Leonardo da Vinci

“ Again, Poverty in a hideous form running behind a youth. Il Moro covers him with the skirt of his robe, and with his gilt sceptre he threatens the monster.
A plant with its roots in the air to represent one who is at his last;--a robe and Favour. ”

“ On the other hand, the sketches and studies prepared by Leonardo for the two grandest compositions he ever executed: The Fresco of the Last Supper in the Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Milan, and the Cartoon of the Battle of Anghiari, for the Palazzo della Signoria at Florence--have been preserved; and, though far from complete, are so much more numerous than the manuscript notes, that we are justified in asserting that in value and interest they amply compensate for the meagerness of the written suggestions. ”

“ When Pluto's Paradise is opened, then there may be devils placed in twelve pots like openings into hell. Here will be Death, the Furies, ashes, many naked children weeping; living fires made of various colours.... ”

“ Let her be lean and haggard because she is in perpetual torment. Make her heart gnawed by a swelling serpent, and make her with a quiver with tongues serving as arrows, because she often offends with it. Give her a leopard's skin, because this creature kills the lion out of envy and by deceit. Give her too a vase in her hand full of flowers and scorpions and toads and other venomous creatures; make her ride upon death, because Envy, never dying, never tires of ruling. ”

“ No labour is sufficient to tire me. Hands into which ducats and precious stones fall like snow; they never become tired by serving, but this service is only for its utility and not for our I am never weary own benefit. ”

“ Nay, it may prove possible to reconstruct the whole of the lost cartoon from the mass of materials we now have at hand which we may regard as the nucleus of the composition. A large pen and ink drawing by Raphael in the Dresden collection, representing three horsemen fighting, and another, by Cesare da Sesto, in the Uffizi, of light horsemen fighting are a further contribution which will help us to reconstruct it._
_The sketch reproduced on Pl. LV gives a suggestive example of the way in which foot-soldiers may have been introduced into the cartoon as fighting among the groups of horsemen ”

“ Movement will cease before we are weary of being useful. Movement will fail sooner than usefulness. Death sooner than I am never weary of weariness. being useful, In serving others I is a motto for carnval. ”

“ In his Life of Raphael, Vasari tells us that Raphael copied certain works of Leonardo's during his stay in Florence. Raphael's first visit to Florence lasted from the middle of October 1504 till July 1505, and he revisited it in the summer of 1506. The hasty sketch, now in the possession of the University of Oxford and reproduced on page 337 also represents the Battle of the Standard and seems to have been made during his first stay, and therefore not from the fresco but from the cartoon ”

“ On the left side will be a wheel, the centre of which should be attached to the centre of the horse's hinder thigh piece, and in the centre Prudence is seen robed in red, Charity sitting in a fiery chariot and with a branch of laurel in her hand, to signify the hope which comes of good service. ”

“ No sooner is Virtue born than Envy comes into the world to attack it; and sooner will there be a body without a shadow than Virtue without Envy.
[Footnote: The larger of the two drawings on PI. LXI is explained by the first 21 lines of this passage. L. 22 and 23, which are written above the space between the two drawings, do not seem to have any reference to either. L. 24-27 are below the allegorical twin figure which they serve to explain.] ”

“ The housing of the horse should be of plain cloth of gold closely sprinkled with peacock's eyes, and this holds good for all the housings of the horse, and the man's dress. And the man's crest and his neck-chain are of peacock's feathers on golden ground. ”

“ In the foremost troop Francesco the son of Niccolo Piccinino [24] was the first to attack the bridge which was held by the Patriarch and the Florentines. Beyond the bridge to his left he sent forward some infantry to engage ours, who drove them back, among whom was their captain Micheletto [29] whose lot it was to be that day at the head of the army. Here, at this bridge there is a severe struggle; our men conquer and the enemy is repulsed. ”

“ The two pen and ink sketches on Pl. XLV seem to belong to an even earlier date; the more finished drawing of the two, on the right hand, represents Christ with only St. John and Judas and a third disciple whose action is precisely that described in No._ 666, _Pl._ 4. _It is hardly necessary to observe that the other sketches on this page and the lines of text below the circle (containing the solution of a geometrical problem) have no reference to the picture of the Last Supper. ”

“ Those who trust themselves to live near him, and who will be a large crowd, these shall all die cruel deaths; and fathers and mothers together with their families will be devoured and killed by cruel creatures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This portion of the composition is familiar to all from the disfigured copy engraved by Edelinck. Mariette had already very acutely observed that Edelinck must surely have worked from a Flemish copy of the picture. There is in the Louvre a drawing by Rubens (No. 565) which also represents four horsemen fighting round a standard and which agrees with Edelinck's engraving, but the engraving reverses the drawing. An earlier Flemish drawing, such as may have served as the model for both Rubens and Edelinck, is in the Uffizi collection (see Philpots's Photograph, No. 732) . ”

“ They are back to back because they are opposed to each other; and they exist as contraries in the same body, because they have the same basis, inasmuch as the origin of pleasure is labour and pain, and the various forms of evil pleasure are the origin of pain. ”

“ Therefore it is here represented with a reed in his right hand which is useless and without strength, and the wounds it inflicts are poisoned. In Tuscany they are put to support beds, to signify that it is here that vain dreams come, and here a great part of life is consumed. ”

“ XL, No. 3--, a drawing of which the details have almost disappeared in the original but have been rendered quite distinct in the reproduction; secondly a slight pen and ink sketch in, the Codex VALLARDI, in the Louvre, fol. 64, No. 2316; again a silver point drawing of a Virgin and child drawn over again with the pen in the His de la Salle collection also in the Louvre, No. 101. (See Vicomte BOTH DE TAUZIA, _Notice des dessins de la collection His de la Salle, exposes au Louvre_. Paris 1881, pp. 80, 81.) ”

“ Leonardo's flying machines and his studies of the flight of birds will be referred to later.]
704.
A DRESS FOR THE CARNIVAL.
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.] ”

“ The two heads drawn in black chalk (pg. 338) and the one seen in profile, turned to the left, drawn in red chalk (pg. 339) , correspond exactly with those of two horsemen in the scene of the fight round the standard as we see them in Madame Timbal's picture and in the other finished copies. ”

“ Stubborn rigour. Doomed rigour. [Footnote: See PI. LXII, No. 2, the two upper pen and ink drawings. The originals, in the Windsor collection are slightly washed with colour. The background is blue sky; the plough and the instrument with the compass are reddish brown, the sun is tinted yellow] .
682.
Obstacles cannot crush me Every obstacle yields to stern resolve He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind. ”

“ These drawings may have been made for other portions of the cartoon, of which no copies exist, and thus we are unable to identify these preparatory drawings. Finally I may add that a sketch of fighting horse and foot soldiers, formerly in the possession of M. Thiers and published by Charles Blanc in his "Vies des Peintres" can hardly be accepted as genuine. ”

“ A much blurred sketch is on the page by this text. It seems to represent an unravelled plait or tissue.]
690.
Constancy does not begin, but is that which perseveres. [Footnote: A drawing in red chalk, also rubbed, which stands in the original in the middle of this text, seems to me to be intended for a sword hilt, held in a fist.]
691.
Love, Fear, and Esteem,-- Write these on three stones. Of servants. 692.
Prudence Strength.
693.
Fame alone raises herself to Heaven, because virtuous things are in favour with God. ”

“ A head, full face, of a young man with fine flowing hair, Many flowers drawn from nature, A head, full face, with curly hair, Certain figures of Saint Jerome, [6] The measurements of a figure, Drawings of furnaces. A head of the Duke, [9] many designs for knots, 4 studies for the panel of Saint Angelo A small composition of Girolamo da Fegline, A head of Christ done with the pen, [13] 8 Saint Sebastians, Several compositions of Angels, A chalcedony, A head in profile with fine hair, Some pitchers seen in (?) ”

“ This text is written to elucidate two sketches which were obviously the first sketches for the drawings reproduced on PL LXII, No. 2.]
683.
Ivy is [a type] of longevity.
[Footnote: In the original there is, near this text, a sketch of a coat wreathed above the waist with ivy.]
684.
Truth the sun. falsehood a mask. innocence, malignity. Fire destroys falsehood, that is sophistry, and restores truth, driving out darkness. Fire may be represented as the destroy of all sophistry, and as the image and demonstration of truth ”

“ This emblem was displayed during the Carnival at Florence in 1513. See VASARI VI, 251, ed. MILANESI 1881. But the coincidence is probably accidental.]
698.
Truth here makes Falsehood torment lying tongues. 699.
Such as harm is when it hurts me not, is good which avails me not. [Footnote: See PI. LX, No. 2. Compare this sketch with that on PI. LXII, No. 2. Below the two lines of the text there are two more lines: _li guchi (giunchi) che ritego le paglucole (pagliucole) chelli (che li) anniegano_.]
700.
He who offends others, does not secure himself. ”