

I was only a few hours off the plane from Boston to London, but the adrenaline of meeting this legend gave me the energy to ignore how far out of my depth I already was. Much of what I “knew” about Leonardo had come from this man’s many books, written over five decades. There was no one else in the small restaurant north of Oxford when he walked in, slender and wearing his signature high-collared vest. Fortunately, Professor Emeritus Martin Kemp, the best known of the world’s Leonardo scholars, is a gracious man, just as he had been in correspondence during the previous months. 

Within five minutes of sitting down for dinner, our conversation was skipping from topic to topic, century to century, from art to science and back again, at his lightning speed. He talked about the downsides of specialization, which took modern intellectuals so far from the fertile ground Leonardo had been able to plow in every direction. We were in a quiet booth in the back of the place and the crowd I had expected never materialized.  No doubt the wine and jet lag relaxed me, so I finally popped the question I had carefully prepared: “What would it be like to have dinner with Leonardo da Vinci?”

His eyes lit up and he launched into his answer like he was swinging at a fat pitch.  Clearly my cleverness was not novel: Martin had thought about this and likely answered it many times before. Nonetheless, the insights he shared that evening were fascinating and of a piece with what other generous scholars would tell me when I subsequently met with them. Leonardo experts have lived inside the master’s head for years because they have read his notebooks, written over a lifetime for himself, alone. Each is part book draft, part sketchbook, part money account book, part reflection, part to-do list, and, only a regrettably small part, diary.

The experts described the person they know as well as they know their close friends, a man who had shared with them his frustrations, his joys, his unbounded curiosity and intellectual vigor. Those discussions led me to ask myself: “What would it be like to go fly-fishing with Leonardo da Vinci as my guide?”

Table of Contents

PrefaceIntroduction
Who's the Lucky Bastard Now?Trout are Couch PotatoesThe ApprenticeWhat Now?The Wit and Wisdom of a Fishing GuideOriginalsMaster of the WaterReading the WaterObservation and ExperienceI'll See It When I Know ItThe ExpertsThe Ultimate Thank You GiftIn Search of the Holy GrailA Very Curious ManThe Rascal and the GentlemanWhen Does Fishing Start?The Big DigTrout RodeoWhy Did Leonardo Cut (Off) His Ear?A Breath of Fresh AirFishing in Four DimensionsOh. What a Lovely Mess!The Fishing ExpertsBears, Deluge, and Exploding MountainsSuccess or Failure?
AcknowledgmentsAbout the Author
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