NOTE ON THE TEXT
IRMA RICHTER’s selection from the writings of Leonardo was first published in 1952. The selection is based on the translations of Leonardo’s writings into English carried out by her father, Jean Paul Richter, and published in two volumes as The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci in 1883. J. P. Richter’s work was the first comprehensive translation of Leonardo into English and was monumental in its scale and contribution to Leonardo scholarship. Some five thousand manuscript sheets written backwards from right to left (because Leonardo was left-handed) were reviewed. The translations were arranged by subject matter, creating an organized format from which to approach the thousands of disparate sheets. Irma Richter’s selection was also helped in part by Edward MacCurdy’s translations of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, published in 1938.
The present edition maintains this selection in its entirety. It provides an invaluable cross-section of Leonardo’s life and work and serves as both a solid introduction to Leonardo and a useful reference for the scholar. As the selection was made before the discovery of the Madrid Codices in 1967, those sheets are not represented. Richter’s selection from Leonardo’s engineering notes was representative of what was known at the time, but the Madrid studies of the ‘elements of machines’ would undoubtedly have affected the present anthology had they been available. The commentary, references, notes, and index have all been updated, and the rest of the editorial material is new.
The manuscripts and codices from which the selection is taken are to be found in a handful of collections in Europe and the USA. Sources for each of the entries are to be found in the References to Manuscripts and Sources section at the back of the book, keyed by superscript number at the end of each passage in the text. An asterisk in the text refers to an editorial note in the Explanatory Notes (pp. 365-70).
Leonardo’s surviving drawings and manuscripts exist in various shapes and sizes and can be classified into six types: separate sheets, especially drawings for works of art, that have never been part of a bound volume; separate sheets that have later been inserted in bound volumes and either left in the volumes or removed and mounted separately (such as the Windsor drawings); notebooks or volumes bound by Leonardo that have survived more or less in original form; notebooks or volumes bound by Leonardo that have been rebound collectively, either in his lifetime or subsequently (such as the Forster Codices); pages from notebooks or volumes bound by Leonardo that have since been dismembered and mounted separately (such as the Leicester Codex); pages from notebooks or volumes bound by Leonardo that have been subsequently rebound in collections of miscellaneous sheets (such as the Codex Atlanticus and the Codex Arundel).
Leonardo’s intention to order his notes was never realized. The present organization groups together disparate notes on the same subject. The first three chapters deal with science and nature. In the fourth chapter are Leonardo’s notes for a treatise on painting. The fifth chapter contains some of his literary writings—tales and fables—and the sixth chapter gives reflections on life. The final chapter is devoted to references to Leonardo’s personal affairs and work which are arranged chronologically to create a biographical timeline.
The selection is thematic rather than chronological so that Leonardo’s interests, to which he would return again and again over the years, are given a coherence and sense of development. However, this system of organization tends to cloak Leonardo’s intellectual development and approach, especially his lateral way of thinking. The Introduction attempts to fill this gap by outlining his development as a thinker within the context of his life and the world in which he lived.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I could not have reached this place in my journey without Martin Kemp, who has been my Leonardo compass and to whom I owe so much. My husband, Francis Wells, has given me new viewpoints from which to study Leonardo as well as his deep support. My colleague, Marina Wallace, has provided me with the encouraging support of a fellow scholar. I am grateful to Carmen Bambach for allowing me to base the Leonardo chronology on her comprehensive work. The revisions and updates for this edition could not have been carried out without the enthusiastic and thorough efforts of Dafna Talmor and Julie Mazzone. My final thanks must go to my editor, Judith Luna, for her sharp focus, understanding nature, and endless patience.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Monographs and General Works
Brown, D. A., Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius (New Haven and London, 1998).
Chastel, A., Leonardo da Vinci: Studi e ricerche, 1952-1990 (Turin, 1995).
Clark, K., Leonardo da Vinci, ed. M. Kemp (London, 1993).
Farago, C. (ed.), Leonardo’s Writings and Theory of Art, 5 vols. (London, 1999).
Kemp, M., Leonardo (Oxford, 2004).
——Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man (Oxford, 2006).
Marani, P., Leonardo da Vinci (New York, 2003).
Raccolta Vinciana, a regular journal edited by P. Marani.
Zollner, F., and Nathan, J., Leonardo da Vinci (Cologne, 2003).
Editions and Facsimiles
Giunti is publishing a new series of facsimiles of all manuscripts and drawings as the Edizione Nazionale dei Manoscritti e dei Disegni di Leonardo da Vinci (1964- ). Earlier facsimiles were published by the Reale Commissione Vinciana.
Farago, C., Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone: A Critical Interpretation with a New Edition of the Text in the Codex Urbinus (New York, 1991).
Kemp, M. (ed.), and Walker, M. (trans.), Leonardo on Painting (New Haven and London, 1989).
McCurdy, J., The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (London, 1938).
Pedretti, C., The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci: A Commentary to J. P. Richter’s Anthology, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1977).
——(ed.), and Marinoni, A. (transcr.), Il Codice Atlantico della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano (Florence, 2000).
——(ed.), and Vecce, C. (transcr.), Leonardo da Vinci: Libro di pittura, Codice Urbinate lat. 1270 nel Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Florence, 1995).
Richter, J. P., The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1970).
Venerella, J. (trans.), The Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci in the Institut de France (Milan, 1999- ).
Villata, E. (ed.), I documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee, Ente Raccolta Vinciana (Milan, 1999).
On Drawings
A series of exhibition catalogues of the Windsor drawings have been produced by Lady J. Roberts and M. Clayton.
Bambach, C. (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci Master Draftsman (New York, 2003).
——Leonardo and his Drawings: A Documented History (New Haven and London, 2008).
Clark, K., and Pedretti, C., The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen, 3 vols. (London, 1968).
Popham, A. E., and Kemp, M. (introd.), The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci (London, 1994).
Viatte, F. (ed.), Leonard de Vinci: Dessins et manuscrits (Paris, 2003).
On Architecture and Engineering
Galluzzi, P., Leonardo da Vinci: Engineer and Architect (Montreal, 1987).
——The Renaissance Engineers from Brunelleschi to Leonardo da Vinci (Florence, 1996).
Marani, P., L’architettura fortificata negli studi di Leonardo da Vinci (Florence, 1984).
Pedretti, C., Leonardo Architect (New York, 1981).
On Science
Keele, K., Leonardo da Vinci: Elements of the Science of Man (London, 1983).
Macagno, E., Leonardian Fluid Mechanics (Iowa City, 1986-98).
Marinoni, A., La matematica di Leonardo da Vinci (Milan, 1982).
O’Malley, C., and Saunders, J., Leonardo da Vinci on the Human Body (New York, 1952).
Pedretti, C., L’anatomia di Leonardo da Vinci fra Mondino e Berengario (Florence, 2005).
Starnazzi, C., Leonardo cartografo (Florence, 2003).
Veltman, K., in collaboration with Keele, K., Linear Perspective and the Visual Dimensions of Science and Art (M
unich, 1986).
Zwijnenberg, R., The Writings and Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci: Order and Chaos in Early Modern Thought (New York, 1999).
Further Reading in Oxford World’s Classics
Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince, trans. Peter Bondanella.
Michelangelo, Life, Letters, and Poetry, trans. George Bull and Peter Porter.
Vasari, Giorgio, The Lives of the Artists, trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella.
A CHRONOLOGY OF LEONARDO DA VINCI
THIS chronology is an abridged and edited version of the chronologies by Carmen Bambach in Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman (New York, 2003) and by Martin Kemp in Leonardo (Oxford, 2004).
NOTEBOOKS
I
TRUE SCIENCE
Leonardo’s view of what science should be foreshadows the critical and constructive methods of modern times. He proceeded step by step. (1) Experience of the world around us as gained through the senses is taken as the starting-point. (2) Reason and contemplation, which, though linked to the senses, stands above and outside them, deduces eternal and general laws from transitory and particular experiences. (3) These general laws must be demonstrated in logical sequence like mathematical propositions, and finally (4) they must be tested and verified by experiment, and then applied to the production of works of utility or of art according to plan. Truth could therefore be verified. He was opposed to philosophical systems founded solely on words.
I. EXPERIENCE
Consider now, O reader! what trust can we place in the ancients, who tried to define what the Soul and Life are—which are beyond proof—whereas those things which can at any time be clearly known and proved by experience remained for many centuries unknown or falsely understood.
Many will think that they can with reason blame me, alleging that my proofs are contrary to the authority of certain men held in great reverence by their inexperienced judgements, not considering that my works are the issue of simple and plain experience which is the true mistress.
These rules enable you to know the true from the false—and this induces men to look only for things that are possible and with due moderation—and they forbid you to use a cloak of ignorance, which will bring about that you attain to no result and in despair abandon yourself to melancholy.
I am fully aware that the fact of my not being a man of letters may cause certain presumptuous persons to think that they may with reason blame me, alleging that I am a man without learning. Foolish folk! Do they not know that I might retort by saying, as did Marius to the Roman Patricians: ‘They who adorn themselves in the labours of others will not permit me my own.’* They will say that because I have no book learning, I cannot properly express what I desire to treat of—but they do not know that my subjects require for their exposition experience rather than the words of others. Experience has been the mistress of whoever has written well; and so as mistress I will cite her in all cases.1
Though I have no power to quote from authors as they have, I shall rely on a far bigger and more worthy thing—on experience, the instructress of their masters. They strut about puffed up and pompous, decked out and adorned not with their own labours, but by those of others, and they will not even allow me my own. And if they despise me who am an inventor, how much more should they be blamed who are not inventors but trumpeters and reciters of the works of others.
Those who are inventors and interpreters between Nature and Man as compared with the reciters and trumpeters of the works of others, are to be regarded simply as is an object in front of a mirror in comparison with its image seen in the mirror, the one being something in itself, the other nothing: people whose debt to nature is small, since they are only by chance invested with the human form, and but for this, I might class them with the herds of beasts.2
Seeing that I cannot find any subject of great utility or pleasure, because the men who have come before me have taken for their own all useful and necessary themes, I will do like one who, because of his poverty, is the last to arrive at the fair, and not being able otherwise to provide for himself, takes all the things which others have already seen and not taken but refused as being of little value; I will load my modest pack with these despised and rejected wares, the leavings of many buyers; and will go about distributing, not indeed in great cities, but in the poor hamlets, taking such reward as the thing I give may be worth.1
The abbreviators* (of works) do harm to knowledge and to love, for the love of anything is the offspring of knowledge, love being more fervent in proportion as knowledge is more certain. And this certainty springs from a complete knowledge of all the parts which united compose the whole of the thing which ought to be loved.
Of what use, then, is he who in order to abridge the part of the things of which he professes to give complete information leaves out the greater part of the things of which the whole is composed. True it is that impatience, the mother of folly, is she who praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body. And then they want to comprehend the mind of God which embraces the whole universe, weighing and mincing it into infinite parts as if they had dissected it. O human stupidity! do you not perceive that you have spent your whole life with yourself, and yet are not aware of the thing you chiefly possess, that is of your folly? And so with the crowd of sophists you deceive yourself and others, despising the mathematical sciences in which is contained the true information about the subjects of which they treat. And then you would fain occupy yourself with miracles and write and give information of those things of which the human mind is incapable, and which cannot be proved by any instance from nature. And you fancy you have wrought miracles when you have spoiled the work of some ingenuous mind and do not perceive that you are falling into the same error as he who strips a tree of its adornment of branches laden with leaves intermingled with fragrant flowers or fruit in order to demonstrate the suitability of the tree for making planks. As did Justinus,* abridging the histories of Trogus Pompeius, who had written in an ornate style all the great deeds of his forefathers full of admirable and picturesque descriptions; and by so doing composed a bald work fit only for such impatient minds who fancy they are wasting time when they spend it usefully in the study of works of nature and the deeds of men.3
All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.4
The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the chief means whereby the understanding may most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature.5
Experience never errs; it is only your judgement that errs in promising itself results as are not caused by your experiments. Because, given a beginning, what follows from it must be its true consequence unless there is an impediment. And should there be an impediment, the result which ought to follow from the aforesaid beginning will partake of this impediment in a greater or less degree in proportion as this impediment is more or less powerful than the aforesaid beginning. Experience does not err, it is only your judgement that errs in expecting from her what is not in her power. Wrongly do men complain of Experience and with bitter reproaches accuse her of leading them astray. Let Experience alone, and rather turn your complaints against your own ignorance, which causes you to be carried away by your vain and foolish desires as to expect from Experience things which are not within her power; saying that she is fallacious. Wrongly do men complain of innocent Experience, accusing her often of deceit and lying demonstrations.6
To me it seems that all sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, mother of all certainty, and that are not tested by Experience; that is to say, that do not at their origin, middle, or end, pass through any of the five senses. For if we are doubtful about the certainty of things that pass through the senses how much more should we question the many things against which these senses rebel, such as the nature of God and the soul and the like, about which there are endless disputes and controversies. And truly it so
happens that where reason is not, its place is taken by clamour. This never occurs when things are certain. Therefore, where there are quarrels, there true science is not; because truth can only end one way—wherever it is known controversy is silenced for all time, and should controversy nevertheless again arise, then our conclusions must have been uncertain and confused and not truth reborn.
All true sciences are the result of Experience which has passed through our senses, thus silencing the tongues of litigants. Experience does not feed investigators on dreams, but always proceeds from accurately determined first principles, step by step in true sequences to the end; as can be seen in the elements of mathematics. . . . Here no one argues as to whether twice three is more or less than six or whether the angles of a triangle are less than two right angles. Here all arguments are ended by eternal silence and these sciences can be enjoyed by their devotees in peace. This the deceptive purely speculative sciences cannot achieve.7
Beware of the teaching of these speculators, because their reasoning is not confirmed by Experience.8
II. REASON AND NATURE’S LAWS
The senses are of the earth; reason stands apart from them in contemplation.9
Wisdom is the daughter of experience.*10
Experience, the interpreter between formative nature and the human species, teaches that that which this nature works among mortals constrained by necessity cannot operate in any other way than that in which reason, which is its rudder, teaches it to work.11
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