LEONARDO DA VINCI. —
I. His Life
Since Giorgio Vasari is poorly informed and unreliable, Leonardo’s life can only be reconstructed from reliable documentary evidence: legal records, his own notes, letters from contemporaries, etc. From these documents it emerges that Leonardo was born in Vinci on 15 April 1452, the illegitimate son of Ser Piero, a notary; Piero, it must be assumed, showed care and affection for this son, whom he kept with him in Florence.Leonardo probably attended school little, for his father soon noticed his artistic inclinations and directed him toward art, placing him in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, where he was still in 1476. In the autumn of 1478, as he writes in one of his notebooks, he began two “Virgin Marys”; in March 1481 the monks of S. Donato degli Scopeti commissioned from him, as a panel for their high altar, the *Adoration of the Magi*, which, left unfinished, was later acquired by the Benci family and then by the Medici. “He was thirty years old,” says the so-called Anonimo Gaddiano, “when Lorenzo the Magnificent sent him to the Duke of Milan to present him, together with Atalante Migliorotti, with a lyre, on which he was the only one able to play”; but much more extensive offers of service to Lodovico il Moro are evident from a draft of a letter, though not in Leonardo’s own hand, in the
Leonardo da Vinci
(photo: Anderson)
Leonardo da Vinci – Self-Portrait. Drawing – Turin, Palazzo Reale.
*Codex Atlanticus*: military engineering, weapons construction, architecture, sculpture, painting, and the bronze horse, that is, the monument to Francesco Sforza. On 25 April 1483, together with the brothers Evangelista and Giovanni Antonio De Predis, he undertook the execution of the panel for the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in the church of S. Francesco: disputes over price and payment dragged on for a long time; in one of the documents the painters state that the central panel with the Virgin (later called the *Virgin of the Rocks*) is Leonardo’s work; in 1508 the agreed payments were concluded. Probably between 1506 and 1508, whether the patrons consented or not, the copy now in London was made, to which, however, Leonardo’s contribution was limited; the original soon emigrated to France (tradition has it in the time of Francis I), while the copy went to England in 1785 (it entered the National Gallery in 1890). From multiple sources it is known that he painted the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani when she was still “of imperfect age,” as Cecilia herself writes to Isabella d’Este in 1498. Later he painted the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli. The subsequent history of both portraits is unknown, and any identification of them is now conjectural.
Soon he must have begun studies for the monument to Francesco Sforza; Leonardo himself writes: “On 23 April 1490… I resumed work on the horse”; by 1493 it was well advanced. Studies for casting or transport show the horse at a walk, with the left foreleg raised. It measured more than seven meters at the withers, presenting enormous difficulties of casting that Leonardo was ill-equipped to overcome, given his limited experience in this field. Years were lost; in 1499 the Moro fled before the French troops, and the clay model was “used as a target by crossbowmen”; even Ercole I in 1501 asked to purchase it; his request came to nothing, and soon after it was completely destroyed.
From contemporary accounts and documents it is known that *The Last Supper* in the refectory of S. Maria delle Grazie was completed between 1497 and 1498, after a long and discontinuous labor. It is also known that Leonardo worked in the Sforza Castle on the decoration of the “Sala negra,” of which no trace remains; that he concerned himself with the tiburio of Milan Cathedral and repeatedly with that of Pavia Cathedral, with stage set designs, etc. To these years belong in large part drawings of canalizations, war machines, mechanics, engineering, etc. From 1497 he received an annual pension of 2,000 ducats. He did not flee before the French invasion but instead made his first contacts with French personalities. In any case, by the end of 1499 he went to Mantua, where he drew a portrait of Isabella d’Este; then he went to Venice; in April 1500 he was in Florence. From a letter by Leonardo from Novellara to Isabella d’Este it is known that by April 1501 he had already completed the cartoon for the panel depicting the *Madonna and St. Anne*, now in the Louvre; he had with him two pupils who painted under his guidance and collaboration. In October 1503 he began work on the *Battle of Anghiari* for the Sala del Consiglio (Palazzo Vecchio): he executed the cartoon with great energy; in 1505 he began painting, unfortunately using a strange technique, a kind of pseudo-encaustic, which he had derived from Pliny, with abundant use of Greek pitch; the painting would not set and “ran.” Despite being preserved for decades, it was destroyed when the hall was redecorated after 1550, and the equally administrative and meticulously studied cartoon was also dispersed. In 1506 Leonardo was in Milan (settling the dispute over the *Virgin of the Rocks*), now fully integrated into the circle of the new French rulers; in 1507 and 1508 he was in Florence; in 1509 in Milan; in 1513 in Rome in the employ of Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of Leo X; he certainly remained there until at least the summer of 1516. During this Roman period he was little sought after as an artist: the most important work entrusted to him was hydraulic engineering, namely the study of the Pontine reclamation.
Between the end of 1516 and the beginning of 1517 he moved, taking with him paintings, manuscripts, and drawings, to Amboise, in the Château of Cloux; he received a generous pension from the King of France and, we must assume, was held in great esteem, though now paralyzed in his right hand and prematurely aged, his artistic activity was reduced, it seems, to drawing and guiding his pupils, among whom was the trusted Francesco Melzi; to him, in making his will on 23 April 1519, Leonardo left his manuscripts and drawings, and it fell to Melzi to inform Leonardo’s brothers that “such a man… passed from this life to the next (1519) with all the rites of Holy Mother Church and in a state of grace… May Almighty God grant him eternal rest.”
II. HIS ARTISTIC WORK
No document or report exists regarding the *Annunciation* that reached the Uffizi in 1867 from S. Bartolomeo a Montoliveto (Florence); on this work, albeit slowly, in recent decades a nearly unanimous recognition has been reached that it is Leonardo’s first important and individual work: the elaborately detailed lectern of the Virgin is Verrocchiesque, but in the figure of the Virgin herself there is a regularity and sweetness of features, a simple, spontaneous, yet monumental posture that is not characteristic of the master; the angel is painted in less bright, warmer colors, both in his garments and in his face, with a most gradual modeling and a formal definition of supreme intensity and elegance; the landscape, seen from above, is highly complex, well studied in its geological and vegetal elements, with a most graduated blueing of the forms and their merging into the room.It is, however, reported in Vasari’s *Life* and earlier that Leonardo painted an angel in Verrocchio’s *Baptism of Christ*, now in the Uffizi; evidently the head of the first of the two angels is by Leonardo; but, as had been thought and as radiographic examinations have confirmed, so too is the landscape with its play of great rivers and waterfalls, between sheer mountains.
The repainting is clearly by him; nor in this picture, with its tormented and uneven execution, should we exclude the possibility that Leonardo’s brush passed over other parts. To this Verrocchio-influenced period also belongs the Madonna and Child in Munich, whose attribution to Leonardo has likewise gained ground in recent decades (Berenson and A. Venturi were initially opposed; R. Longhi, etc.). Also generally accepted as by Leonardo is the small Annunciation in the Louvre. One of the two Virgin Marys begun in 1478 may be recognized in the Madonna Benois (Leningrad), though not fully completed, where the child’s lively and perceptive struggle to hold the flowers in his hand, the easy and conclusive grouping, the typical poses and movements recall drawings from those years. After the Annunciation in the Uffizi, it is reasonable to place the Portrait of a Woman against a Juniper Background in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, which is to be identified as the portrait of Ginevra Benci (born c. 1458), already recorded as by Leonardo in the Anonimo Gaddiano; a figure of great nobility in posture, with gradual definition and extraordinary vitality in every feature.
The greatest work of Leonardo’s Florentine period is the Adoration in the Uffizi, abandoned when the first layers of color had filled in the drawing and given a partial chiaroscuro and preliminary model to some of the figures. The traditional hut is gradually removed in the preparatory drawings, replaced by a tumultuous and admiring crowd around the melodic and intimate group of Mary and the Child, set against backgrounds of classical architecture, stripped of all decoration yet perspectivally perfect, beyond which lies the mountainous landscape dear to him. The purity, energy, and character of the figures are striking. The populous yet orderly vastness of the scene is incomparable. From the same years must date the St Jerome in the Vatican Pinacoteca, also soon abandoned, though with a strongly characterized head.
In the Virgin of the Rocks, the most complex work completed and not excessively damaged by time, we find—with a new imaginative quality for Italian art—his repertoire of geological and botanical data. In the group of four figures (the infant St John, Mary, Jesus, and the Angel), the connection is most intimate and harmonious; in the Virgin, the unfinished type from the Florentine Adoration is fully realized, while in the children there is a sense at once of liveliness and extraordinary concentration, their nudes already strong, classically euphoric, yet affectionately rendered in the character of early childhood; the angel’s head is of great beauty. The shading is even softer than in the Florentine paintings and spreads more over the bodies; here, in other words, the typical sfumato of Leonardo begins to appear, and it must be noted that it serves as a defining means of form down to its subtlest details.
Needing, by the very nature of his art, slow and meticulous execution, Leonardo did not wish to use fresco technique for the Last Supper, but unfortunately employed a tempera medium with a gypsum ground on plaster, an unsuitable method given Milan’s humidity. The painting soon began to deteriorate; what survives today consists of surviving flakes of color and later repaints from numerous restorations. Thanks to timely protective measures, it escaped destruction, like much of the refectory, in the air raid of August 1943. Here too Leonardo employed an extremely simple architecture of great perspectival effect, clearly illuminated by windows opening onto the countryside. Before a long table sit Jesus and the Apostles at the moment when Jesus says, “Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Lk 22:21). Leonardo imagines, with human insight, the physical aspect of this pivotal moment in the Christian drama: the agitated anguish of the Apostles contrasting with the sublime calm of Christ. The fresco must have possessed, and in part still shows, an extraordinary illusionistic effect, a remarkable composure despite the tireless search for movement and expression in each figure, and a rich coloristic sonority in velvety hues, such as in his Florentine period (e.g., the Annunciation, the Madonna of Munich).
In the Battle of Anghiari, known from copies of the central episode—the part actually painted on the wall—and from preparatory drawings, Leonardo repeatedly developed the theme of the horse and rider in the impetus of motion, in the torsion of battle; here too he must have achieved the greatest solidity of grouping and at the same time an illusion of momentum. The description of the cartoon of 1501 (see above) allows us to affirm that from it Leonardo executed the Madonna with St Anne now in the Louvre, while another cartoon with subtle variants, thought to be somewhat earlier, is preserved in the Royal Academy in London and is the greatest surviving drawing by Leonardo. The Louvre Madonna with St Anne displays an atmospheric embrace even more encompassing than in his earlier works, a chiaroscuro more blended and penetrating in form. A style that reaches an unsurpassable degree of execution is found in the portrait of a woman in the Louvre known as the Mona Lisa, which Vasari (though he did not know it) described as the portrait of Monna Lisa del Giocondo; a miracle of definition of the human form sought in its most visible complexity and yet in a “harmony in a single glance.” It is works from this period that have exerted the greatest influence on imitators (see LEONARDESCHI) and that have impressed critics and the public for nearly a century with the typical fascinating expression of faces that seem touched by a strange smile, with the sense of great calm in the image, rendered with superb plasticity in tireless modeling, and with backgrounds that are authentic geological poems, most definite yet fabulous.
The catalogue of Leonardo’s works, which in his early period is not always easily distinguishable from Verrocchio’s and Lorenzo di Credi’s, and which later, as we have seen, benefited from the collaboration of pupils, includes other works of less evident stature, such as the so-called Belle Ferronnière in the Louvre. Among the latter is the very lively small bronze Horse in the Budapest Museum, which relates to a type and sense of the horse that long endured in Leonardo.
In Florentine art of his early youth, Leonardo captured the energy and vitality of line, the complex modulation of groupings, the tireless modeling and strong illusionism, and he brought all these values to a higher expression in a world dominated by wonder and quiet joy at the emergence and concretization of things into life. This corresponds to a mentality evident in his writings. Giorgio Castelfranco
III. LEONARDO AS ARCHITECT
Leonardo, in the letter of presentation to Duke Ludovico il Moro, after speaking of his skill as a military engineer, added: “In time of peace I believe I can hold my own with any other in the design of public and private buildings and in conducting water from one place to another.” Yet he left no executed architectural works to which his name can be unhesitatingly assigned.However, there are countless drawings by him in which not only his architectural tastes are very clearly defined, but also, very often, the elements useful for their practical realization. In other words, these are not architectural fantasies, but actual architectural projects reflecting not only his ability to assimilate and elaborate stylistic data gradually acquired and variously processed, but also his taste as a practical experimenter and his mechanical interests in utilitarian solutions. These are drawings ready to be translated into models of houses, palaces, stables, washhouses, fortifications, and above all churches, with complex centralized structures, with one or more domes, where an assiduous spatial research is also evident, pursued essentially through a continuous interplay of shadows and lights generated by the accentuated or contrasting plastic masses, the living forces of the structural organism.
The great models of Roman and Florentine 15th-century architecture, especially those of Brunelleschi, form the basis of his architectural culture, which, however, soon turns to the Lombard tradition, in which he authoritatively inserts his name alongside that of Donato Bramante, who undoubtedly knew and developed some of L.'s ideas in his works. Thus, some of his ideas were probably used in the construction of the Pavia Cathedral, while others were developed by Cristoforo Solari in the presbytery area of the Como Cathedral. On the other hand, when contemplating the magnificent Santa Maria della Consolazione in Todi, whose design is generally attributed to Bramante and whose execution is largely due to Cola di Matteuccio da Caprarola, it is still L.'s great name that comes most insistently to mind.
IV. HIS SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
Throughout his life, with a will for encyclopedic and at the same time unitary knowledge, L.'s interest in the natural and biological sciences was immense and persistent; he cultivated them through reading, observation, experiments, etc.1. Geology
Among his most admired statements as forerunners of modern science are those concerning the movements of immersion and emergence of lands; and from this, the explanation of the presence of shells, fish skeletons, fossil algae in stones and emerged lands. In this, he had been guided by Greek (Aristotle) and medieval science; however, he clearly follows the fossilization of organic remains trapped in the "silt," which, rising, petrifies incorporating them. He studies the geological history of the Valdarno, which he believes originally consisted, from the Gonfolina (a gorge between Lastra a Signa and Montelupo) upwards, of two lakes, and, below the Gonfolina, already a sea; he asserts the alluvial origin of the Po Valley, and geological changes found even in remote regions (Persia, Syria, etc.). He pays extreme attention to the effects of weathering agents, to the appearance of rock formations, on which he insists in numerous drawings, to cloud formations, rains, storms, floods, etc. It should not be forgotten that he was a good topographer and cartographer (maps of Tuscany, the Pontine Marshes, Imola, etc.) and an uncommon hiker, especially in the Lombard Alps (Monte Rosa).2. Botany
As a botanist, besides a vast morphological knowledge, he poses some new problems in plant biology: he was the first to observe and define the arrangement of leaves in relation to their insertion on stems and their branching (phyllotaxis); he made observations on water absorption by plant roots, on the concentric layer structure of tree trunks from which the age of the plant can be deduced, etc.3. Zoology
As regards his activity as a zoologist, anatomist, and biologist in general, it has not yet been well distinguished what he owed to the scientific culture of his time from what were his authentic discoveries. He extensively and keenly practiced the dissection of human bodies and also, to a lesser extent, of animals; he made countless anatomical drawings (using various sections for a given organ) generally with exceptional accuracy for his time; he used the method of injecting solidifiable liquids into hollow organs, especially for the brain, and he particularly focused on the anatomy and functions of the brain (and the related nervous system), the heart, and the eye. Among animals, he studied the horse better than any other, especially in connection with the Sforza monument, although there are groups of drawings certainly of horses in free motion, not preparatory to this work.4. Geometry
Given the considerable perfection of the elements expounded by Euclid and Archimede, L. did not need to dwell on fundamental questions, but rather developed criteria for the application of geometry to the resolution of problems in various sciences, starting from purely geometric ones, such as the squaring of lunes, the volumetric equivalences of different solids, to the more complex ones of mechanics. He also devised an entire series of geometric instruments such as the proportional compass, compasses for drawing ellipses and parabolas with continuous motion, and the oval lathe for tracing and possibly engraving given ellipses on a rotating disk; all of similar structure to instruments and tools still in use today.
5. Statics
Statics, concerning the construction of buildings, domes, bridges, etc., and the simple instruments required for this, had been considerably studied by the ancients, and L. certainly knew the treatises of Aristotle, Archimedes, Hero, Vitruvius, and the more recent ones by G. Nemorario; L. reworked and extended many concepts, in particular the fundamental one of the moment of a force with respect to a point, which he applied in many cases and in particular to the study of the so-called simple machines: inclined planes, wedges, pulleys, tackles, etc., drawing conclusions rediscovered shortly after by Guido Ubaldo del Monte. L. also made significant progress in the consideration and determination of the centers of gravity of geometric figures (tetrahedrons, round and polygonal pyramids, etc.) and of real bodies, distinguishing them into three types: natural, accidental, and of volume, which correspond precisely to those still considered by modern technology. Similarly, completing G. Nemorario's considerations on the decomposition of the force (weight) of a heavy object supported by a rope suspended between two points with the determination of the tension in the two branches of the rope itself, he arrives for the first time at the reciprocal notion of the previous one, i.e., the notion of the composition of any two concurrent forces. Likewise, after deriving from Aristotle's problems the fundamental condition for the stability of the balance, L., with bold generalization, arrives at the discovery of the condition for the stability of any body placed on a plane: namely, that the vertical passing through its center of gravity falls within the polygon traced between the outermost points of support of the body itself.6. Dynamics
Dynamics, considered by the ancients as less useful and interesting than statics and erroneously conceived and formulated by them, began to arouse greater interest shortly before the time of L. as a doctrine necessary for the study of the motion of projectiles; but soon the lack of reliable previous studies was felt. L. arrived at the first sufficiently precise notions of several of the necessary elements, namely force, percussion, impetus, and, by his simple definition of force, he immediately opposed Aristotle regarding the motion of projectiles and arrows, firmly asserting that the medium (air) not only does not favor it but indeed slows it down and shortens II. L. must have deeply meditated on these questions, made difficult by widespread preconceived errors supported by the authority of Aristotle, and thus he arrived at the notion that we now call inertia of material masses; his assertions, as well as the whole body of his considerations, leave no doubt on this point: “Every motion tends to its maintenance, or every moved body always moves, as long as the power of its mover remains within it” and “Every motion will continue along the path of its course in a straight line, as long as the nature of the force exerted by its mover endures in it.” Thus the first of the three classical laws of motion was definitively established. L., however, did not succeed in clearly deducing the second, which we now call the Galilei-Newton law, but in compensation he had a clear idea of the third regarding the equality of action and reaction. Nevertheless, despite not yet having a complete knowledge of the laws of motion, L. managed to establish many of the characteristics of the phenomenon of free fall of bodies: the proportionality of the velocity attained and the time employed; the independence of such velocity from the weight of the body; the deviation of falling heavy bodies toward the east (owing to the Earth’s rotation). He was also able to determine the relationships between free fall and motion on inclined planes and to observe that motion along given curved paths is always slower than motion along the respective chords.7. Strength of Materials
In this field L. distinguishes among the various kinds of resistance (to tension, compression, bending, etc.) and for their determination follows the only criterion then possible, that of comparison. Thus he arrives at establishing an entire series of true laws concerning vertical supports of various sections (square, circular, etc.) loaded from above, horizontal beams fixed at one end and loaded at the other, beams fixed at both ends, beams supported at the ends, partially determining for the latter also the law of bending for a central load. For the execution of the necessary measurements and for experimental checks L. devised various devices, among which a testing bench for the tension of metal wires. The accurate drawings of such devices, made about 450 years ago, show a striking resemblance to those of analogous modern devices.8. Science of Building Construction and Mechanics
L. undoubtedly had a clear idea of what this difficult discipline should be, which often pursues antithetical aims such as the robustness of constructions and the economy of materials. Indeed, he attempted a first theory of the circular arch, already used since the most remote times, with and without chains, becoming aware of its thrusts, its critical points or points of greatest stress even under asymmetric loads. Considering the contrast between the robustness of the complete arch and the weakness and instability of the two halves that constitute it when taken separately, he describes the arch as “a strong thing and a strong cup formed by two weaknesses.” The devices devised by L. to facilitate large constructions, to lift heavy weights, to facilitate excavations, etc., are extremely numerous. Also of great interest are his studies on friction, which he distinguishes into sliding and rolling, and for which he experimentally determines some laws using criteria analogous to those employed three centuries later by C. A. Coulomb in his classic researches.
9. Mechanics of Fluids
In his numerous hydraulic works, especially in Lombardy, L. did not content himself, clearly, with following the ancient empirical rules derived from similar works carried out over the centuries, but sought to understand as well as possible what pertains to the statics and dynamics of fluids (liquids or aeriforms). Of hydrostatics he enunciates the fundamental principle, which he applies to the vast communications with liquids of differing densities, and gives the exact interpretation of the hydrostatic paradox. Of the dynamics of flowing waters L. arrives at the fundamental principle of constant flow rate, which states that in a watercourse with varying sections, under steady conditions, the velocities are everywhere inversely proportional to the sections. Regarding aeriforms L. had exact ideas about compressibility and weight. He was the first to interpret the flight of birds on the basis of the support provided by air beneath the wings in motion relative to the surrounding air, with sufficient velocity, noting the interesting fact that this velocity must be greater than that of the air that escapes. L. also enunciates the general principle now called the principle of aerodynamic reciprocity.10. Physics
L. certainly knew the other branches of physics of his time, but he concerned himself with them only incidentally in their further development; instead, he made extensive use of them to solve the numerous problems that presented themselves to his mind. Thus, from the reflection of light on a spherical surface he derived a notable interpretation of the ashen light of the moon; from his knowledge of the camera obscura, already known to the Arabs, he was led to discover in every eye a small dark chamber which is now considered the primary element for any vision. He also concerned himself with the interpretation of light, which he admitted propagates in air and in the ether by waves analogous to those of sound, but at first instantaneously and then almost instantaneously.11. The inventions of L., that is, his new complex discoveries capable of achieving certain practical results, are incredibly numerous and varied: from some machine tools analogous to those reinvented in the 19th century, to every kind of lifting apparatus; from the improved lock gates of canals, to rotating bridges; from drills and boring machines operated by gears, to rolling mills; from rotating chimney covers to turn with the wind to avoid smoke backflow, to windmill roofs with movable vanes; from chains now called Gall’s chains, such as those now used for bicycles, to compass suspensions reinvented by Cardano; from presses for printing, to mechanical roasting spits, etc. There are also numerous studies by L. of military interest, ranging from those for assaulting fortresses to those relating to organ cannons and machine guns.
12. The problem of mechanical flight long occupied L.’s mind and was often considered by him as utopian.
Fixation: a judgment that the achievements of this century have shown to be rash. It is true that L. could not have the satisfaction of seeing any practical result of his ideas on flight; but today we know that what was essentially lacking was not the knowledge of the phenomenon of lift, which he in fact first interpreted quite correctly, but the inability to have at one's disposal the necessary dynamic power, or, in more popular terms, a sufficiently powerful and light engine. Some express their surprise that L. did not immediately grasp the futility of his efforts given that impossibility. But to gain a serious understanding of this difficult question, one must consider that the problem of flight implied two orders of difficulty: that of understanding whether and how a heavier-than-air machine could fly mechanically; and that of providing it with the necessary mechanical power. Birds, heavier than air, fly, and today we know that they fly very economically in relation to their energy expenditure. It was therefore logical to try to imitate them. But man does not have within himself the necessary devices for lift, and if he must procure them artificially: in other words, to fly he had to carry with him in flight the necessary lifting organs and therefore have at his disposal a dynamic power far superior to his own. Nature has endowed birds with a strength, relative to their weight, superior to that of humans; and yet it is barely sufficient for them to take flight; when they are in flight, the perfection of the wings provided to them by nature allows them to remain aloft with little expenditure of force: but it is well known that large birds, even eagles, cannot begin their flight unless they have before them a certain free space which they traverse, even helping themselves with their feet. Given this premise, one understands why L. did not immediately intuit the necessity of powerful auxiliary engines; the problem implied the resolution of a question that was no longer qualitative but quantitative, physical and physiological, for which one must resort to the universal conservative principles of which only around the middle of the last century did one gain an exact notion.
Among the countless flight devices sketched by L. was also an apparatus fundamentally analogous to the modern helicopter. There can be no doubt that an apparatus so constituted and equipped with a sufficient engine could have lifted itself off the ground.
Paolo Strano
V. HIS WRITINGS
The legend of a secret and almost sorcerous scientific and intellectual activity of L. must be dispelled: it is known that he showed his writings with justifiable pride to friends (letter of Antonio De Beatis); unfortunately, he had not received an adequate early education to learn an orderly method of composition; not only does he repeat and take up again at random from his various notebooks, but he corrects himself by repeating himself. Another obstacle was his curious handwriting, which, being left-handed, he adopted from a young age, due to a complex of logic and eccentricity rather than a desire for secrecy; this handwriting, which at first glance appears indecipherable, is in fact legible without excessive difficulty with the aid of a mirror. In his notebooks are accumulated various subjects, drawings, reading notes, his own thoughts, etc.The most orderly part of his writing appears to be that on painting, which seems to have been completed as early as 1498. Of the autograph, only a few fragments remain today, but copies were circulating by the mid-sixteenth century, among which the ms. Vat. Urb. no. 1270, which gives us the most faithful and least incomplete text. The Urbino manuscript was followed in the edition by Manzi (Rome 1817) and has been authoritative. But until then, from other versions there had been no fewer than 20 editions and translations, the first of which in 1651, edited by R. Du Fresne. This Treatise on Painting consists of 935 little chapters: general concepts, observations on optics, on actions and subjects, on elements of landscape, shadows, plants, trees, etc.; it undoubtedly contains some of the most important pages by L.; but by itself it does not give us an exact sense of his mentality, and reading it must be supplemented by that of the fragments scattered in the other manuscripts.
Alongside the Treatise, the largest body of Leonardo’s writings is made up of the 1600 sheets of various sizes (and thus from various notebooks and on various subjects) gathered by Pompeo Leoni, pasted onto large sheets of paper without any order in a large volume, known as the Codex Atlanticus, at the Ambrosiana since 1637. From the Ambrosiana, Napoleonic dispersals led to the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France another 12 volumes on various subjects; of notable size is the manuscript of the Arundel collection at the British Museum (566 sheets), the others being smaller; in total, about thirty volumes and notebooks have come down to us, along with small groups of sheets, an imposing testimony to L.’s mental activity, although by no means complete. Their publication, accompanied by facsimiles, began with Ch. Ravaisson Mollien in 1881 for the manuscripts of the Institut de France; within a few decades, from various quarters, the publication of the others followed.
VI. LEONARDO’S PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
Although one may hesitate to speak of L. as a philosopher, given the fragmentary and unsystematic nature of his writings, a philosophical thought can nonetheless be clearly recognized in numerous fragments.L. is convinced of a Reason that “infuses life” throughout the world, a world shaped by it across the immensity of time in a perpetual dying and rebirth of things and forms; and man is capable of comprehending the cosmic Reason because his spirit participates in the spirit of the world, his soul is a spark of the soul of the world. “This is the true rule by which those who speculate about natural effects must proceed, and although Nature begins from reason and ends in experience, we must proceed in the opposite manner, that is, beginning from experience and with it investigate reason” (E. 55 r.). The activity of the spirit thus follows a cycle; the cosmic Reason descends, realizing itself, to the individual fact; human reason ascends from the individual fact to the cosmic Reason.
And although there are not lacking, as was inevitable in his time, hints of a veristic and imitative aesthetics, it is clear elsewhere that his most deeply rooted and profound thought, consistent with his entire mentality, is of an art that creates new beauties, new imagined and desired visions, according to the very laws of nature: “What is in the Universe in essence, presence, and imagination, he (the painter) has first in his mind and then in his hands.” For L., it is not a matter of mechanically capturing aspects of a nature alien to the painter, but of representing new things as creations of the “mind of nature,” a poetic continuation of the same natural reasons. This mentality explains the extreme laboriousness and complexity of each of his works of art, the slowness, the small number—as has been seen—of his paintings and sculptures, almost halved then by technical uncertainties and unfortunate events.
VII. LEONARDO’S LITERARY STYLE
As for L.’s style, its merits are widely recognized: where irregularities of composition do not too much hinder it, his prose is ample and of fine breadth; his language is rich and refined; in descriptions of countryside, scenes, and animals, his word has unexpected precision, one feels the image emerging from the discovery of forms. Of great taste and elegance in fables, faces, and allegories, where there is often evident use of texts easily accessible to him: a writer of authentic originality and personality, neither popular nor following established literary types. — See plates LXXII–LXXIV.Critical editions of L.’s writings. The most important for the mass of manuscripts published are: Ch. Ravaisson Mollien, *I manoscritti A-M della Bibl. dell’Institut*, 6 vols., Paris 1881–91; G. Piumati, *Il Cod. Atlantico*, Milan 1894–1904; (see also: *Indice per materie del Cod. Atlantico*, 1919; *Dizionario leonardesco. Repertorio delle voci e cose contenute nel Cod. Atlantico*, 1919); R. Commissione Vinciana, *Cod. Arundel 263*, Rome 1923–30; id., *Il Cod. Forster*, 1919–30; *Disegni*; R. Commissione Vinciana, *Disegni di L. da V.*, ed. A. Venturi, 6 fasc., Rome 1928–49; *Il trattato della pittura* (from Vat. Urb. 1270) was published by G. Manzi, Rome 1817; ed. and trans. by H. Ludwig, Vienna 1882; ed. A. Borzelli, Lanciano 1914. — Anthologies of Leonardo: J. P. Richter, *The Literary Works of L. d. V.*, London 1883 and London–New York 1939; L. d. V., *Frammenti letterari e filosofici* selected by E. Solmi, Florence 1900; L. d. V., *der Denker, Forscher, n. Poet*, trans. and introd. by M. Herzfeld, Leipzig 1904, Jena 1906; L. d. V.’s *note books arranged*… ed. E. Mc Curdy, New York 1923–46; G. Fumagalli, *L. prosatore*, Milan 1915; id., *L. omo sanza lettere*, Florence 1938.
Studies: On the life and artistic work of L.: G. Uzzelli, *Ricerche intorno a L. d. V.*, 1st–2nd series, Florence 1872 and Rome 1888; P. Müller-Walde, *L. d. V.*, Munich 1889–90; W. Pater, *The Renaissance*, London 1893; Italian trans. by de Rinaldis, Naples 1925; Italian trans. by Praz, 1914; E. Muntz, *L. d. V. L’artiste, le penseur, le savant*, Paris 1890; B. Berenson, *The drawings of the Florentine painters*, London 1903 and enlarged, Chicago 1938; Thijs Jens, *L. d. V.*, Kristiania 1909, English trans., London 1914; W. V. SEDULIO, *L. d. V., der Venedempter der Renaissance*, Berlin 1909; O. Sirén, *L. d. V.*, Stockholm 1911, English trans. London 1916, French trans. Paris 1928; Venturi, VII, IV (1915), p. 931; IX, 1 (1925); X, 1 (1935), p. 1; L. Beltrami, *Doc. e mem. riguardanti la vita e le opere di L. d. V. in ordine cronologico*, Milan 1919; G. Poggi, *L. d. V. La vita di G. Vasari*, commented and illustrated, Florence 1919; L. Venturi, *La critica e l’arte di L. d. V.*, Bologna 1919; A. Venturi, *L. d. V., pittore*, 1919; A. De Rinaldis, *Storia dell’opera pittorica di L. d. V.*, 1916; W. Suida, *L. u. sein Kreis*, Munich 1929; H. Bodmer, *L. Stoccarda* 1931; B. Degenhart, *Di alcuni problemi di sviluppo… della pittura nella bottega di Verrocchio…* in *Rivista d’arte*, 2nd series, 3 (1931), pp. 263–403; K. Clark, *A cat. of the drawings of L. d. V.… at Windsor Castle*, Cambridge 1935; C. Calvi, *Vita di L.*, Brescia 1936; K. Clark, *L. d. V.*, Cambridge 1939; *Mostra di L. d. V.*, Catalogue, Milan 1939; R. Marcolongo, *L. d. V., artista scienziato*, 1919; L. d. V., ed. by the *Mostra di L. d. V.*, 1919 (39 essays by various authors on diverse topics); L. Bottari, *L.*, Bergamo 1942; L. H. Heydenreich, *L.*, Berlin 1943; O. H. Giglioli, *L.*, introduction to knowledge of him, Florence 1944; R. L. Douglas, *L. d. V.*, Chicago 1944; A. E. Popham, *The drawings of L.*, London 1947; P. Valéry, *Stendhal and other authors*, *Toute l’oeuvre peinte de L. d. V.* (colour reproductions), Paris 1950.
On his writings and scientific and philosophical activity: G. B. Venturi, *Essai sur les ouvrages physico-chiménatiques de L.*, Paris 1797; G. Libri, *Hist. des sciences mathématiques en Italie* etc., ibid. 1838; E. Solmi, *Studi sulla filosofia naturale di L.*, Modena 1866; id., *Nuovi studi sulla fil. naturale*, ibid. 1905; id., *Scritti vinciani*, collected by A. Solmi, Florence 1924; P. Duhem, *Études sur L. d. V.*, 3rd series, Paris 1906–13; B. Croce, *L. filosofo*, in *Conference fiorentine*, Milan 1910; L. Olschki, *Gesch. d. neuusprach. wissenschaftl. Lit.*, Heidelberg 1918; G. Gentile, *G. Bruno e il pensiero del Rinascimento*, Florence 1920, pp. 242 seq.; G. Calvi, *I manoscritti di L. d. V.*, Bologna 1925; E. Cassirer, *Individuum. Kosmos in der Phil. der Ren.*, Leipzig–Berlin 1927; Italian trans., Florence 1927, pp. 180–211; R. Marcolongo, *La dinamica di L. d. V.*, in *Rend. del Sem. Mat. e Fis. di Milano*, 3 (1926), p. 109; id., *La meccanica di L. d. V.*, in *Atti della R. acc. delle scienze di Napoli*, 2nd series, 19 (1932), pp. 1–150; E. Mc Curdy, *The mind of L. d. V.*, London 1932; R. Giacomelli, *Gli scritti di L. sul volo*, Rome 1936; A. Uccelli, *Vicende e metodi delle ricostruzioni vinciane*, in *Il Politecnico*, 1937, p. 329 seq.; A. Farinelli, *L. e la natura*, Milan 1939; E. Panofsky, *The cod. Huyghens and L. d. V.’s Art Theory*, London 1940; F. Bottazzi, *La mente e l’opera di L. d. V.*, Vatican City 1941; A. Momigliano, *La prosa di L.*, in *Cinque Saggi*, Florence 1945, pp. 100 seq.; L. Venturi, *Storia della critica d’arte*, ibid. 1948; R. Dugas, *Hist. de la meccanique*, Paris–Neuchâtel 1950, pp. 71 seq.