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.
I must in these remarks confine myself strictly to the task in hand
and give no more of the history of the Sforza monument than is
needed to explain the texts and drawings I have been able to
reproduce. In the first place, with regard to the drawings, I may
observe that they are all, with the following two exceptions, in the
Queen's Library at Windsor Castle; the red chalk drawing on Pl.
LXXVI No. 1 is in the MS. C. A. (see No. 7l2) and the fragmentary
pen and ink drawing on page 4 is in the Ambrosian Library. The
drawings from Windsor on Pl. LXVI have undergone a trifling
reduction from the size of the originals.
There can no longer be the slightest doubt that the well-known
engraving of several horsemen (Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, Vol.
V, p. 181, No. 3) is only a copy after original drawings by
Leonardo, executed by some unknown engraver; we have only to compare
the engraving with the facsimiles of drawings on Pl. LXV, No. 2, Pl.
LXVII, LXVIII and LXIX which, it is quite evident, have served as
models for the engraver.
On Pl. LXV No. 1, in the larger sketch to the right hand, only the
base is distinctly visible, the figure of the horseman is effaced.
Leonardo evidently found it unsatisfactory and therefore rubbed it
out.
The base of the monument--the pedestal for the equestrian statue--is
repeatedly sketched on a magnificent plan. In the sketch just
mentioned it has the character of a shrine or aedicula to contain a
sarcophagus. Captives in chains are here represented on the
entablature with their backs turned to that portion of the monument
which more
strictly constitutes the pedestal of the horse. The lower portion of
the aedicula is surrounded by columns. In the pen and ink drawing
Pl. LXVI--the lower drawing on the right hand side--the sarcophagus
is shown between the columns, and above the entablature is a plinth
on which the horse stands. But this arrangement perhaps seemed to
Leonardo to lack solidity, and in the little sketch on the left
hand, below, the sarcophagus is shown as lying under an arched
canopy. In this the trophies and the captive warriors are detached
from the angles. In the first of these two sketches the place for
the trophies is merely indicated by a few strokes; in the third
sketch on the left the base is altogether broader, buttresses and
pinnacles having been added so as to form three niches. The black
chalk drawing on Pl. LXVIII shows a base in which the angles are
formed by niches with pilasters. In the little sketch to the extreme
left on Pl. LXV, No. 1, the equestrian statue serves to crown a
circular temple somewhat resembling Bramante's tempietto of San
Pietro in Montario at Rome, while the sketch above to the right
displays an arrangement faintly reminding us of the tomb of the
Scaligers in Verona. The base is thus constructed of two platforms
or slabs, the upper one considerably smaller than the lower one
which is supported on flying buttresses with pinnacles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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