All Leonardo's precious manuscripts were bequeathed to Francesco Melzi,
and unfortunately became scattered. About the end of the seventeenth
century they were mostly in the Ambrosian Library at Milan; but the
French under Napoleon took fourteen of the principal manuscripts,
leaving only two, which now form the "Codex Atlantico" at Milan. The
latter is a collection of four hundred of Leonardo's drawings and
manuscripts. One volume on mathematics and physics is among the Arundel
Manuscripts, at the British Museum. At Holkham is a manuscript of the
_Libro Originali di Natura_.
In 1651 Raphael Trichet Dupresne, of Paris, published a selection from
Da Vinci's works on painting, the _Trattato della Pittura_, which has
been reprinted twenty-two times in six different languages, "one of the
best guides and counsellors of the painter." A "Treatise on the Motion
and Power of Water" was published later. In 1883 Jean Paul Richter,
Knight of the Bavarian Order of St. Michael, after years of labor over
the strange handwriting of Da Vinci, from right to left across the page,
published much of the work of the great painter, reproducing his
sketches by photogravure. He had access to the manuscripts in the Royal
Library at Windsor, the Institute of France, the Ambrosian Library at
Milan, the Louvre, the Academy of Venice, the Uffizi, the Royal Library
of Turin, the British and South Kensington Museums, and Christ Church
College, Oxford.
Richter says, "Da Vinci has been unjustly accused of having squandered
his powers by beginning a variety of studies, and then, having hardly
begun, thrown them aside. The truth is that the labors of three
centuries have hardly sufficed for the elucidation of some of the
problems which occupied his mighty mind."
Leonardo's astronomical speculations, his remarks on fossils, at that
time believed to be mere freaks of nature, his close study of botany,
his researches in chemistry, color, heat, light, mechanics, anatomy,
music, acoustics, and magnetism, have been an astonishment to every
reader.
Among his inventions were "a proportional compass, a lathe for turning
ovals, an hygrometer; an ingenious surgical probe, a universal joint,
dredging machines, wheelbarrows, diving-suits, a porphyry color-grinder,
boats moved by paddle-wheels, a roasting-jack worked by hot air, a
three-legged sketching-stool which folded up, a revolving cowl for
chimneys, ribbon-looms, coining presses, saws for stone, silk spindles
and throwers, wire-drawing and file-cutting, and plate-rolling
machines." No wonder he was called the "all-knowing Leonardo."
All his work as a poet is lost, save one sonnet:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account