Professor Emeritus Enzo Macagno is considered an international expert on Leonardo da Vinci. Beginning in the 1960s, he and his colleague and wife, Matilde Macagno, published numerous articles and many IIHR monographs on the interpretation, analysis, and synthesis of da Vinci’s codices and manuscripts as they relate to fluid-flow and transport phenomena. Macagno can read and understand Leonardian script, and used IIHR’s facilities to replicate da Vinci’s experiments. Macagno’s work began with the Madrid Codices in 1974 and continued with study and interpretation of several others, including the Codices Atlanticus, Forster, Arundel, and Hammer, and the Institut de France manuscripts. He also compiled da Vinci’s Libro del Acqua. Matilde Macagno’s publications include studies of flow kinematics and the representation of water in art, science, and technology.

Leonardo da Vinci sketch and Macagno experiment.