Notebooks
Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells
Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques
Table of Contents
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
NOTEBOOKS
LEONARDO DA VINCI was born in Tuscany in 1452, the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary. By the age of 20 he was in Florence where he became a pupil of Verrocchio. Around 1482 he left Florence for Milan, where he was to live for the next seventeen years. It was here that he undertook many of his scientific investigations and painted many of his greatest pictures, including
The Last Supper
. He returned to Florence in 1500 and stayed there for several years, during which time he painted the
Mona Lisa
. He returned to Milan where he stayed until 1513 when he went to Rome. His final years were spent in France, where he died in 1519. As well as a great artist, Leonardo was a deeply curious scientist and passionately interested in all branches of knowledge. His notebooks—covered in sketches of flowers, clouds, birds, human anatomy, and designs for flying machines, fortifications, and waterways—testify to his unquenchable curiosity and restless, acute intelligence.
The Last Supper
. He returned to Florence in 1500 and stayed there for several years, during which time he painted the
Mona Lisa
. He returned to Milan where he stayed until 1513 when he went to Rome. His final years were spent in France, where he died in 1519. As well as a great artist, Leonardo was a deeply curious scientist and passionately interested in all branches of knowledge. His notebooks—covered in sketches of flowers, clouds, birds, human anatomy, and designs for flying machines, fortifications, and waterways—testify to his unquenchable curiosity and restless, acute intelligence.
IRMA A. RICHTER was the daughter of Jean Paul Richter, who first translated Leonardo’s writings in
The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.
The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.
THEREZA WELLS is a Research Fellow at the University of the Arts, London. She has worked on exhibitions at a number of museums in Britain and America, and was associate curator of the V&A’s exhibition,
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design.
She is one of the founders, with Martin Kemp, of the Universal Leonardo project.
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design.
She is one of the founders, with Martin Kemp, of the Universal Leonardo project.
MARTIN KEMP is Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford. He is the author of
Leonardo
, and
Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man
and the driving force behind the Universal Leonardo project.
Leonardo
, and
Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man
and the driving force behind the Universal Leonardo project.
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
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Selection © Oxford University Press 1952, 2008
Introduction © Thereza Wells 2008
Preface © Martin Kemp 2008
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 1952. First published in Oxford World’s Classics 1980
New edition 2008
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519
Notebooks / Leonardo da Vinci; selected by Irma A. Richter; edited with an introduction and notes by Thereza Wells; preface by Martin Kemp. p. cm.—(Oxford world’s classics)
First published in 1952.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-929902-7 (alk. paper)
1. Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519—Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
I. Richter, Irma A. (Irma Anne) II. Wells, Thereza. III. Leonardo, da Vinci,
1452-1519. Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. IV. Title.
ND623.L5A4 2008
709.2—dc22
2007042346
Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd., St Ives plc
ISBN 978-0-19-929902-7
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
PREFACE
MARTIN KEMP
LEONARDO’s notebooks are amongst the most remarkable survivals in the history of human culture. There is nothing quite like them in art, science, and technology. The extraordinary fluency of his thought, unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries, and the brilliance of his graphic techniques are unrivalled. Probably about four-fifths of what he wrote has disappeared, but what remains is extraordinary in range and depth.
The existence of the notebooks and caches of drawings (inherited by his immediate heir, Francesco Melzi) was known in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, not least to artists like Poussin and Rubens. Melzi’s pious compilation of the
Treatise on Painting
, which contains many passages from manuscripts that are no longer traceable, was published in Italian and French in 1651. However, by the nineteenth century there was very little knowledge of the extent or contents of Leonardo’s manuscript legacy. Jean Paul Richter changed all that. His editions of Leonardo in English and German effectively revealed an unknown Leonardo.
Treatise on Painting
, which contains many passages from manuscripts that are no longer traceable, was published in Italian and French in 1651. However, by the nineteenth century there was very little knowledge of the extent or contents of Leonardo’s manuscript legacy. Jean Paul Richter changed all that. His editions of Leonardo in English and German effectively revealed an unknown Leonardo.
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