The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. I

Important rules for the proportions of the human figure are entirely missing; on the other hand, they contain passages which, if they are genuine, cannot now be verified from any original manuscript still in existence. These copies, at any rate, neither give us the original order of the texts as written by Leonardo, nor do they provide any substitute by connecting them according to a logical scheme; indeed, in their chaotic confusion, they are anything but satisfactory reading. The fault, no doubt, lies with the compiler of the Vatican copy, which appears to be the source from which all the published and widely known texts were derived; for, instead of arranging the passages himself, he was satisfied with recording a suggestion for a final arrangement of them into eight distinct parts, without attempting to carry out his plan. Under the mistaken idea that this distribution plan might belong not to the compiler, but to Leonardo himself, various editors up to the present day have very unwisely continued to adopt this order—or rather, disorder.

I, like other researchers, had given up the original manuscript of the Trattato della Pittura as lost, until, in the beginning of 1880, I was enabled by the generosity of Lord Ashburnham to inspect his manuscripts, and was fortunate enough to discover among them the original text of the best-known portion of the Trattato in his magnificent library at Ashburnham Place. Although this discovery was only of a fragment—though a considerable fragment—it prompted me to search further and provided the key to the mystery that had so long surrounded the first origin of all the known copies of the Trattato. The extensive research I was subsequently able to conduct, the results of which are combined in this work, was only made possible by the unrestricted permission granted to me to investigate all the manuscripts by Leonardo dispersed throughout Europe, and to reproduce the highly important original sketches they contain using the "photogravure" process. Her Majesty the Queen graciously granted me special permission to copy the manuscripts at the Royal Library at Windsor for publication. The Commission Centrale Administrative de l’Institut de France, Paris, in response to an application from Sir Frederic Leighton, P. R. A., a corresponding member of the Institut, most liberally gave me free permission to work for several months in their private collection to decipher the manuscripts preserved there. The same favor that Lord Ashburnham had already granted me was extended to me by the Earl of Leicester, the Marchese Trivulzi, and the curators of the Ambrosian Library at Milan, by the Conte Manzoni at Rome, and by