The Ruins of the Earth

Abstract

Abstract The relation between visual depictions of rocks and mountains, and coeval notions on the origin and nature of the Earth, is one of the least studied aspects of Renaissance scientific culture. Yet, in the course of the 1400s a new kind of ruins made its appearance in drawings and paintings, alongside those of the classical antiquity: the vestiges of an ancient Earth, as shown in eroded crags, decomposing mountains and in the layered structure of their exposed bowels. In this essay I relate these representations to both the learned tradition of medieval “meteorology,” and to the empirical expertise of Renaissance artists/engineers. Finally, I place within this larger context some aspects of Leonardo da Vinci’s geological writings and drawings, with particular reference to his studies of layered rocks and his discussion of the Biblical flood.