UNPUBLISHED SHEETS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

STUDIES AND DRAWINGS ON THE ATMOSPHERE

original: "fine mondo". Leonardo often used these apocalyptic visions to study the mathematical beauty of fluid dynamics even in destruction.

There will be no one who

Let the descent of the water be made in such a way that it hollows out the bottom of the river and strikes
against the banks of said river, stripping away their foundations, and in such a manner

The drawing on this page is one of Leonardo’s most famous depictions of a cataclysm. It shows the air and water intertwined in massive, spiraling vortices vortices: whirling masses of fluid or air. He treats the storm not just as a disaster, but as a complex machine of nature, where solid mountains are shattered into geometric blocks by the sheer force of the wind and waves.