The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (3 page)

[Footnote: The leaf on which this passage is written, is headed with
the words
Casi
39, and most of these cases begin with the word
'
Come
', like the two here given, which are the 26th and 27th. 7.
Sughero
. In the Codex Antlanticus 377a; 1170a there is a sketch,
drawn with the pen, representing a man with a tube in his mouth, and
at the farther end of the tube a disk. By the tube the word
'
Channa
' is written, and by the disk the word '
sughero
'.]

The preparation of the MSS. for publication.

2.

When you put together the science of the motions of water, remember
to include under each proposition its application and use, in order
that this science may not be useless.—

[Footnote: A comparatively small portion of Leonardo's notes on
water-power was published at Bologna in 1828, under the title: "
Del
moto e misura dell'Acqua, di L. da Vinci
".]

Admonition to readers.

3.

Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.

The disorder in the MSS.

4.

Begun at Florence, in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli, on the
22nd day of March 1508. And this is to be a collection without
order, taken from many papers which I have copied here, hoping to
arrange them later each in its place, according to the subjects of
which they may treat. But I believe that before I am at the end of
this [task] I shall have to repeat the same things several times;
for which, O reader! do not blame me, for the subjects are many and
memory cannot retain them [all] and say: 'I will not write this
because I wrote it before.' And if I wished to avoid falling into
this fault, it would be necessary in every case when I wanted to
copy [a passage] that, not to repeat myself, I should read over all
that had gone before; and all the more since the intervals are long
between one time of writing and the next.

[Footnote: 1. In the history of Florence in the early part of the
XVIth century
Piero di Braccio Martelli
is frequently mentioned as
Commissario della Signoria
. He was famous for his learning and at
his death left four books on Mathematics ready for the press; comp.
LITTA,
Famiglie celebri Italiane
,
Famiglia Martelli di
Firenze
.—In the Official Catalogue of MSS. in the Brit. Mus., New
Series Vol. I., where this passage is printed,
Barto
has been
wrongly given for Braccio.

2.
addi 22 di marzo 1508
. The Christian era was computed in
Florence at that time from the Incarnation (Lady day, March 25th).
Hence this should be 1509 by our reckoning.

3.
racolto tratto di molte carte le quali io ho qui copiate
. We
must suppose that Leonardo means that he has copied out his own MSS.
and not those of others. The first thirteen leaves of the MS. in the
Brit. Mus. are a fair copy of some notes on physics.]

Suggestions for the arrangement of MSS treating of particular
subjects.(5-8).

5.

Of digging a canal. Put this in the Book of useful inventions and in
proving them bring forward the propositions already proved. And this
is the proper order; since if you wished to show the usefulness of
any plan you would be obliged again to devise new machines to prove
its utility and thus would confuse the order of the forty Books and
also the order of the diagrams; that is to say you would have to mix
up practice with theory, which would produce a confused and
incoherent work.

6.

I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on
science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.

7.

The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful
inventions.—Have your books on anatomy bound! [Footnote: 4. The
numerous notes on anatomy written on loose leaves and now in the
Royal collection at Windsor can best be classified in four Books,
corresponding to the different character and size of the paper. When
Leonardo speaks of '
li tua libri di notomia
', he probably means
the MSS. which still exist; if this hypothesis is correct the
present condition of these leaves might seem to prove that he only
carried out his purpose with one of the Books on anatomy. A borrowed
book on Anatomy is mentioned in F.O.]

8.

The order of your book must proceed on this plan: first simple
beams, then (those) supported from below, then suspended in part,
then wholly [suspended]. Then beams as supporting other weights
[Footnote: 4. Leonardo's notes on Mechanics are extraordinarily
numerous; but, for the reasons assigned in my introduction, they
have not been included in the present work.].

General introductions to the book on Painting (9-13).

9.

Seeing that I can find no subject specially useful or
pleasing—since the men who have come before me have taken for their
own every useful or necessary theme—I must do like one who, being
poor, comes last to the fair, and can find no other way of providing
himself than by taking all the things already seen by other buyers,
and not taken but refused by reason of their lesser value. I, then,
will load my humble pack with this despised and rejected
merchandise, the refuse of so many buyers; and will go about to
distribute it, not indeed in great cities, but in the poorer towns,
taking such a price as the wares I offer may be worth. [Footnote: It
need hardly be pointed out that there is in this 'Proemio' a covert
irony. In the second and third prefaces, Leonardo characterises his
rivals and opponents more closely. His protest is directed against
Neo-latinism as professed by most of the humanists of his time; its
futility is now no longer questioned.]

10.

I know that many will call this useless work [Footnote: 3. questa
essere opera inutile. By opera we must here understand libro di
pittura and particularly the treatise on Perspective.]; and they
will be those of whom Demetrius [Footnote: 4. Demetrio. "With regard
to the passage attributed to Demetrius", Dr. H. M�LLER STR�BING
writes, "I know not what to make of it. It is certainly not
Demetrius Phalereus that is meant and it can hardly be Demetrius
Poliorcetes. Who then can it be—for the name is a very common one?
It may be a clerical error for Demades and the maxim is quite in the
spirit of his writings I have not however been able to find any
corresponding passage either in the 'Fragments' (C. MULLER,
Orat.
Att.
, II. 441) nor in the Supplements collected by DIETZ (
Rhein.
Mus.
, vol. 29, p. 108)."

The same passage occurs as a simple Memorandum in the MS. Tr. 57,
apparently as a note for this '
Proemio
' thus affording some data
as to the time where these introductions were written.] declared
that he took no more account of the wind that came out their mouth
in words, than of that they expelled from their lower parts: men who
desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that
of wisdom, which is the food and the only true riches of the mind.
For so much more worthy as the soul is than the body, so much more
noble are the possessions of the soul than those of the body. And
often, when I see one of these men take this work in his hand, I
wonder that he does not put it to his nose, like a monkey, or ask me
if it is something good to eat.

[Footnote: In the original, the Proemio d� prospettiva cio�
dell'uffitio dell'occhio (see No. 21) stands between this and the
preceding one, No. 9.]

I am fully concious that, not being a literary man, certain
presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me;
alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not
know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians
[Footnote 21:
Come Mario disse ai patriti Romani
. "I am unable to
find the words here attributed by Leonardo to Marius, either in
Plutarch's Life of Marius or in the Apophthegmata (
Moralia
,
p.202). Nor do they occur in the writings of Valerius Maximus (who
frequently mentions Marius) nor in Velleius Paterculus (II, 11 to
43), Dio Cassius, Aulus Gellius, or Macrobius. Professor E.
MENDELSON of Dorpat, the editor of Herodian, assures me that no such
passage is the found in that author" (communication from Dr. MULLER
STRUBING). Leonardo evidently meant to allude to some well known
incident in Roman history and the mention of Marius is the result
probably of some confusion. We may perhaps read, for Marius,
Menenius Agrippa, though in that case it is true we must alter
Patriti to Plebei. The change is a serious one. but it would render
the passage perfectly clear.] by saying: That they, who deck
themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own.
They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly
express that which I desire to treat of [Footnote 26:
le mie cose
…. che d'altra parola
. This can hardly be reconciled with Mons.
RAVAISSON'S estimate of L. da Vinci's learning. "
Leonard de Vinci
etait un admirateur et un disciple des anciens, aussi bien dans
l'art que dans la science et il tenait a passer pour tel meme aux
yeux de la posterite.
" _Gaz. des Beaux arts. Oct. 1877.]; but they
do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience
rather than by words [Footnote 28: See Footnote 26]; and
[experience] has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so,
as mistress, I will cite her in all cases.

11.

Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall
rely on that which is much greater and more worthy:—on experience,
the mistress of their Masters. They go about puffed up and pompous,
dressed and decorated with [the fruits], not of their own labours,
but of those of others. And they will not allow me my own. They will
scorn me as an inventor; but how much more might they—who are not
inventors but vaunters and declaimers of the works of others—be
blamed.

And those men who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and
Man, as compared with boasters and declaimers of the works of
others, must be regarded and not otherwise esteemed than as the
object in front of a mirror, when compared with its image seen in
the mirror. For the first is something in itself, and the other
nothingness.—Folks little indebted to Nature, since it is only by
chance that they wear the human form and without it I might class
them with the herds of beasts.

12.

Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my
proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the
highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering
that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience, who is
the one true mistress. These rules are sufficient to enable you to
know the true from the false—and this aids men to look only for
things that are possible and with due moderation—and not to wrap
yourself in ignorance, a thing which can have no good result, so
that in despair you would give yourself up to melancholy.

13.

Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons Light chiefly
delights the beholder; and among the great features of Mathematics
the certainty of its demonstrations is what preeminently (tends to)
elevate the mind of the investigator. Perspective, therefore, must
be preferred to all the discourses and systems of human learning. In
this branch [of science] the beam of light is explained on those
methods of demonstration which form the glory not so much of
Mathematics as of Physics and are graced with the flowers of both
[Footnote: 5. Such of Leonardo's notes on Optics or on Perspective
as bear exclusively on Mathematics or Physics could not be included
in the arrangement of the
libro di pittura
which is here presented
to the reader. They are however but few.]. But its axioms being laid
down at great length, I shall abridge them to a conclusive brevity,
arranging them on the method both of their natural order and of
mathematical demonstration; sometimes by deduction of the effects
from the causes, and sometimes arguing the causes from the effects;
adding also to my own conclusions some which, though not included in
them, may nevertheless be inferred from them. Thus, if the Lord—who
is the light of all things—vouchsafe to enlighten me, I will treat
of Light; wherefore I will divide the present work into 3 Parts
[Footnote: 10. In the middle ages—for instance, by ROGER BACON, by
VITELLONE, with whose works Leonardo was certainly familiar, and by
all the writers of the Renaissance Perspective and Optics were not
regarded as distinct sciences. Perspective, indeed, is in its widest
application the science of seeing. Although to Leonardo the two
sciences were clearly separate, it is not so as to their names; thus
we find axioms in Optics under the heading Perspective. According to
this arrangement of the materials for the theoretical portion of the
libro di pittura
propositions in Perspective and in Optics stand
side by side or occur alternately. Although this particular chapter
deals only with Optics, it is not improbable that the words
partir�
la presente opera in 3 parti
may refer to the same division into
three sections which is spoken of in chapters 14 to 17.].

The plan of the book on Painting (14—17).

14.

There are three branches of perspective; the first deals with the
reasons of the (apparent) diminution of objects as they recede from
the eye, and is known as Diminishing Perspective.—The second
contains the way in which colours vary as they recede from the eye.
The third and last is concerned with the explanation of how the
objects [in a picture] ought to be less finished in proportion as
they are remote (and the names are as follows):