The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (44 page)

700.

He who offends others, does not secure himself.

[Footnote: See PI. LX, No. 3.]

701.

Ingratitude.

[Footnote: See PI. LX, No. 4. Below the bottom sketches are the
unintelligible words "
sta stilli
." For "
Ingratitudo
" compare
also Nos. 686 and 687.]

702.

One's thoughts turn towards Hope.

[Footnote: 702. By the side of this passage is a sketch of
a cage with a bird sitting in it.]

Ornaments and Decorations for feasts (703-705).

703.

A bird, for a comedy.

[Footnote: The biographies say so much, and the author's notes say
so little of the invention attributed to Leonardo of making
artificial birds fly through the air, that the text here given is of
exceptional interest from being accompanied by a sketch. It is a
very slight drawing of a bird with outspread wings, which appears to
be sliding down a stretched string. Leonardo's flying machines and
his studies of the flight of birds will be referred to later.]

704.

To make a beautiful dress cut it in thin cloth and give it an
odoriferous varnish, made of oil of turpentine and of varnish in
grain, with a pierced stencil, which must be wetted, that it may not
stick to the cloth; and this stencil may be made in a pattern of
knots which afterwards may be filled up with black and the ground
with white millet.[Footnote 7: The grains of black and white millet
would stick to the varnish and look like embroidery.]

[Footnote: Ser Giuliano, da Vinci the painter's brother, had been
commissioned, with some others, to order and to execute the garments
of the Allegorical figures for the Carnival at Florence in 1515—16;
VASARI however is incorrect in saying of the Florentine Carnival of
1513: "
equelli che feciono ed ordinarono gli abiti delle figure
furono Ser Piero da Vinci, padre di Lonardo, e Bernardino di
Giordano, bellissimi ingegni
" (See MILANESI'S ed. Voi. VI, pg.
251.)]

705.

Snow taken from the high peaks of mountains might be carried to hot
places and let to fall at festivals in open places at summer time.

*** End of Volume 1

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

Translated by Jean Paul Richter

1888

The notes on Sculpture.

Compared with the mass of manuscript treating of Painting, a very
small number of passages bearing on the practice and methods of
Sculpture are to be found scattered through the note books; these
are here given at the beginning of this section (Nos. 706-709).
There is less cause for surprise at finding that the equestrian
statue of Francesco Sforza is only incidentally spoken of; for,
although Leonardo must have worked at it for a long succession of
years, it is not in the nature of the case that it could have given
rise to much writing. We may therefore regard it as particularly
fortunate that no fewer than thirteen notes in the master's
handwriting can be brought together, which seem to throw light on
the mysterious history of this famous work. Until now writers on
Leonardo were acquainted only with the passages numbered 712, 719,
720, 722 and 723.

In arranging these notes on sculpture I have given the precedence to
those which treat of the casting of the monument, not merely because
they are the fullest, but more especially with a view to
reconstructing the monument, an achievement which really almost lies
within our reach by combining and comparing the whole of the
materials now brought to light, alike in notes and in sketches.

A good deal of the first two passages, Nos. 710 and 711, which refer
to this subject seems obscure and incomprehensible; still, they
supplement each other and one contributes in no small degree to the
comprehension of the other. A very interesting and instructive
commentary on these passages may be found in the fourth chapter of
Vasari's Introduzione della Scultura under the title "Come si fanno
i modelli per fare di bronzo le figure grandi e picciole, e come le
forme per buttarle; come si armino di ferri, e come si gettino di
metallo," &c. Among the drawings of models of the moulds for casting
we find only one which seems to represent the horse in the act of
galloping—No. 713. All the other designs show the horse as pacing
quietly and as these studies of the horse are accompanied by copious
notes as to the method of casting, the question as to the position
of the horse in the model finally selected, seems to be decided by
preponderating evidence. "Il cavallo dello Sforza"—C. Boito remarks
very appositely in the Saggio on page 26, "doveva sembrare fratello
al cavallo del Colleoni. E si direbbe che questo fosse figlio del
cavallo del Gattamelata, il quale pare figlio di uno dei quattro
cavalli che stavano forse sull' Arco di Nerone in Roma" (now at
Venice). The publication of the Saggio also contains the
reproduction of a drawing in red chalk, representing a horse walking
to the left and supported by a scaffolding, given here on Pl. LXXVI,
No. 1. It must remain uncertain whether this represents the model as
it stood during the preparations for casting it, or whether—as
seems to me highly improbable—this sketch shows the model as it was
exhibited in 1493 on the Piazza del Castello in Milan under a
triumphal arch, on the occasion of the marriage of the Emperor
Maximilian to Bianca Maria Sforza. The only important point here is
to prove that strong evidence seems to show that, of the numerous
studies for the equestrian statue, only those which represent the
horse pacing agree with the schemes of the final plans.

The second group of preparatory sketches, representing the horse as
galloping, must therefore be considered separately, a distinction
which, in recapitulating the history of the origin of the monument
seems justified by the note given under No. 720.

Galeazza Maria Sforza was assassinated in 1476 before his scheme for
erecting a monument to his father Francesco Sforza could be carried
into effect. In the following year Ludovico il Moro the young
aspirant to the throne was exiled to Pisa, and only returned to
Milan in 1479 when he was Lord (Governatore) of the State of Milan,
in 1480 after the minister Cecco Simonetta had been murdered. It may
have been soon after this that Ludovico il Moro announced a
competition for an equestrian statue, and it is tolerably certain
that Antonio del Pollajuolo took part in it, from this passage in
Vasari's Life of this artist: "E si trovo, dopo la morte sua, il
disegno e modello che a Lodovico Sforza egli aveva fatto per la
statua a cavallo di Francesco Sforza, duca di Milano; il quale
disegno e nel nostro Libro, in due modi: in uno egli ha sotto
Verona; nell'altro, egli tutto armato, e sopra un basamento pieno di
battaglie, fa saltare il cavallo addosso a un armato; ma la cagione
perche non mettesse questi disegni in opera, non ho gia potuto
sapere." One of Pollajuolo's drawings, as here described, has lately
been discovered by Senatore Giovanni Morelli in the Munich
Pinacothek. Here the profile of the horseman is a portrait of
Francesco Duke of Milan, and under the horse, who is galloping to
the left, we see a warrior thrown and lying on the ground; precisely
the same idea as we find in some of Leonardo's designs for the
monument, as on Pl. LXVI, LXVII, LXVIII, LXIX and LXXII No. 1; and,
as it is impossible to explain this remarkable coincidence by
supposing that either artist borrowed it from the other, we can only
conclude that in the terms of the competition the subject proposed
was the Duke on a horse in full gallop, with a fallen foe under its
hoofs.

Leonardo may have been in the competition there and then, but the
means for executing the monument do not seem to have been at once
forthcoming. It was not perhaps until some years later that Leonardo
in a letter to the Duke (No. 719) reminded him of the project for
the monument. Then, after he had obeyed a summons to Milan, the plan
seems to have been so far modified, perhaps in consequence of a
remonstrance on the part of the artist, that a pacing horse was
substituted for one galloping, and it may have been at the same time
that the colossal dimensions of the statue were first decided on.
The designs given on Pl. LXX, LXXI, LXXII, 2 and 3, LXXIII and LXXIV
and on pp. 4 and 24, as well as three sketches on Pl. LXIX may be
studied with reference to the project in its new form, though it is
hardly possible to believe that in either of these we see the design
as it was actually carried out. It is probable that in Milan
Leonardo worked less on drawings, than in making small models of wax
and clay as preparatory to his larger model. Among the drawings
enumerated above, one in black chalk, Pl. LXXIII—the upper sketch
on the right hand side, reminds us strongly of the antique statue of
Marcus Aurelius. If, as it would seem, Leonardo had not until then
visited Rome, he might easily have known this statue from drawings
by his former master and friend Verrocchio, for Verrocchio had been
in Rome for a long time between 1470 and 1480. In 1473 Pope Sixtus
IV had this antique equestrian statue restored and placed on a new
pedestal in front of the church of San Giovanni in Luterano.
Leonardo, although he was painting independently as early as in 1472
is still spoken of as working in Verrocchio's studio in 1477. Two
years later the Venetian senate decided on erecting an equestrian
statue to Colleoni; and as Verrocchio, to whom the work was
entrusted, did not at once move from Florence to Venice—where he
died in 1488 before the casting was completed—but on the contrary
remained in Florence for some years, perhaps even till 1485,
Leonardo probably had the opportunity of seeing all his designs for
the equestrian statue at Venice and the red chalk drawing on Pl.
LXXIV may be a reminiscence of it.

The pen and ink drawing on Pl. LXXII, No. 3, reminds us of
Donatello's statue of Gattamelata at Padua. However it does not
appear that Leonardo was ever at Padua before 1499, but we may
conclude that he took a special interest in this early bronze statue
and the reports he could procure of it, form an incidental remark
which is to be found in C. A. 145a; 432a, and which will be given in
Vol. II under Ricordi or Memoranda. Among the studies—in the widest
sense of the word—made in preparation statue we may include the
Anatomy of the Horse which Lomazzo and Vas mention; the most
important parts of this work still exist in the Queen's Li Windsor.
It was beyond a doubt compiled by Leonardo when at Milan; only
interesting records to be found among these designs are reproduced
in Nos. 716a but it must be pointed out that out of 40 sheets of
studies of the movements of the belonging to that treatise, a horse
in full gallop occurs but once.

If we may trust the account given by Paulus Jovius—about l527—
Leonardo's horse was represented as "vehementer incitatus et
anhelatus". Jovius had probably seen the model exhibited at Milan;
but, need we, in fact, infer from this description that the horse
was galloping? Compare Vasari's description of the Gattamelata
monument at Padua: "Egli [Donatello] vi ando ben volentieri, e fece
il cavallo di bronzo, che e in sulla piazza di Sant Antonio, nel
quale si dimostra lo sbuffamento ed il fremito del cavallo, ed il
grande animo e la fierezza vivacissimamente espressa dall'arte nella
figura che lo cavalca".

These descriptions, it seems to me, would only serve to mark the
difference between the work of the middle ages and that of the
renaissance.

We learn from a statement of Sabba da Castiglione that, when Milan
was taken by the French in 1499, the model sustained some injury;
and this informant, who, however is not invariably trustworthy, adds
that Leonardo had devoted fully sixteen years to this work (la forma
del cavallo, intorno a cui Leonardo avea sedici anni continui
consumati). This often-quoted passage has given ground for an
assumption, which has no other evidence to support it, that Leonardo
had lived in Milan ever since 1483. But I believe it is nearer the
truth to suppose that this author's statement alludes to the fact
that about sixteen years must have past since the competition in
which Leonardo had taken part.

I must in these remarks confine myself strictly to the task in hand
and give no more of the history of the Sforza monument than is
needed to explain the texts and drawings I have been able to
reproduce. In the first place, with regard to the drawings, I may
observe that they are all, with the following two exceptions, in the
Queen's Library at Windsor Castle; the red chalk drawing on Pl.
LXXVI No. 1 is in the MS. C. A. (see No. 7l2) and the fragmentary
pen and ink drawing on page 4 is in the Ambrosian Library. The
drawings from Windsor on Pl. LXVI have undergone a trifling
reduction from the size of the originals.

There can no longer be the slightest doubt that the well-known
engraving of several horsemen (Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, Vol.
V, p. 181, No. 3) is only a copy after original drawings by
Leonardo, executed by some unknown engraver; we have only to compare
the engraving with the facsimiles of drawings on Pl. LXV, No. 2, Pl.
LXVII, LXVIII and LXIX which, it is quite evident, have served as
models for the engraver.

On Pl. LXV No. 1, in the larger sketch to the right hand, only the
base is distinctly visible, the figure of the horseman is effaced.
Leonardo evidently found it unsatisfactory and therefore rubbed it
out.

The base of the monument—the pedestal for the equestrian statue—is
repeatedly sketched on a magnificent plan. In the sketch just
mentioned it has the character of a shrine or aedicula to contain a
sarcophagus. Captives in chains are here represented on the
entablature with their backs turned to that portion of the monument
which more

strictly constitutes the pedestal of the horse. The lower portion of
the aedicula is surrounded by columns. In the pen and ink drawing
Pl. LXVI—the lower drawing on the right hand side—the sarcophagus
is shown between the columns, and above the entablature is a plinth
on which the horse stands. But this arrangement perhaps seemed to
Leonardo to lack solidity, and in the little sketch on the left
hand, below, the sarcophagus is shown as lying under an arched
canopy. In this the trophies and the captive warriors are detached
from the angles. In the first of these two sketches the place for
the trophies is merely indicated by a few strokes; in the third
sketch on the left the base is altogether broader, buttresses and
pinnacles having been added so as to form three niches. The black
chalk drawing on Pl. LXVIII shows a base in which the angles are
formed by niches with pilasters. In the little sketch to the extreme
left on Pl. LXV, No. 1, the equestrian statue serves to crown a
circular temple somewhat resembling Bramante's tempietto of San
Pietro in Montario at Rome, while the sketch above to the right
displays an arrangement faintly reminding us of the tomb of the
Scaligers in Verona. The base is thus constructed of two platforms
or slabs, the upper one considerably smaller than the lower one
which is supported on flying buttresses with pinnacles.