The St. Anne and the St. John are easily recognizable as the pictures now in the Louvre. But the portrait of a Florentine lady cannot be the Mona Lisa, which was certainly not done at the instance of the ‘the late Magnificent, Giuliano de’ Medici’. This must have been a work in Leonardo’s late style, and no replica of such a picture exists to give us any hint of what the original was like. De’ Beatis’s description of the notebooks inspires confidence in his veracity, and makes it more than ever difficult to know how we should interpret his account of Leonardo’s paralysis. That Leonardo was paralysed in an ordinary sense is demonstrably untrue, since we have plenty of manuscripts of a later date than October 1517, including a sheet in the Codice Atlantico, inscribed ‘in the Palace of Cloux at Amboise, 24th June, 1518’. On these the writing, sometimes blunted by the roughness of the paper, is still beautifully clear and firm. It is true, however, that the lines of shading in the drawings of water are rather more ragged than formerly, and we may conjecture that Leonardo’s paralysis did not affect his fingers, but prevented him from moving his arm with any freedom. This would account for the statement that he was still able to make designs; and if he could draw, the inability to colour with that sweetness which had cost him so much pains would not greatly distress Leonardo. Of these designs, as I have said, we have no solid evidence; but on grounds of style I would attribute to the French period some drawings handled even more broadly than the masquerade costumes: such for example as the head of an old man at Windsor, 12,500, where the broken touch no less than the feeling of grave authority recall the late self-portraits of Titian (Pl. 66). Leonardo’s own self-portrait, the red chalk drawing at Turin (Pl. 67), is in a fine, clear style which must indicate an earlier date. He has represented himself as being of a great age, but we know that Leonardo looked older than his years. De’ Beatis speaks of him as being more than seventy, though actually he was only sixty-four at the time, and the self-portrait may date from about 1512 when Leonardo would be sixty. This is the only authentic likeness of Leonardo. The numerous portraits in profile are copies which gradually come to approximate more and more to the idealized representation of a sage. But even the self-portrait is, to my mind, remarkably unrevealing. This great furrowed mountain of a face with its noble brow, commanding cavernous eyes, and undulating foothills of beard is like the faces of all the great men of the nineteenth century as the camera has preserved them for us—Darwin, Tolstoy, Walt Whitman. Time, with its spectacle of human suffering, has reduced them all to a common level of venerability.
Leonardo died in the Castle of Cloux on 2 May 1519, leaving to his friend and pupil, Melzi, the great store of drawings and manuscripts through which we should be able to form a clear conception of his character. But in spite of this mass of material his image changes like a cloud. Leonardo is the Hamlet of art history whom each of us must recreate for himself, and although I have tried to interpret his work as impersonally as possible, I recognize that the result is largely subjective. Certain things in his art are clear and definable; for example, his passionate curiosity into the secrets of nature, and the inhumanly sharp eye with which he penetrated them—followed the movements of birds or of a wave, understood the structure of a seed-pod or a skull, noted down the most trivial gesture or most evasive glance. But even in his art there are chords which seem to be left unresolved. One of these I have stressed throughout, the conflict between his aesthetic and his scientific approach to painting, the former deeply, even extravagantly romantic, comparable to such painters as El Greco and Turner; the other, found in the composition of the Last Supper, forming the foundation of later academism.
Even more bewildering is the contrast between his drawings and his note-books. In all his writings—one of the most voluminous and complete records of a mind at work which has come down to us—there is hardly a trace of human emotion. Of his affections, his tastes, his health, his opinions on current events we know nothing. Yet if we turn from his writings to his drawings, we find a subtle and tender understanding of human feelings which is not solely due to the efficiency of the optic nerve. In his contemplation of nature, this human understanding seems to have been gradually swamped; and here, perhaps, is a hint of some unifying principle in all Leonardo’s work. From the first he is obsessed by vital force and finds it expressed in plants and creatures; then, as his scientific researches develop he learns the vast power of natural forces and he pursues science as a means by which these forces can be harnessed for human advantage. The further he penetrates the more he becomes aware of man’s impotence, his studies of hydrodynamics suggest a power of water beyond human control; his studies of geology show that the earth has undergone cataclysmic upheavals of which ordinary earthquakes are but faint and distant echoes; his studies of embryology point to a central problem of creation apparently insoluble by science. The intellect is no longer supreme, and human beings cease to be the centre of nature; so they gradually fade from his imagination, or when they appear, as St. Anne or St. John, they are human no longer but symbols of force and mystery, messengers from a world which Leonardo da Vinci, the disciple of experience, has not explored, though he has earned the right to proclaim its existence. La natura é piena d’infinite ragioni che non furono mai in esperienza.
LIST OF DATES
IN LEONARDO’S LIFE FOR WHICH THERE IS DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
A FULL chronological table of Leonardo’s life would include a number of dates which were conjectural or only arrived at by inference. With two exceptions the following list is made up entirely of dates for which there is unimpeachable written evidence. The exceptions are the dates when Leonardo first went from Florence to Milan and from Rome to France. These are not known precisely, but as they are so important in Leonardo’s career, they can hardly be omitted from any chronology of his life. They are here printed in parentheses.
1452.—Birth of Leonardo.
1472.—Member of Guild of St. Luke as painter.
1473.—5 August. Arno landscape.
1476.—8 April. Accused of sodomy. Still in Verrocchio’s studio.
1478.—January. Commission for altar-piece in Signoria.
—Autumn. Began the two Madonnas.
1479.—28 December. Drawing of Baroncelli.
1481.—March. Commission for Adoration for San Donato a Scopeto.
—28 September. Last payment by Monks of San Donato.
(1482.—Goes to Milan. List of drawings and pictures.)
1483.—25 April. Contract for Virgin of the Rocks.
1487.—Designs pageant of Il Paradiso.
—July, till January 1488. Payments for model of tambour of Cathedral dome.
c. 1488.—MS. B. Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani.
1489.—5 April. MS. Anatom. B (early drawings, e.g. skulls).
1490.—A dì 23 d’aprile 1490 chomiciai questo libro e richoniciai il cavallo (recommences work on Sforza Monument) (MS. C, folio 15).
—June. In Pavia with Francesco di Giorgio.
1490.—July 22. dì della madalena. Salai joins Leonardo, aged 10 (note on same page of MS. C as above).
c. 1491.—MSS. Ashb. ii and A (descriptions of storms, battles, and profiles).
1493.—July, morel fiorentino (i.e. still at work on Sforza Monument). November. Model Horse exhibited.
1494.—MS. H (Allegories).
1495-96.—MS. S.K.M. II (description of Last Supper).
1497.—January. Still at work on Last Supper.
—June. Last Supper almost finished.
1498.—MSS. I and M. Sala delle Asse.
1499.—April. Ludovico gives Leonardo a vineyard.
—December. Leonardo flies from Milan.
1500.—February. In Mantua. Draws portrait of Isabella d’Este.
—March. In Venice.
—April. Leonardo returns to Florence.
1501.—8 April. Novellara’s letter to Isabella d’Este describes cartoon for a Virgin and St. Anne and portraits done by his pupils which Leonardo touches up.
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—14 April. Letter from the same describes Leonardo as at work on the Madonna with the Yarn Winder.
1502.—With Cesare Borgia. Maps. MS. L.
1503.—October. Begins cartoon of Battle of Anghiari.
1504.—25 January. Consulted as to the best position for Michelangelo’s David.
—24 May. Accepts commission from Isabella d’Este to paint a young Christ.
—Throughout. Payments for painting the Battle in the Sala di Gran Consiglio.
1505.—July. MS. S.K.M. 1.
1506.—30 May. Leonardo obtains leave from the Signoria of Florence to return to Milan for three months.
—August and September. Letters from Charles d’Amboise asking that his leave may be extended.
1507.—September. Returns to Florence.
1508.—22 March. Arundel MS. Chomicato in firenze in casa di bracco martell addj 22 di marzo 1508.
—July. Leonardo in Milan.
—September. MS. F begun (used till 1513).
1510.—Winter. MS. Anatom. A.
1511.—18 December. The fire depicted on a landscape drawing at Windsor, 12,416.
1513.—9 January. MS. Anatom. C. II (bold drawings on blue paper). 24 September. MS. E. Leonardo leaves Milan with Melzi, Salai, Lorenzo, and il Fanfoia.
—October. In Florence.
—1 December. In Rome, in the Belvedere of the Vatican. MS. G (notes on landscape).
1514-16.—In Rome, but making frequent journeys, e.g.
1514.—25 September. In Parma.
1516.—August. Notes measurements of S. Paolo, Rome.
(1516-17.—Goes to France.)
1517.—Ascension Day in Amboise, May in Cloux.
1517.—10 October. Leonardo shows the Cardinal of Aragon three pictures—a portrait of a Florentine lady done for Giuliano de Medici, a young St. John Baptist, and the St. Anne.
1518.—24 June. In Ambuosa nel palazzo del Cloux.
1519.—2 May. Death.
A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS ON LEONARDO
REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT AND LIKELY TO BE OF USE TO THE GENERAL READER
AMORETTI, CARLO. Memorie storiche vita...de Leonardo da Vinci. Milano, 1804. (The first biography of Leonardo to make use of documents.)
ANONIMO. In Codice Magliabecchiano, ed. Carl Frey. Berlin, 1892. (Also known as the Anonimo Gaddiano. One of the most reliable early sources of information for Leonardo, especially during his Florentine years.)
BERENSON, BERNHARD. The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, classified, criticized and studied as documents in the history and appreciation of Tuscan art. With a copious catalogue raisonné. 2 vols. London, 1903. (The author’s aim is implied in the title.)
The Study and Criticism of Italian Art, Third Series. London, 1916, pp. 1-37, ‘Leonardo da Vinci, an Attempt at a Revaluation
BIBLIOGRAPHIA. ETTORE VERGA. Bibliographia Vinciana, 1493-1930. Bologna, 1931. (Useful in spite of bad index and numerous inaccuracies.)
BODMER, HEINRICH (ed.). Leonardo: des Meisters Gemälde und Zeichnungen, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Heinrich Bodmer. Klassiker der Kunst series. Stuttgart, 1931. (The most convenient collection of reproductions with notes containing accurate information.)
BOSSI, GIUSEPPE. Del ‘Cenacolo’ di Leonardo da Vinci. Milano, 1810. (The first serious study of Leonardo as an artist. Through a famous review by Goethe it made Leonardo known in Germany and England.)
CALVI, GIROLAMO. I manoscritti di Leonardo da Vinci dal punto di vista cronologico, storico e biografico. Bologna, 1925. (A masterpiece of scholarship, fundamental for the chronology of the manuscripts.)
CLARK, KENNETH. A Catalogue of the Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle. Cambridge, 1935.
FREUD, SIGMUND. Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci. Wien, 1910.
GIOVIO, PAOLO. ‘Leonardo Vinci Vita’, published in G. Tiraboschi’s Storia della Letteratura Italiana, vol. VII. Venezia, 1796.
HEYDENREICH, LUDWIG H. Leonardo da Vinci. London, 1954. (A well-balanced account of Leonardo’s total achievement.)
HORNE, HERBERT (trans.). The Life of Leonardo da Vinci by Giorgio Vasari. London, 1903. (The best translation of Vasari with notes containing out-of-the way information.)
LOMAZZO, G. PAOLO. Trattato dell’arte della pittura. Milano, 1584. (This volume and the same author’s Idea del tempio della pittura, 1590, contain important information which the author must have had direct from Francesco Melzi, Leonardo’s favourite pupil and heir.)
MCCURDY, EDWARD. The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci. Jonathan Cape, 1928.
MALAGUZZI VALERI, FRANCESCO. La Corte di Ludovico il Moro. Vol. II, Bramante e Leonardo. Milano, 1915.
MÖLLER, EMIL. ‘Salai und Leonardo da Vinci’, in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 1928, pp. 139-61.
Wie sah Leonardo aus? in Belvedere, Vienna, 1926, pp. 29-46.
MÜLLER-WALDE, PAUL. Leonardo da Vinci Lebensskizze und Forschungen über sein Verhältniss zur Florentiner Kunst und zu Rafael. München, 1889. (An early work which does not do justice to the author’s great powers and shows his weakness as a connoisseur.) ‘Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Leonardo da Vinci’, in Jahrbuch der Königlichen Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 1897, 1898, 1899. (Eight articles of great value, especially with reference to the Equestrian Monuments and the Leda. For patience, observation, and a scholarly sense of method they have not been surpassed.)
MÜNTZ, EUGENE. Léonard de Vinci, L’artiste, le penseur, le savant. Paris, 1899 (recte 1898). (Out of date from the point of view of connoisseurship, but useful for reproductions, and for social conditions in Milan, etc.)
PACIOLI, LUCA. Divina Proportione. Venice, 1509. (The author was intimate with Leonardo and records valuable details about his work. The illustrations were designed by Leonardo.)
PATER, WALTER. The Renaissance. London, 1893. (The famous essay on Leonardo on pp. 103-35 was reprinted from an article in the Fortnightly Review for 1869.)
POGGI, GIOVANNI (ed.). Leonardo da Vinci: la ‘Vita’ di Giorgio Vasari, nuovamente commentata e illustrata con 200 tavole. Firenze, MCMXIX. (A thorough piece of scholarship, giving the chief documents in a convenient form.)
POPHAM. A. E. The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, Compiled, Introduced and Annotated. London, 1946. (The most complete selection, with judicious notes.)
POPP, ANNY E. (ed). Leonardo da Vinci: Zeichnungen, herausgegeben von Anny E. Popp. München, 1928. (The best short study of the drawings, and the first to understand the importance of chronology.)
RICHTER, JEAN PAUL. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, compiled and edited from the original manuscripts. Revised edition. 2 vols. London, 1939.
SÉAILLES, GABRIEL. Léonard de Vinci, L’artiste et le savant. Paris, 1892. (This remains the best introduction to Leonardo’s thought. It formed the basis of Paul Valéry’s well-known Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci, which, however misinterpreted Séaille’s conclusions.)
SEIDLITZ, WALDEMAR VON. Leonardo da Vinci, der Wendepunkt der Renaissance. 2 vols. Berlin, 1909. (The fullest and, on the whole, the best life of Leonardo, but better for life than art.)
SOLMI, EDMONDO. Leonardo (1452-1519). Firenze, 1900. (One of the best accounts of Leonardo’s life, but wholly inadequate as an account of his art.)
‘Le fonti manoscritti di Leonardo da Vinci’, in the Giornale storico della letteratura italiana. Torino, 1908. (Though far from exhaustive, the first systematic attempt to find how far Leonardo’s manuscripts are transcribed from other sources. Supplemented by same author in the same journal, 1911.)
SUIDA, WILHELM. Leonardo und sein Kreis. München, 1929. (An adventurous book in which a few unconvincing attributions are more than counterbalanced by some valuable discoveries.)
THIIS, DR. JENS. Leonardo da Vinci. The Florentine years of Leonardo and Verrocchio. London (n.d., about 1913). (First published in Norwegian in 1909. Valuable analysis of the Uffizi Adoration; but the study of Leonardo’s relation
s with Verrocchio with its hypothesis of an anonymous Alunno di Andrea is out of date.)
DE TONI, G. B. Le piante e gli animali in Leonardo da Vinci. Bologna, 1922.
TRATTATO. Trattato della Pittura di Leonardo da Vinci, Prefazione di Angelo Borzelli. Lanciano, 1914. (This is the most convenient edition in the original Italian. The standard critical edition is in German, Das Buch von der Malerei, herausgegeben von Heinrich Ludwig, Wien, 1882. The only good English edition is translated by J. F. Rigaud, 1877.)
VALENTINER, W. R. ‘Leonardo as Verrocchio’s co-worker’, in The Art Bulletin, University of Chicago, March 1930, p. 43. (The most suggestive of recent essays on Leonardo.)
VASARI, GIORGIO. Le Vite, con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi. Firenze, 1878-82. (The standard edition.)
VENTURI, LIONELLO. La critica e l’arte di Leonardo da Vinci. Bologna, 1919. (An interesting attempt to relate Leonardo’s art to the theories of the Trattato.)
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{1} Cf. his note on abbreviators quoted on p. 63.
{2} Leonardo da Vinci: la ‘Vita’ di Giorgio Vasari, a cura di Giovanni Poggi. Firenze, MCMXIX (Poggi). This is confirmed by Andrea Corsali, Lettera allo Illmo. Sig. Duca juliano de Medici, Venuta dell india del mese di Octobre Nel MDXVI, f. recto, in which he speaks of a certain tribe ‘so gentle that they do not feed on anything which has blood, nor will they allow anyone to hurt any living thing, like our Leonardo da Vinci.’
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