The universal genius that moves the frontiers of knowledge

We live in the age of hyperspecialization. We realize this, trivially, when we go to our GP and he immediately invites us to be examined by a specialist. Who, in turn, will offer us further insights from a colleague of his who is even more specialized in an ever smaller segment of medical knowledge. However, hyperspecialization is a canon of our era and does not represent the only way of understanding culture and knowledge. There have been eras, primarily Humanism and the Renaissance, which celebrated universal genius, that is, those multifaceted human beings, capable of being interested in and excelling in many fields of culture, science and art. Only in more recent times has the acceleration of knowledge led to hyperspecialization and in general to an environment that supports fewer scholars and scientists with multifaceted genius.

The English historian Peter Burke, professor emeritus of cultural history at the University of Cambridge, offers us in his latest essay, "The universal genius" (Hoepli editore, 2023, Euro 25, pp. 320. Also Ebook) an unprecedented cultural history , the first history of universal genius in the West, from the 15th century to the present. It tells how from Leonardo da Vinci to Bacon, from Goethe to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, multifaceted minds have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. Having identified 500 Western geniuses, it explores their wide-ranging achievements and shows how their rise coincided with a rapid growth in knowledge around the time of the invention of the printing press, the discovery of the New World, and the scientific revolution.

From this point of view, the figure of the most famous of these genius personalities, Leonardo da Vinci, is illuminating. A multifaceted artist, known throughout the world for his pictorial masterpieces, Leonardo was also an architect, engineer and scientist, contributing significantly to the revaluation of science, mathematics and practical knowledge. His interests in fact ranged from mechanics to hydraulics, from aerodynamics to optics, from botany to the mechanical anatomy of bird flight. His drawings have come down to us thanks to precious codices, the most famous of which is the Atlantic Codex of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan; these give us evidence of both his revolutionary mechanical projects and his passionate studies to discover the structure of nature. A work aimed at solving the technical problems of his time but also at pushing himself towards new horizons.

Against traditional knowledge, Leonardo affirmed the importance of experience for the knowledge of reality; but, in opposition to the supporters of pure experience, he underlined the importance of scientific knowledge based on mathematics. Literature, art, science had to contribute to this new scientific ideal, according to which nature - even human nature - can be perceived and understood only through the knowledge and application of the physical laws that characterize it. Even artistic creation - in particular drawing and painting - should have been subject to mathematical laws, indispensable for understanding the perfect geometric proportions of the universe. It was a revolution, the Leonardesque one, which opened the way not only to the most daring developments of Renaissance art, but which laid the basis for the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and for the exaltation of reason and rationality typical of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought.