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Leonardo da vinci notebooks2/8/2024 Sketched when he was 21, Leonardo’s first drawing is a view of the Arno, the river that runs through Florence. These loose sheets are from his first decade in Florence, starting in 1472. Early papersįew examples of Leonardo’s earliest sketches and notes still exist, but the ones that survive reveal the thoughts and observations of the time. These manuscripts were dispersed throughout Europe, ending up in Spanish museums or in aristocratic and royal collections in England. The original manuscript of the treatise-the Codex Urbinas Latinus 1270-now resides in the Vatican Library.įollowing Melzi’s death in the 1570s, the many thousands of loose pages filled with sketches, notes, and jottings were acquired by a Spanish collector, Pompeo Leoni. Melzi held on to some of this material and formed a volume now celebrated as Leonardo’s Treatise on Painting. After Leonardo died in 1519, his vast manuscript archive passed to his heir, Francesco Melzi. Much of Leonardo’s writings could have been lost, succumbing to fire, flood, or theft, but through luck, and the intervention of those who saw their worth, many of the manuscripts and diaries survived. One of them is a simple recipe for “dyeing your hair dark blonde.” Books of genius On one margin, Leonardo included some handwritten notes. And the apprentice geometrician set out to make several diagrams of varying complexity. Leonardo the engineer emerges through the drawing of a mechanical prototype, perhaps a press or a foundry. Leonardo’s interest in geology is reflected in a small mountain landscape, and his obsession with water appears in the detailed drawing of two cumulus clouds that seem to rain onto a pond. Several depict plants: a lily, a tree, and tree branches covered with foliage. Other drawings refer to the natural world. A minuscule drawing of a bell tower illustrates Leonardo’s interest in architecture. Many of the studies are exercises in art and drawing: A portrait of an old man, as well as two sketches of sculptures of an equestrian-the subject is probably Duke Ludovico Sforza-and a warrior. Leonardo used it for doodling, reflecting whatever occupied his mind at each moment. A good example is a sheet from the Codex Windsor, dated around 1490, when the artist was living in Milan. Owing to the high price of paper in the 15th century, Leonardo took advantage of every sheet of paper that came his way, filling each one with annotations on a wide variety of subjects. He designed a monumental equestrian statue in bronze and in 1497 completed “The Last Supper” for the refectory of the city’s Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery. Under the job title of ducal painter and engineer, Leonardo combined his brilliance in painting, design, construction, and inventing. In 1482 the 30-year-old artist moved to Milan to enter the service of Ludovico Sforza, ruler of the city. Around age 20, he began taking independent commissions and working on his own. In his teens, Leonardo apprenticed with artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence and remained there for seven years. His talent took him to many different cultural centers of Renaissance Europe. Few details about his early life are known, but his artistic talents could not have gone unnoticed. Royal Collection Trust/Brideman/ACI Career sketchesīorn in 1452 near the hilltop town of Vinci, Leonardo grew up the illegitimate son of a notary father and a peasant mother. Right: This portrait of Leonardo is attributed to Francesco Melzi, circa 1515. ( What's inside Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks?) His sketches include beautiful flowers, extraordinary inventions, and some of Leonardo’s most famous images, such as the “Vitruvian Man” from his youth and a craggy-faced old man-perhaps a self-portrait-created circa 1516. It may have kept the material hidden from prying eyes, or it may have been a means by which the left-handed Leonardo avoided smudging his letters as he wrote.Ī window into Leonardo’s exceptional mind, the manuscripts contain jottings on mathematics, philosophy, botany, and medicine. There have been many theories as to why Leonardo chose to write this way. The words are mirror-written, with the letters back to front and crossing the page from right to left. These works reveal not only his brilliance-his scientific thoughts and sublime sketches-but also his ordinary quirks, like his doodles in the margins or his unusual way of writing. He left behind thousands of loose manuscript pages, a rich trove of writings and sketches. Leafing through Leonardo’s journals helps bridge the gap. Connecting to the man behind the genius can feel impossible. Reading about his lifelong devotion to medicine, science, and engineering can make him feel even more remote. Gazing upon his creations, such as “The Last Supper” or the “Mona Lisa,” it is difficult to imagine the mortal man who created these eternal masterpieces. The achievements of Leonardo da Vinci elevate him to the realm of genius.
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