A short note Leonardo da Vinci wrote about 500 years ago lays out a method for preserving wood with fire, and a new study says he came up with it on his own, long before a similar practice was documented in Japan.
According to the study, the note appears in Leonardo’s Madrid Codex II, which is kept at the National Library of Spain. Referring to wood, he wrote, “They will be better preserved if debarked and superficially charred than in any other way.”
Researchers, including Dr. Andrea C. da Montefeltro, a member of the Expert Committee of the UNESCO Club of Florence, say the line describes two steps. The bark is stripped off, and the surface is then lightly burned to form a protective layer of carbon.
The science behind Leonardo da Vinci’s fire method for preserving wood
Leonardo’s advice grew out of what he saw in workshops and on building sites, the study says. He noticed that raw wood left with its bark held moisture and decayed faster.
Removing the bark gets rid of the outer layer most prone to rot and insect damage. Charring the surface then forms a carbon film that repels water and keeps microbes from growing, the researchers wrote. Today, scientists call the process surface carbonization.
Recent research, including a 2021 study in the journal Forests, confirms that charring can protect wood. Results still vary with the type of wood, the burning method, and the environment.
Leonardo saw wood not as lifeless material but as a body that “lives and breathes,” the study says. In his view, fire used with care preserves wood rather than destroying it.
Leonardo reached the idea long before Japan’s Shō Sugi Ban
The method closely matches “Shō Sugi Ban,” also called “Yakisugi,” a Japanese technique traditionally used to protect cedar wood. Leonardo wrote the note in the late 15th or early 16th century, during his years in Milan. The study explains that solid written evidence of the practice in Japan appears only in the 17th and 18th centuries, more than a century later.
The authors stress that Leonardo did not copy the idea. They say there is no evidence of any technical transfer from Asia. Instead, they describe the overlap as a case of “convergent invention,” in which separate traditions reach a similar solution on their own.
The study ties Leonardo da Vinci’s note on preserving wood to modern “bioarchitecture” and calls the Renaissance master a “forerunner of sustainability.” The authors say he was the first in Europe to suggest a wood protection method now considered “eco-construction.”
They also urge scholars to look more closely at “minor” notes in Renaissance manuscripts, which they say often hide ideas that were only put into practice later.
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