Leonardo: Artist or Scientist?

These arguments are, in the end, ludicrously childish. Although the straw man argument of Newton's alchemy is amusing...  ((For example, Newton (in juxtaposition to Leibniz) indeed was a quack! A quack who believed, (among other imbecilities) that the text of the Bible foretold the date of the end of the world based upon a hidden secret code therein.)) The idea that reality can be defined via mere words is nominalism. This is wildly irrational. The desire to put a label on the works of Leonardo and catalog him as in a sort of human zoo is nominalism: it signifies nothing..that is, except superstitious ignorance.

Leonardo won a contest performing as a musician, singing and playing the lute in Florence. He was sent as an emissary of sorts by Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence to the court of Sforza Duke of Milan. To whom, it was reported, Leonardo proffered a magnificent silver lute of his own design. So really, I believe, you fine fellows have it all wrong. He was really a musician...or was it a designer of theatrical displays?