The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — CompleteLeonardo, da Vinci
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The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
Leonardo, da Vinci
Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
[Footnote 665, 666: In the original MS. there is no sketch to
accompany these passages, and if we compare them with those drawings
made by Leonardo in preparation for the composition of the
picture--Pl. XLV, XLVI--, (compare also Pl. LII, 1 and the drawings
on p. 297) it is impossible to recognise in them a faithful
interpretation of the whole of this text; but, if we compare these
passages with the finished picture (see p. 334) we shall see that in
many places they coincide. For instance, compare No. 665, 1. 6--8,
with the fourth figure on the right hand of Christ. The various
actions described in lines 9--10, 13--14 are to be seen in the group
of Peter, John and Judas; in the finished picture however it is not
a glass but a salt cellar that Judas is upsetting.]
666.
Another lays his hand on the table and is looking. Another blows his
mouthful. [3] Another leans forward to see the speaker shading his
eyes with his hand. [5] Another draws back behind the one who leans
forward, and sees the speaker between the wall and the man who is
leaning [Footnote: 6. _chinato_. I have to express my regret for
having misread this word, written _cinato_ in the original, and
having altered it to _"ciclo"_ when I first published this text, in
'The Academy' for Nov. 8, 1879 immediately after I had discovered
it, and subsequently in the small biography of Leonardo da Vinci
(Great Artists) p. 29.].
[Footnote: In No. 666. Line I must refer to the furthest figure on
the left; 3, 5 and 6 describe actions which are given to the group
of disciples on the left hand of Christ.]
667.
CHRIST.
Count Giovanni, the one with the Cardinal of Mortaro.
[Footnote: As this note is in the same small Manuscript as the
passage here immediately preceding it, I may be justified in
assuming that Leonardo meant to use the features of the person here
named as a suitable model for the figure of Christ. The celebrated
drawing of the head of Christ, now hanging in the Brera Gallery at
Milan, has obviously been so much restored that it is now impossible
to say, whether it was ever genuine. We have only to compare it with
the undoubtedly genuine drawings of heads of the disciples in PI.
XLVII, XLVIII and L, to admit that not a single line of the Milan
drawing in its present state can be by the same hand.]
668.
Philip, Simon, Matthew, Thomas, James the Greater, Peter, Philip,
Andrew, Bartholomew.
[Footnote: See PI. XLVI. The names of the disciples are given in the
order in which they are written in the original, from right to left,
above each head. The original drawing is here slightly reduced in
scale; it measures 39 centimetres in length by 26 in breadth.]
669.
On the battle of Anghiari.
Florentine
Neri di Gino Capponi
Bernardetto de' Medici
Micheletto,
Niccolo da Pisa
Conte Francesco
Pietro Gian Paolo
Guelfo Orsino,
Messer Rinaldo degli
Albizzi
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