Notebooks
Page 32
The following note records the entry into Leonardo’s household of Salaì (Gian Giacomo Caprotti di Oreno), who grew up in his service, and remained with him until his death.
On St Mary Magdalene’s day [22 July] 1490 Giacomo came to live with me, when ten years of age. Thief, liar, obstinate, glutton. The second day I had two shirts cut out for him, a pair of hose, and a jerkin, and when I put aside money to pay for these things he stole it from the wallet, and it was never possible to make him confess, although I was quite certain of it—lire 4.
The day after I went to sup with Giacomo Andrea,* and the other Giacomo ate supper for two and did mischief for four, as he broke three flagons, spilled the wine, and after this came to sup where I . . .
On the seventh day of September he stole a stile worth 22 soldi from Marco* who was staying with me. It was of silver and he took it from his studio, and when Marco had searched for it a long time he found it hidden in the box of Giacomo—lire 1 soldi 2.22
In January 1491 Beatrice d’Este arrived in Milan as the bride of Ludovico Sforza. She took advantage of her position as mistress of one of the most splendid courts of Italy to surround herself with learned men, poets, and artists, such as Niccolò da Correggio, Bernardo Castiglione, Bramante, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo helped to arrange festivals in connection with the tournament given by Ludovico’s son-in-law, Galeazzo di San Severino, in celebration of the ducal wedding. The following entry refers to the behaviour of the boy Salaì.
On the 26th day of January [1491], when I was in the house of Messer Galeazzo da San Severino to arrange the festival for his tournament, and certain footmen had undressed to try on some of the costumes of the savages which were to appear at the festival, Giacomo went to the wallet of one of them as it lay on the bed with other clothes and took out whatever money he found there.—2 lire s. 4.
Item, when I was in the same house Maestro Agostino of Pavia* gave me a Turkish hide in order to make a pair of boots; this Giacomo stole it from me within a month and sold it to a cobbler for 20 soldi and with this money by his own confession, he bought aniseed comfits.—L. 2.
Item. Again on the second day of April Gian Antonio* having left a silver stile on one of his drawings, this Giacomo stole from him, and it was worth 24 soldi—L 1 s. 4.
The first year: a cloak Lire 2, 6 shirts Lire 4, 3 jerkins Lire 6, 4 pairs of hose Lire 7 soldi 8, 1 lined doublet Lire 5, 24 pairs of shoes Lire 6 soldi 5, one cap Lira 1, laces for belt Lire 1.22
On the 10th of July 1402.
That is not riches which may be lost; virtue is our true wealth and the reward of its possessor. This cannot be lost; it does not abandon us unless life first leaves us. As for property and external riches hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt and ignominy for having lost them.30
This note helps to date the most important of Leonardo’s manuscripts on the practice of painting. Besides dealing with painting, it contains notes on the construction of arches and the beginnings of his treatise on water.
Thursday the 27th of September [1492] Maestro Tommaso returned and worked for himself until the last day but one of February.
On the 18th of March 1493 Giulio the German came to live with me—Antonio, Bartolomeo, Lucia, Piero, Leonardo.
Caterina came on the 16th day of July 1493.
Messer Mariolo’s* Morel the Florentine is a big horse with a fine neck and a beautiful head.
The white stallion belonging to the falconer has fine hind quarters; it is behind the Comasina Gate.
The big horse of Germonino, of Signor Giulio.31
Ludovico Sforza issued a decree in 1493 to make the canal of the Martesana near Milan navigable. Leonardo in the following draft has some remunerative suggestions to make on the subject.
To my illustrious Lord, Ludovico, Duke of Bari. Leonardo da Vinci of Florence. . . . Does it please you to see a model which will prove useful to you and to me, and it will also be of use to those who will be the cause of our usefulness. . . . There are here, my Lord, many gentlemen who will undertake this expense between them, if they are allowed to enjoy admission to the waters, the mills, and the passage of vessels, and when their expenses are repaid they will repay for the canal of Martesana. . . . 32
The heirs of Maestro Ghiringhello have the works of Pelacano.*33
Maestro Stefano Caponi, a physician, lives at the piscina and has Euclid, De Ponderibus.34
1493 on the first day of November we settled accounts.
Giulio had to pay 4 months and Maestro Tommaso 9 months; Maestro Tommaso afterwards made 6 candlesticks, 10 days’ work; Giulio some fire-tongs, 15 days’ work. Then he worked for himself till the 27th of May, and worked for me at a lever till 18th of July; then for himself till the 7th of August, and on the 15th for half a day for a lady. Then again for me at two locks until 20th of August.35
In 1493 Leonardo had completed the clay model of the horse for the Sforza monument. It measured 23 feet from the top of the horse’s head to the base, but was as yet without a rider. It was possibly this model that was exhibited under a triumphal arch inside Milan Cathedral on the occasion of the marriage of Bianca Maria Sforza, niece of Ludovico Sforza, to the Habsburg emperor Maximilian I. The wedding took place at Innsbruck on 16 March 1494 and the bride was escorted by a distinguished company travelling northwards from Milan, across Lake Como and the Valtellina towards the Tyrol.
Meanwhile the question arose how to cast the colossal clay model of the horse in bronze.
Mould for the horse
Make the horse on legs of iron, strong and well set on good foundations; then grease it and cover it with coating, leaving each coat to dry thoroughly layer by layer; and this will thicken it by the breadth of three fingers. Now fix and bind it with iron as may be necessary.
Moreover, take off the mould and then make the thickness. Then fill the mould by degrees and make it good throughout; encircle and bind it with irons and bake it inside where it has to touch the bronze.36
On the 29th day of January 1494.
37At the beginning of 1494 Leonardo was at Vigevano, the summer seat of the Sforzas on the banks of the Ticino, where Bramante was reconstructing the castle and adding the spacious Palazzo delle Dame. Leonardo made the following estimate for the decoration of a hall with scenes from Roman history and portraits of philosophers.
The hall towards the court is 128 paces long and 27 braccia wide.38
The narrow moulding above the hall, lire 30.
The mouldings underneath this, estimating each picture separately, lire 7; and for the cost of blue, gold, white, plaster, indigo, and glue 3 Lire; time 3 days.
The pictures below these mouldings with their pilaster 12 lire each.
I calculate the cost for smalt, blue and gold and other colours at 1½ lire.
I calculate three days for the invention of a composition, pilaster and other things.
Item for each small vault 7 lire.
Outlay for blue and gold 3½.
Time 4 days.
For the windows 1½.
The cornice below the windows 6 soldi per braccio.
39 How many braccia high is the level of the walls?
123 braccia.
How large is the hall?
How large is the garland?
30 ducats.37
In the same notebook are drawings and calculations for the construction of a wooden pavilion to be erected in the ducal grounds. He was also interested in the building of stairs and the channelling of water.
On the second day of February 1494 at the Sforzesca [Vigevano] I have drawn twenty-five steps each of two thirds of a braccio and eight braccia wide.40
Stair of Vigevano below the Sforzesca, 130 steps, ½ braccio high and ½ braccio wide, down which the water falls, so as not to wear anything at the end of its fall; by these steps so much soil has come down that it has dried up a pool; that is to say, it has filled it up and a pool of great depth has been turned into meadows.41<
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Vineyards of Vigevano. On the 20th day of March 1494. And in the winter they are covered with earth.42
Below this note is a sketch showing the alignment of plants in these vineyards, which is much the same as that prevailing at Vigevano and other Lombard vineyards today, but differs from Tuscan vineyards where the winter is not so severe. Leonardo remembered his young days in the country in Tuscany and observed the difference.
On the 23rd day of August 12 lire from Pulisona.
On the 14th of March 1494 Galeazzo came to live with me, agreeing to pay 5 lire a month for his cost, and paying on the 14th day of each month.
His father gave me 2 Rhenish florins.
On the 14th of July I had from Galeazzo 2 Rhenish florins.43
On the 15th day of September Giulio began the lock of my studio, 1494.44
In September 1494 Charles VIII of France entered Lombardy with an army on his way to the kingdom of Naples. He was received as an ally by Ludovico Sforza and entertained at Pavia. Meanwhile the duke of Orléans, afterwards Louis XII, who commanded the vanguard of the royal army, occupied Genoa and was menacing Milan. He was already dreaming of asserting his rights on this city based on the marriage of his grandfather with a Visconti.
On 21 October 1494 the young duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo, died at Pavia. The manner of his death gave rise to suspicions that poison had been administered by order of his uncle Ludovico. On the following day, at the Castello Sforzesco at Milan, Ludovico was proclaimed duke, superseding Gian Galeazzo’s infant son, in order to provide an adult male during these troubled times.
On 17 November 1494, under the pressure of political events, Duke Ludovico shipped the bronze intended for casting Leonardo’s model of a horse down the Po to Ferrara to be made into cannon.
In the notebooks used by Leonardo at this time we find the following somewhat obscure entries referring to allegorical representations in connection with the two dukes.
Il Moro [Ludovico Sforza] with spectacles,
and Envy depicted with False report,
and Justice black for il Moro.45
Ermine with mud.
Galeazzo between calm weather and flight of fortune.46
The ermine will die rather than besmirch itself.47
In the same notebook are a series of transcriptions from a popular medieval bestiary (see p. 215). These were probably made in connection with recitations and performances at court.
On Tuesday I bought wine for the morning, on Friday the 4th day of September (1495) the same.48
The little notebook which is dated by this entry of the purchase of wine deals mainly with mechanics.
Double floor.
Roof of the flagstaff of the castle.49 Have some corn of large size sent from Florence.50
Funeral expenses of Caterina 51
Caterina had entered his household in 1493 and had therefore been with him for a few years.
She may have died in hospital, since Leonardo wrote the following note on the next page of the same notebook. It has been suggested that this housekeeper was his mother, who bore the same name (see p. 269), but this seems improbable.
Piscin da Mozania at the hospital of Brolio has many veins on arms and legs.52
He was interested in a systematic representation of the veins of the human body as is shown by the following notes on a sheet at Windsor datable about this time.
[With drawing of figure showing the anatomy of veins.]
Here shall be represented the tree of the vessels generally, as Ptolemy* did with the universe in his Cosmography; here shall be represented the vessels of each member separately from different aspects.
Draw the view of the ramification of the vessels from behind, from the front and from the side; otherwise you do not give true demonstration of their ramification, shape, and position.53
The pupil in man dilates and contracts according to the brightness or darkness of the object in view; and since it takes some time to dilate and contract it cannot see immediately on going out of the light into the dark, and similarly out of the dark into the light; and this very thing has once deceived me in painting an eye, and from that I learned it.54
In 1495 Leonardo began to work on his painting of the Last Supper on a wall of the refectory of the Dominican friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie. In his notebook are drawings of the plinths in the apsis of that church (see below). The following notes in the same book show how he was looking for models for his figure of Christ.
Christ—The young count, the one with the Cardinal of Mortaro. Giovannina has a fantastic face, lives at Santa Caterina, at the hospital.55
Alessandro Carissimo of Parma, for the hand of Christ.56
Among the apostles represented in the painting are portraits of courtiers and men in Milan. The following description of Leonardo’s methods of studying is of interest in this connection.
Giovanbatista Giraldi, whose father knew Leonardo, wrote: ‘When Leonardo wished to paint a figure he first considered what social standing and what nature it was to represent; whether noble or plebeian, gay or severe, troubled or serene, old or young, irate or quiet, good or evil; and when he had made up his mind, he went to places where he knew that people of that kind assembled and observed their faces, their manners, dresses, and gestures; and when he found what fitted his purpose, he noted it in a little book which he was always carrying in his belt. After repeating this procedure many times, and being satisfied with the material thus collected for the figure which he wished to paint, he would proceed to give it shape, and he would succeed marvellously.’
Draft of a letter probably from about this time addressed to Piacenza which at that time formed part of the duchy of Milan.
Magnificent Commissioners of Buildings! Hearing that Your Magnificences have resolved to make certain great works in bronze, I will put certain things on record for you. First, that you should not be so quick and hasty in awarding the commission that by your speed you put it out of your power to choose a good model and a good master as Italy has a number of men of capacity. Some man may be chosen who by his insufficiency may afford occasion to your successors to blame you and your age, judging that this age was poorly equipped with men of good judgement or good masters; seeing that other cities and especially the city of the Florentines were almost at this very same time endowed with beautiful and great works in bronze; amongst these being the doors of their baptistery. . . . And this Florence, like Piacenza, is a place of intercourse, through which many foreigners pass; who, when they see that the works are fine and good, form the impression that the city must have worthy inhabitants, seeing that the works serve as evidence of their opinion. And on the contrary, I say, that if they see a great expenditure in metal wrought so poorly, it would be less shame to the city if the doors were of plain wood, because the material costing so little, would not seem to merit any great outlay of skill.
Now the principal parts which are sought for in cities are their cathedrals, and as one approaches these the first things which meet the eye are the doors by which one passes into these churches. Beware, gentlemen of the commission, lest the too great speed in wishing with such haste to expedite the commission of so great a work as that which I hear you have ordered, may become the reason why what was intended for the honour of God and of men may prove a great dishonour to your judgements and to your city, where as it is a place of distinction and resort there is a concourse of innumerable foreigners. And this disgrace would befall you if by your negligence you put your trust in some braggart who, by his tricks or by the favour shown to him, were to be awarded such a commission by you as should bring great and lasting shame to him and to you.
I cannot help feeling angry when I reflect what men those are who have conferred with me wishing to embark on such an undertaking without giving a thought to their capacity for it, not to say more.
One is a maker of pots, another of cuirasses, yet another makes bells and another collars for them, another even is a bombardier. And among them o
ne in his Lordship’s service who boasted that he is an intimate acquaintance of Messer Ambrosio Ferere who has some influence and has made certain promises to him; and if this were not enough he will get on his horse and ride off to his Lord and get such letters from him that you will never refuse him the work. But consider to what straits the poor students who are competent to execute such work are reduced when they have to compete with such men as these.
Open your eyes and look carefully that your money is not so spent as to purchase your own shame. I can assure you that from this district you will get nothing but average works of inferior and coarse masters. There is not a man who is capable—and you may believe me—except Leonardo the Florentine who is making the bronze horse of the Duke Francesco and who has no need to bring himself into notice, because he has work to do which will last him the whole of his life, and I doubt whether he will ever finish it, so great it is.
The miserable students . . . with what hope may they expect a reward. Here is one whom his Lordship has invited from Florence to do this work and he is a capable master, but he has so much, oh! so much, to do that he will never finish it. And what do you imagine is the difference between seeing a beautiful object and an ugly one? Quote Pliny.57