A Treatise on Painting

THIS reprint of the Treatise on Painting by Leonardo da Vinci is the first attempt by a Cooperative Society of Printers Società cooperativa di tipografi: These were 19th-century labor associations where workers shared ownership and profits., who, working in their spare time on their own account, intend to bring to light books that are easy to sell and of proven utility. This act by intelligent and industrious workers—associating to produce and market the products of their own craft—seems to us to deserve encouragement, more for its moral value than for its economic consequences, which we do not wish to debate here. And the moral value of this act lies in combining capital (the fruit of savings) with labor directed by harmonious and well-disposed wills, for the purpose of doing something useful for the associates and beneficial to the public. Indeed, they do not intend to exploit the unhealthy curiosity of our time by using the press to spread novels and short stories where both modesty and the most noble sentiments of nature are offended.

[An engraving appears here depicting a man with thick, curly hair and a stern, downward expression, a classic example of Leonardo’s physiognomic studies Physiognomy: The historical practice of judging a person's character from their facial features, a subject Leonardo studied extensively..]