The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — CompleteLeonardo, da Vinci
Science
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
Leonardo, da Vinci
Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
As has been told, Giuliano de' Medici was murdered on the 26th April
1478, and we see by this that only three months later Botticelli was
paid for his painting of the "_proditores_". We can however hardly
suppose that all the members of the conspiracy were depicted by him
in fresco on the facade of the palace, since no fewer than eighty
had been condemned to death. We have no means of knowing whether,
besides Botticelli, any other painters, perhaps Leonardo, was
commissioned, when the criminals had been hanged in person out of
the windows of the Palazzo del Podestà to represent them there
afterwards in effigy in memory of their disgrace. Nor do we know
whether the assassin who had escaped may at first not have been
provisionally represented as hanged in effigy. Now, when we try to
connect the historical facts with this drawing by Leonardo
reproduced on Pl. LXII, No. I, and the full description of the
conspirator's dress and its colour on the same sheet, there seems to
be no reasonable doubt that Bernardo Bandini is here represented as
he was actually hanged on December 29th, 1479, after his capture at
Constantinople. The dress is certainly not that in which he
committed the murder. A long furred coat might very well be worn at
Constantinople or at Florence in December, but hardly in April. The
doubt remains whether Leonardo described Bernardo's dress so fully
because it struck him as remarkable, or whether we may not rather
suppose that this sketch was actually made from nature with the
intention of using it as a study for a wall painting to be executed.
It cannot be denied that the drawing has all the appearance of
having been made for this purpose. Be this as it may, the sketch
under discussion proves, at any rate, that Leonardo was in Florence
in December 1479, and the note that accompanies it is valuable as
adding one more characteristic specimen to the very small number of
his MSS. that can be proved to have been written between 1470 and
1480.]
Notes on the Last Supper (665-668).
665.
One who was drinking and has left the glass in its position and
turned his head towards the speaker.
Another, twisting the fingers of his hands together turns with stern
brows to his companion [6]. Another with his hands spread open shows
the palms, and shrugs his shoulders up his ears making a mouth of
astonishment [8].
[9] Another speaks into his neighbour's ear and he, as he listens to
him, turns towards him to lend an ear [10], while he holds a knife
in one hand, and in the other the loaf half cut through by the
knife. [13] Another who has turned, holding a knife in his hand,
upsets with his hand a glass on the table [14].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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