Leonardo Da Vinci predated William Shakespeare by half a century; their paths never crossed. Both were artists who changed the world with their vision; each had flinty intellects interested in a wide variety subjects that the Renaissance opened up to them. And while the Bard had a superior command of words — it was his stock in trade, after all; Da Vinci still had a poetic approach to the words he wrote down mostly to keep track of what he was learning as he went along — about art, figure study to physiology to flight.
It’s fitting, then, that Mary Zimmerman’s “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” is being presented at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, where previously she’s directed some striking work, including “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” in 2004 and “Argonaulika” in 2008.
As important as they are, Da Vinci’s notebooks weren’t assembled until long after the artist’s death in 1519. Putting together the lists, ideas, artistic doodles, declarations and spookily futuristic Renaissance thoughts into published form didn’t occur until 1632, but new editions in ensuing centuries added previously unknown pieces, including a previously unknown manuscript discovered in Spain in 1965.
Forgive him for not having time to organize the 5,000 pages of missives, reciepts and scraps of paper in his own lifetime. He might have been too busy creating the Mona Lisa or “The Last Supper” or the exquisite “Ginevra de’ Bence” that can be seen blocks away at the National Gallery of Art (the only Da Vinci in the Americas). The polymath Florentine also spent his time as sculptor and scientist — even before that was even a term.