Leonardo da Vinci!
Copies of Leonardo's writings on painting were already circulating in the sixteenth century, Vasari relates to an anonymous Milanese painter who showed him "some writings of Leonardo, but of characters written with a left-handed backhand, which treat of painting and de 'ways of drawing and of the Colors "; Benvenuto Cellini had written on Leonardo's perspective.
Thanks to the efforts of Cassiano dal Pozzo, a collection of Leonardo's manuscripts, writing extremely short of that put together by the student and heir Francesco Melzi, was published for the first time in Paris in 1651, together with the French translation, with engravings taken from drawings by Nicolas Poussin, another Italian edition of the Treatise on Painting, was published in Naples in 1733.
The painting, by Leonardo, is a science, represents "the way with more truth and certainty in the works of nature," while "the letters are more truly the words to the sense." But, taking an Aristotelian concept Leonardo adds, is "a science that is more wonderful works of nature, which is [...] that the works of men, as poetry, and the like, which include human language "[73].
Leonardo also studied first in Europe the possibility to project images from life on a sheet where they could be easily copied, with the so-called camera obscura Leonardo. He also was among the pioneers of the use of oil painting in Italy, which used primarily in mixed media, especially for touch-ups [74].
The scientist "I know that, not me letters, some that I could reasonably seem presumptuous to blame coll'allegare I be man without letters. People stupid! They do not know these men I could, just as Mario said, against a 'Roman patricians, I do answer, saying: "Those who toil altruism if they adorned themselves, my letter will not want to grant me." Or they do not know that my things are more to be drawn from experience, that of another word, which was his mistress who wrote well, and so to have her teacher and that in all cases, attach "
(Code 119 Atlantic v)
"Man without letters" stands for man who does not know Latin, but he did not need the knowledge of Latin for "I have many words in my mother tongue, for I 'm'ho rather to understand the sorrow of the good things that the lack of words, with which well express the concept of my mind, "and if the vernacular has full ability to express each concept, the problem remains the truth of what is argued.
Proportionality study of a human body, Venice, AccademiaSecondo the thought of Leonardo, the first truth of nature derives from direct experience, observation of phenomena, "much greater and more worthy thing to read 'is not the authority to attach authors of books, but attach the experience, which is the master of those authors. Those who argue, citing the authority of other writers are swollen "and pompous, dressed and decorated, not of them, but others' labors, and my not grant the same to me, and if the inventor despise me, how much more them, not inventors but trumpeters and reciters of the works of others, can be blamed. "[75] But if they criticize him saying that" my evidence is against the altitude of sundry men of great reverence below to 'their inexperienced no tribunal, "it is because do not consider that "my things to be born under the simple and straightforward experience, which is true teacher" [76].
"I believe that instead of defining what is the soul, which is something that you can not see, much better is to study those things you can learn with experience, because experience alone does not leak. And if you can not apply one of the mathematical sciences, it can not be sure. "
If the experience is knowing the reality of things, but still gives the rational necessity of the phenomena, the law is hidden in the events of things, "nature is compelled by reason of his law, which she infusamene lives" and " no effect in nature is without reason, you mean the reason you should not experience 'in the sense that once it is within the law that governs the phenomenon, it is unnecessary to repeat the observation, the inner truth of the phenomenon has reached .
The laws governing nature are expressed through mathematics, "No more human investigation can be demanded of true science, If being does not pass through the mathematical demonstrations" [73], remains still the principle that "if you say that the sciences that principle and end up in the mind, have the truth, this is not allowed, but is denied for many reasons, and before that in these speeches is not the case mental experience, without which nothing gives self-confidence "[73].
The rejection of metaphysics could not be expressed more clearly. Even his conception of the soul follows dall'approccio nature of his research, "in its [natural] inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous, and does not go with counterweight, when it acts to make them members motion in the bodies of animals, but puts it into the soul of the housing, that is the soul of the mother, who first made the figure of the matrix and in due time awakens the soul of that ought to be housing, which before was still asleep and protect the soul of her mother, which nourishes and gives life to the umbilical vein, "and adds that with conservative irony" Definition as given the rest of the soul will leave the minds of 'brothers, fathers of' peoples, who by inspiration knows all the secrets. Let it be crowned the letters [the Scriptures] because they are supreme truth "[77].
But insists: "And if we doubt the certainty of a thing that passes for the senses, how much more should we doubt the rebels to them the meaning of things, as the essence of God and the soul and the like, which always takes place and counting. It really happens where there is no reason to ever make up for the shouting, which does not happen in certain things. "
Recognized as valid in the study of alchemy, "partoritrice of the simple and natural," not considered an art magic but "ministers of 'simple products of nature, the office which can not be done from nature, because she is not organic instruments, with which it can deliver that which employs the man with their hands, "or science by which man, starting from the simple elements of nature, it produces compounds, such as a modern chemist, the alchemist can not, however, create any simple element, as evidenced by the ancient alchemists, who never "s'abbatero to create the slightest thing can crear from nature" and were deserving of the highest praise if "fussino were not the inventors of harmful things, like poison and other similar ruins of life and mind. "
Instead of harshly censor magic, "necromancy, banner or flag blowing in the wind wheel, female drivers of the foolish multitude." The necromancers' have impious books, claiming that the magic and spirits and strive without language they speak, and without organic instruments, without which little will not speak, speak and lead weights serious, little face and timely rain, and that they are men converted in cats, wolves and beasts, although the first beast Entran who say such a thing. "[7
Leonardo is best known for his paintings, for his studies on the flight, probably much less for many other things in which it was instead a true visionary, such as in the field of geology. He was among the first, in fact, to understand what they were fossils, and marine fossils because they were in the mountains. Contrary to what was believed at that time, that it was proof of the great flood, the biblical event that would have drowned the whole world, Leonardo envisioned the movement of water masses on earth, like the blood circulation, with a slow but continuous change, coming to the conclusion that the places where the fossils surfaced, once must have been the seabed. Although with very original reasoning, the conclusion of Leonardo was surprisingly accurate.
Leonardo's contribution to almost every scientific discipline was decisive in astronomy was fundamental insights, as in the heat of the sun, on the twinkling stars, the Earth, Moon, on the centrality of the Sun, yet for so many years would raise contrasts and opposition. But in his writings there are also examples that show his ability to make difficult concepts in a dazzling, at which time it was far from having made the law of gravitation, but Leonardo already comparable to the planets that magnets attract each other , explaining very well the concept of gravitational attraction. In another of his writings, more on this subject, appealed to an image really evocative, Leonardo says: imagine making a hole in the ground, a hole that crosses from side to side through the center, a sort of " bottomless pit "if you throw a stone into the well, the stone passing the center of the earth, continuing on his way back across, then go back again and after passing the center, dates back over here. This back and forth would last for many years before the stone is still definitely in the center of the Earth. If this space was empty, that is totally devoid of air, it would, in theory, one can, apparently, a model of perpetual motion, which can, moreover, denies Leonardo, writing that "nothing will move itself is insensitive order, moving, driven by FIA disequale weight, and ceased the desire of the prime mover, the second will cease immediately. "[79]
Even in the botanical Leonardo made important observations: first noticed that the leaves are arranged on the branches do not randomly but according to mathematical laws (made only three centuries later), is a growing fact, the leaves, avoiding the overlap to take advantage of more light. He found that the concentric rings in the trunks indicating the age of the plant, an observation confirmed by Marcello Malpighi more than a century later.
He also observed the eccentricity in the diameter of the logs, due to the higher growth in part shade. Especially first discovered the phenomenon of rising water from the roots to the trunks by capillarity, anticipating the concept of ascending and descending sap. All this said, an experiment that anticipated by many centuries hydroponics: having studied hydraulics, Leonardo knew that to raise the water needed to do work, so in plants where the water goes through the roots, had to be done a kind of work. To understand the phenomenon took off the ground, placing the plant directly into the water, and observed that the plant could still grow, albeit more slowly.
You can make a conclusive assessment of the position that it is quoting Leonardo in the history of science Sebastiano Timpanaro: [80] Leonardo da Vinci draws from the Greeks, the Arabs from Jordan Nemorario by Biagio da Parma, from Albert of Saxony, John Buridan , by doctors at Oxford, from an unknown precursor of Duhem, but draws on ideas more or less questionable. It is new and his curiosity about every natural phenomenon and the ability to see with the naked eye that could hardly be seen with the aid of instruments. Because of his unique and powerful sense of observation, he differs from his predecessors and by Galileo. His writings are essentially non-ordered and trying to translate them into modern science is the most pure, you pervert. Leonardo (you have to say it out loud) is not a super-Galileo is a very curious nature, not a scientist-philosopher. It may be that sometimes goes even further than Galileo, but there is a different spirit. Where Galileo wrote a treatise, Leonardo wrote one hundred or one hundred aphorisms notations from the truth, while Galileo is so consistent as to become at some point conseguenziario. Leonardo looks and notices without worrying too much about the theories. Many times it records the fact without even groped to explain it. "
The inventor
Project Engineer volanteIl November 25, 1796 Leonardo's manuscripts withdrawn from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and arrived in Paris from their analysis, the Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi, then in France, drew an Essai sur les Ouvrages physico-mathématiques de Leonard de Vinci, excluding from this Da Vinci's studies on the flight, judging probably just a quirk chimerical.
In 1486 Leonardo had expressed his faith in the possibility of human flight, "you know the man with his large framed and Alie, forcefully against the air resistance, winning, and rise above being able to subdue her." From March 14 to April 15, 1505 writes of what was to be a staff Treaty of birds, from which he wanted to extract the secret of flight, extending his studies in 1508 to the anatomy of birds and the air resistance and to 1515, adds the study of falling bodies and the movements of air.
Call Bikes instrumental human flight achieved through the use of a machine: identifying parachute in the easiest way to fly: "If a man has a pavilion diaper clogged, which is 12 for the face and upper arms 12, will throw himself d 'any great height without injury to himself. " By analogy with the weight and the wingspan of birds tries to establish the wingspan that the machine should have, and what force should be used to move and support it.
Leonardo's faith in human flight appears to have remained unchanged throughout his life, despite failures and objective difficulties "'ll take the first flight off the big bird above his magnum Ceceri (Mount Ceceri at Florence), filling the universe with wonder, filling all the scriptures of his fame and eternal glory to the place where he was born. " An experiment was carried out in this way really made a guinea pig and his friend Thomas Masini.
His notes contain many inventions in the military: the scorpions, a machine 'that little' get stones, darts, Sagitta 'which can also destroy enemy machines; the cortaldi, guns for use against ships, coils, suitable against 'the galleys, in order to offend the enemy from afar. Vole throw 4 pounds of lead; the zepate, rafts to burn enemy ships at berth, and plans to ship hulls with spikes that break the enemies and incendiary bombs made of charcoal, saltpeter, sulfur, tar, camphor and incense, a fire that "it is a great desire to buzz that followed since the timber under water."
Another project would include a diver - there is even the person who thought the submarine - about which he wrote but did not want to disclose "to the evil nature of men, they would use them as they assassinementi 'funds seas with the navy to break down and men drown together packages that are inside. " Think the current bike, helicopter, a model which was built in the castle of Clos-Luce, a device to sprockets which was interpreted as the first mechanical calculator, a car driven by a mechanism spring and an automatic loom, rebuilt from the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, who weaves cloth 2 inches per minute.
During his years in the Vatican devised an industrial use of solar energy through the use of concave mirrors to heat water.
The studies of anatomy
Female anatomy, Windsor, Stock RealiGli writings of Leonardo's anatomy prior to the work, like that of Mondino de 'Luzzi, or Guy de Chauliac, reinventing the tradition of Galen, and were therefore devoid of any experimental verification.
The insatiable desire to know, to understand everything he saw, led Leonardo to explore everything. The human body also fascinated him as a perfect machine, and much more complicated machine made of gears. Leonardo wanted to understand what was in it, how it works and what happens when you finally stop with death. For this, first in Milan at the end of the fifteenth century, and then in Florence, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, used to go in the morgues and using scissors and scalpel dissected corpses, at least thirty, reported his contemporaries. In his drawings show the instruments then in use by surgeons, spreaders and saws. The anatomy was in its infancy, the ideas on the human body were very confused. He can rightly be considered the founder of this science, together with at least the Belgian Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), whose work De humani corporis fabrica was to appear in 1543.
It is known precisely on one of his experiences in Florence, "this old man a few hours before his death, he told me to pass the one hundred years, and that he felt no shortage of either the person, other than weakness, and so standosi sat down on a bed in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nova in Florence, without much movement or result of some accident, he passed from this life. And I did anatomy to see the cause of such a gentle death. "[81]
Leonardo studied anatomy in three distinct periods: in Milan, between 1480 and 1490, worked on it, paying particular muscles and bones, on the basis of his artistic activity, later in Florence, between 1502 and 1507, the applied in particular the mechanics of the body, and finally, from 1508 to 1513, in Milan and Rome, became interested in the study of the internal organs and blood circulation.
BraccioLeonardo Movement was the first to represent the interior of the body with a series of drawings, it was also a whole new way to "look inside" the body, among other things, breaking old taboos. There are hundreds of designs now kept at Windsor Castle and owned by the Queen of England, which show what was previously only described in words and so unclear. Leonardo wrote: "With these letters describe this core, you're not a wicked book, and how much longer will write to the minute, the more you will confuse the mind of the listener, and always you will need sponitori or return to the experiments, in which you is very brief and gives news of a few things compared to the subjective of all who wish to integrate news. "[82]
Leonardo invented the anatomical illustration. He also invented a way of illustrating that is still used by modern artists, the so-called "burst image": an example is like watching Leonardo was a disconnected head, drawing the skull and brain in order to show how to enter the ' one inside the other. He studied the bones, muscles, arteries, veins, capillaries, being able to understand the changes and even sense the senile arteriosclerosis. Instead he missed the role of the heart, studied in Rome until 1513, "All the veins and arteries arise from the core, and the reason is that the increased thickness that is in them veins and arteries is that they have in conjunction with the core, and as if you remove the core, the more thin and divide in the most minute ramifications [83] and this belief derives from the analogy with plants, which have their roots in the lower part swollen, "it is clear that all the plant originated from that size, and consequently the veins originate from the core, where is their greater thickness [84]
Similarly, it fell away into his study of botany, letting him believe that the blood work as the sap of plants, with an ascending and descending sap. But the heart had identified the nature of muscle, "the main core is a muscle strength, and powerful muscles above the others" [85] but also as the equivalent of a stove to warm the body: "The heat is generated for the motion of the core, and this occurs because, when the heart faster you move, multiply the heat more, as taught by the pulse of 'feverish, driven by the beat of the heart "[86]
Among his anatomical drawings, the most spectacular and impressive are those that show a fetus before birth, they were entirely new image for the era and, indeed, shocking.
Leonardo also studied the mechanisms of the eye to understand how the three-dimensional view, due to the superposition of two slightly offset images. Scalded a bull's eye in a clear egg, so you can cut and see what is inside. He discovered that the retina and the optic nerve, and reported these observations in his drawings.
The hydraulic
Studies of water, about 1508Nel seventeenth century, Francis Arconati, son of Count Galeazzo, da Vinci drew from the writings of these donated to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, a treaty which he called the motion and measurement of water, but will be published only in 1826.
Leonardo devoted himself to hydraulic studies from his stay in Milan, already full of ships, and Lombardy, traversed by a vast network of canals.
Cooperation with the Republic of Venice for the accommodation of the river Brenta buoyancy, to avoid flooding and make it navigable, but you know works on his projects, some of which, particularly grandiose, are proved by his writings: a channel that Florence combines with the sea, obtained by adjusting the Arno River and the draining of the Pontine Marshes in the Lazio region, which should be accomplished by diverting the river Ufente, the channel of the French region of Sologne, with the diversion of the river Cher, at Tours.
Leonardo also designed cars for the use of hydropower, for the drainage and rising water. According to his custom, he studies the nature of water "below the four elements, the second men grieve and the second least stable. This has never rest until it reaches its maritime element where, not being harassed by the winds, settles and rests with its superfizie equidistant to the center of the world, [87], its origin, movement, certain features, such as the foam, "the water that falls from high water in the other, locked up in himself certain quantity of air, which is submerged by the shot with it and with fast motion in high-rise again, reaching the left superfizie dressed thin body moisture sperico, starting from the first circularmente percussion. "[88]
Observe the optical effects on the water surface and find that "the image of the sun dimostrerrà more polished than in the big waves in the wave minute" and that "the rocket of the sun, passed them bells [bubbles] of superfizie 's water, water it sends to the bottom of a simulacrum of it that rattle in the shape of a cross. I have not yet investigated the cause, but I estimate that the cause of other small bells that sien joint rattle around it more. "[89]
It deals with fossils found on mountains and joked with those who believe in the Flood: "In the foolishness of those who want simplicity and that the animals in this fussin lochi distant seas carried by the flood. Like other sect of ignorant state the nature or conceal them in those designed to lochia infrussi celestial [...] and if you tell them nichi [shells] and for them borders of Italy, away from them seas, in such height is vegghino alli our times, was due to the deluge that left them there, I reply that the belief that this deluge exceed the highest mountain of seven cubits - like those who wrote 'The measure! - Nichi those who are always close to 'the sea shores, were to be above these mountains, and not just above the root of' the mountains. "[90]
He is convinced that with time the earth will end up being completely under water, "Perpetual them are low lochi the bottom of the sea, and the peaks are the opposite of 'mountains, it follows that the earth will be completely covered and sperica water, and will Inhabit. "[91]
The civil engineering and architecture of Leonardo
Draft centrally planned church, Paris, Institut de FranceScrive Vasari that Leonardo 'architecture still f' so many drawings of plants as in other buildings and was the first still, boy, discorresse over the river Arno to put in canal from Pisa to Florence 'testimony, except that on the occasion of the Arno diversion project, which took place in 1503, Leonardo was not "young man", shows that the interests of Leonardo or requests addressed to him mainly concerned hydraulic engineering projects or military. On the other hand, note letter to Ludovico il Moro in 1492, Leonardo offers its expertise of a military nature but adds that believes in peace "satisfy very well compared to other de omni in architecture, composition of public and private buildings, et Conducer in a spot of water to another.
In Milan, will in fact only the title of "ingegnarius" while in his second stay in Florence will have the title of architect and painter.
It is certain that for the advancement of knowledge engineering staff would benefit from knowing the Sienese architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini and his writings have a copy of his note and the Treaty of military and civil architecture, design and thick fortifications with bastions bristling with angles to oppose the enemy artillery.
His designs are known for the dome of the Cathedral of Milan for stately buildings, for which thinks of hanging gardens and innovative interior solutions, such as stairs and inside the double and quadruple houses "with the wind mill will generate each time of summer and I will raise the water surgitiva and fresh, which will split [...] PEL half of the tables and other run water the garden, watered them Pomerance and cedars to their needs [...] farassi through the mill Many water ducts in the house, and sources in several lochs, some transit and where, who will connect you to all parts of the jump in the water upward. "
But it also deals with the modern conception of "a stable, polished", to come to imagine an ideal city, built on several levels of road where the tanks flowed to the lower level, and in the home had more than pedestrians.
In 1502 Leonardo da Vinci produced a drawing of a single-span bridge of 300 meters, as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Bayazed II. It was expected that a pylon of the bridge would be placed on one of the entrances to the mouth of the Bosphorus, Golden Horn, but was never built. The turkish government, in the early twenty-first century has decided to build a bridge that follows the Leonardo project.
The personality of Leonardo
Portrait of Gian Giacomo Caprotti, said Hall, anonymous, ca 1495, Vaduz, Alois Foundation reported that a contemporary of Leonardo's alleged homosexuality, from the anonymous report of 1476 (which ended with acquittal on the other), lack of relationships with women, notes on the ambiguity of his relationship with Vasari and his pupils Melzi and Caprotti, much younger than him and comely [20].
The statement of Leonardo himself, 'it my first memories of my childhood and I think, as I was in the cradle, a kite that I came to me and opened my mouth with his tail, and many times I percotessi with this queue in the lips, "[92] derived the interpretation of Sigmund Freud, in his book A childhood memory of Leonardo da Vinci, published in 1910, as a fantasy of an oral sex act, while the kite androgyny would be the mother of the sexual curiosity Child artist follows his artistic and scientific curiosity never met and concluded [20].
If Leonardo's homosexuality is likely although not certain, with all possible disquisitions on what this may have influenced his art or not [20], its lack of religion and skepticism are clear, related to comments made by Vasari, for which "so many were his whims, that philosophy of things natural, expected to understand the properties of herbs, continuing et observing the motion of the sky, the moon and during the course of the sun. For the soul that made it a heretical concept, which is not approached in any religion, estimating it to be far more adventure than Christian philosopher. "
Aretino, according to his habit of inventing facts that make uplifting the lives of biographies to which he felt respect and sympathy, writes that "seeing himself near death, playing of things Catholic, back in the good way, was reduced to the Christian faith with many tears. Hence confessed and contrite, if well and could not stand, turned devoutly seize the Blessed Sacrament outside of 'the bed, "then dying in the arms of King Francis I.
Angel, detail of the baptism of Christ, ca 1473Molte his notes show contempt for the men of the Church: priests who say the Mass: "Many of those who hay, to exercise their skill, so richly vestiran, and this will seem to be made according to the ' use of 'aprons' [93] on the churches: "Much that will let them exercise and toil and poverty of life and property, and will live in wealth and triumphant buildings, showing this to be the means to make friends with God" , [84] on selling the Paradise: "Infinite variety public offering price of great things and peacefully, without permission of the owner of those, and that they were never themselves, nor in their power, and will not this man's justice" [84 ] or even "The invisible coin [the promises of eternal life] faran triumph many of those spenders' [84] or on monasteries:" Those who are dead [the saints], after a thousand years, hay costs to those who will many live [the brothers] '[94] or jokes about rites: "Those who go with white garments with arrogant movement threatened with metal and fire [the censer with incense] who did not make them any expense" [95] and the devotion of the images: "He told them that men do not hear men alli; orange eyes open and do not see, speak to those and not fie answered them; chiederan who plows through the ears and not hear; faran light to those who are bereaved."
drawing eroticoIl Vasari refers to his generosity, his great spirit and pride, "going to the bench for the provision that every month from Pier Soderini used to take, the cashier turned to some cones of money, and he does not turned seize, answering: "I am not a painter of money"; the pleasantness of his conversation and his love for animals, "often going from places where birds were sold, with his own hand cavandogli cage, paid to him and to those who the selling price had asked them to let air in flight, giving them back their lost freedom. " And his compassion and tenderness towards animals is linked to the news, reported by Andrew Corsali, the fact that Leonardo was a vegetarian. [97]
But from his writings reflected the image of a man far less sociable than the hagiography Vasari wants to impose: "If you're alone, you'll be all yours, and if you are accompanied by one companion, you're through you, and so less will be greater than the indiscretion of his practice. And if you're over, you fall more in a similar incident ', and elsewhere writes that' savage is what you save, "and in many parts of his manuscripts is the distrust and pessimism about the 'human race." His research and his work was in fact carried out preferably in solitude, as noted by the vivid description of teacher work to the Last Supper by Matteo Bandello in his novel LVIII [98]. Did not usually follow strict rules or practices pursued, preferring to indulge the creativity and inspiration of the moment [55]. His obsessive search for perfection, with endless tweaks and changes (as was the Mona Lisa) arise from his belief that painting, unlike music, is here to stay and not run out in the individual performance, "the painting is not died immediately after its creation as does the music, but a long time will witness your ignorance [...] [...] but if you leave you will study the works that will give you more honor than the pecuniary [99].
Given the vastness of their interests the best and unique manifestation of the Renaissance, Leonardo, not tied to any city, state or prince, is the first example of the cosmopolitanism of Italian intellectuals, unique in Europe, reflecting a split between culture and popular destination to extend to the present day.
The library of Leonardo LeonardoLa library was bequeathed to the faithful that Francesco Melzi, after the death of his teacher, he moved from Amboise to the family villa at Vaprio d'Adda, carrying books, manuscripts and instruments shop belonged to Leonardo [70]. In this collection speak Gaddiano Anonymous (1537-1542), Giorgio Vasari (1568) and John Paul Lomazzo (1590), who described it as jealously guarded [70]. Vasari also remembered as a painter in Milan (Aurelio Luini?) Possess some writings of Leonardo, "written with the left-handed upside down" [70].
Analysis of the Da Vinci code, you could get at least some of the texts owned by Leonardo for his studies. In 1504 it declared in a paper to have more than one hundred fifty books of collections of his writings: twenty-five "small" sixteen "greatest," two "major", you're in "parchment" and one with " Covert green suede "[100]. The library of Leonardo was to include:
The characteristic mirror writing, turning from right to left, that they can easily be read only by placing the sheets in front of a mirror, the manuscripts of Leonardo, a legacy data to Francesco Melzi, arrived after the death of the sculptor Pompeo Leoni such that to trade more easily, they divided into several groups, changing its original appearance. Collected mostly in the seventeenth century by Count Galeazzo Arconati Milan, were donated to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, from which they were transferred in 1796 to Paris, where he returned to Milan after the fall of Napoleon, the only Atlantic Codex, while others, for an error dell'incaricato Austrian remained at the Institut de France. Other codes were finished some time in England.
Today there are over 8,000 sheets of notes (over 16,000 pages) with many tens of thousands of drawings left by Leonardo, but it is believed that only a small part of what he wrote and drew. Some think that he wrote 60,000, perhaps 100,000 pages, now lost. But perhaps something still exists, buried in some antique store in 1966, for example, two new codes were found in Madrid. These pages written almost "casting", so much so that experts from Leonardo says, "seems to hear him speak as a recorder."
The features of LeonardoLe features of Leonardo known from an alleged senile portrait, dating from about 1515 and kept in the Biblioteca Reale in Turin. The work, which are derived from other portraits ideals, is now part of the collective.
Leonardo on the features of age or younger ages are still some possibility of identification in his works or other artists, such as Young stood on the far right of the Adoration of the Magi, in Verrocchio's David or the figure of Plato in the School of Athens Raphael.
There are also several sources that, while not describe his physical appearance in a precise manner, speaking of his ways and celebrate its beauty. For example, the Gaddiano Anonymous wrote: "[Nature] is not only the beauty of the body which granted it very well, he turned to grant it, but many rare virtues Anchora it turned teacher. [...] It was a lovely person, proportion, grace and war aspect. wore a pink short beggar to the knee, which then still used the long dress, haveva until mezo chest in a beautiful ringed et et capellaia well composed. "
Vasari took rather docile and loving aspect of his character: "He's the air with splendor, that was beautiful, serene melancholy every soul, and with the words turned to each indurata yes no intention et al. He believed his forces with every violent fury. [...] With the donations collected his friend and cares for every poor and rich, but he had talent and virtue. [...] For that Fiorenza was really great gift at birth of Leonardo, and more than infinite loss in his death. "
The critical fortune of the painter pittoreLa critical acclaim was immediate and has never suffered blackouts. Already for the Vasari [102] "nature would favor him so much, thinking that everywhere is turned, the brains and soul, he showed a lot of things in his gods than in giving the perfection of readiness, divinity, goodness, loveliness and grace no the other was never equal. " For Lomazzo Leonardo in giving the light shows that habbo always feared not to give too clear to reserve a spot best et tried to make it very intense dark to find them its ends. Waves with this art has attained on the faces and bodies, which has really done wonders, all we can to nature. And in this part was over all, in a word such that we may say that 'the light of Leonardo is divine "[103]. Not by chance the town of Arezzo ascribed the initiation of the "modern manner", placing it at the beginning of the third part of the screw.
The Last Supper (detail) For Goethe, [104] Leonardo reveals itself primarily as a great painter. Regularly and perfectly formed, it appeared, against the common humanity, an ideal example of it. As the clarity and insight of the eye is more often to the intellect, so the clarity and intelligence of the artist were. You do not ever quit last pulse of its original and unparalleled talent, restraining any impulse spontaneous and random, just wanted each section was deliberate and meditate. "
For the painter Delacroix, [105] Leonardo "arrives without error, without weakness, without exaggeration, and almost a leap, then naturalism judicious and wise, and servile imitation of the far from a perfect vacuum and chimerical. Strange thing! The most methodical of men, who among the masters of his time was occupied most of the methods of execution, which taught them with such precision that the works of his best students are always confused with her, this man, whose manner is so typical, not rhetoric. Always attentive to nature, searches without respite, never does not imitate himself, the most learned of the teachers is also the most naive, and none of his rivals, Michelangelo and Raphael, as he deserves this praise. "
Hippolyte Taine writes [106] that "there is perhaps the world an example of genius so universal, inventive, unable to be satisfied, greedy for the infinite and of course fine, leaning forward, beyond his age and subsequent . His figures express a feeling and an incredible spirit, overflowing with ideas and feelings expressed. Around them, the characters of heroic athletes who are not Michelangelo, Raphael's virgins are only placid girls, whose soul is not asleep he lived. His, feel and think with each stroke of the face and countenance; it takes some time to establish a dialogue with them, not that the sentiment they express is too poorly defined, on the contrary, it springs from the whole issue, but is too thin, too complicated, too far outside and beyond the town, impenetrable and inexplicable. The stillness and silence of them leave guess two or three overlapping thoughts, and others, hidden behind the most distant, dimly glimpsed this world and intimate secret, like a delicate vegetation in the unknown depths of clear water " .
For Wölfflin, [107] "is the first artist to systematically studied the proportions in the body of humans and animals and has become aware of the mechanical ratios, in going, climbing, lifting weights and taking objects, but even what he has discovered the most distant facial characteristics, while meditating on the expression of a coordinated movements of the soul. The painter is for him the clear eye of the world, which dominates all things visible. "
The Virgin of roccePer Octave Sirén [108] Leonardo "Florence was to the core, although more shrewd, more flexible, more intelligent than its predecessors. Later became interested in painting problems as they went deeper into what scientific resulting from the presence in his art, new trends and features unknown to his contemporaries. The change from the precise details, crisp, with gradations of light and shade, the gradient of the body, sums up a general tendency in Renaissance painting, but what about Leonardo is carried out not earlier than two or three generations, he became mature in space of twenty or thirty years. "
Emilio Cecchi [109] "he was originally a painting of unsurpassed intensity, where the harsh chiaroscuro of Masaccio is brilliantly bright and raised in a quantity of plastic expression which, when once again we must recall the memories of Greece, not can compare to that mysterious and sublime grace of Praxiteles sculpture "
André Chastel, [110] the premise uncertainty and ambiguity of human life itself, "the meaning of an ambiguous position between the man and the exquisite horrible, between the certain and the illusory, has increased in Leonardo through the years: in his painting is a parallel development of chiaroscuro. The principle of it was primarily the interest of the contrast that enhances the opposite terms [...] he is so pleased with the slide imperceptibly sweet delicious light in the shadows, thus resolving the conflict between design and modeling [.. .] declared that, as Giotto and Masaccio, it should only be children of nature, he means to say that all the problems of painting, at all levels, must be completely rethought. The gradient resolves the difficulties of drawing and get the unit forms within the space enveloping atmosphere. "
For Argan, [111] Finally, in Leonardo "everything is immanence. The experience of reality must be direct, unaffected by any certainty a priori, not the authority of dogma and scripture, not the logic of philosophical systems, not the perfection of the ancients. But the reality is immense, we can only catch it [...] in particular phenomena and the phenomenon is when, in particular, shows the totality of reality. " If the art of Michelangelo dominated the moral sentiment, so by nature it is necessary to rescue our spiritual existence with which we are bound to God, Leonardo predominant feeling of nature, "that for which we feel the rhythm of our lives to beat ' unison with that of the cosmos. "
There is no certainty about the allocation of all the paintings of Leonardo. About fifteen of them the assignment is almost universal, others have simply been made by many hands (especially the early works of Leonardo, in the period in which he worked "to shop" by Verrocchio). Than others, so far attributed to other artists, recently scholars argue for the attribution to the master.
Leonardo "esoteric" Leonardo has always been a character shrouded in mystery, both for his unique personality, both for the incredible versatility of his interests, which still arouse curiosity [112]. Not lacking in his character some sides "dark", which can give rise to uncertainty and confusion, as the methods by which he could conduct his anatomical investigations, or his approach to material and immanent, almost agnostic, so anticipation of the times [112]. We have also added the cryptic writing from right to left and habit, for fun, to invent code phrases, anagrams and riddles [112].
These and other elements have formed a huge pool to draw upon to review its human story, as well as artistic and intellectual, according to new interpretations, sometimes actual misrepresentations or exploitation that have little to do with the true meaning of his complex personality [112]. The most striking case is emblematic and certainly in the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, with his resounding success in publishing and media around the world [112]. In it, including riddles, murder and a dense web of history, esotericism, art and theology, he tells of a shocking secret handed down through the centuries for Christianity to be a sort of secret society, the Priory of Sion, but kept secret by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and, recently, by Opus Dei. The secret about human nature of Christ, his marriage to Mary Magdalene (symbolized by the Holy Grail itself) and the existence of their offspring. Among other historical events actually took place and pure fantasy, it is argued that Leonardo played the position of Grand Master of the Priory, hiding in some of his works, through innuendo and coded messages, a number of references to his active participation and confidentiality
Among the various works chosen by Dan Brown are the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper: the first hide a portrait of the artist dressed as women, the second would be a representation of the "secret", with St. John that would be identified as Mary Magdalene [113]. Despite the endless controversy generated by the book, to the questionable historical reconstructions and documentary and iconographic errors for fools, curiosity and almost maniacal attention generated on almost everything about Leonardo was after all the credit for bringing the spotlight Vinci's genius, including exhibitions, conferences, surveys and past documentaries on all media in the world [113].
Leonardo and the Holy SindoneSecondo some scholars Leonardo was the author of the Holy Shroud. Victory for Haziel, was designed using a hot iron on an old canvas, with a self-portrait to the face. The technique, according to the Haziel, Leonardo recalls the gradient [114]. The Haziel also published in 1998, a book about it, "The Passion According to Leonardo," [115]. Even an American artist, Lillian Schwartz, argues that the Shroud is a self-portrait of Leonardo [116]. Schwartz has used the computerized images to support the similarity of the Shroud with the portraits of Leonardo. The Schwartz is a painter who claimed to be in the eighties also a self-portrait of Leonardo's Mona Lisa. However, according to John Jackson, director of a research center on the Holy Shroud in the United States, the possibility of false Leonardo unfounded: he argues that there is a commemorative medallion, from the mid-fourteenth century, preserved in the Cluny Museum, for which precede the first news about the Shroud of about 100 years, the birth of Leonardo [117].
