The Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. 2

FOREWORD.

...not assist in the noble works of this time to give a new impetus to this art of rising, to which all of humanity has aspired? I will return elsewhere to this interesting point in more detail¹.

One of the passages of Manuscript B relating to aeronautics (folio 83 verso) was recently pointed out by Mr. Govi to the Academy of Sciences, as containing a proposal for a screw propeller original: "propulseur à hélice" and as an interesting parallel to other passages in the Atlanticus The Codex Atlanticus is the largest collection of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and writings, currently held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. regarding the parachute².

Manuscript B had already been cited several times previously for the scientific importance of some of its texts: notably by Venturi for fortifications, pearl fishing in India, and Greek fire; by Delécluze for the description of a steam cannon original: "canon à vapeur"; Leonardo called this invention the "Architronito." attributed by Leonardo to Archimedes; by Libri and Mr. Govi for a passage concerning whether, through compressed air, spirits can exist without bodies in this world; by Mr. Courajod for an interesting drawing regarding interlacings; and by Mr. de Geymüller for church plans related to Bramante's designs for the construction of St. Peter's in Rome. Several other pages have recently appeared, in whole or in part, in the work of Mr. Richter.

Manuscript B must be compared particularly, and in several respects, to the Atlanticus; I will attempt to show this soon while accounting for the mission I recently fulfilled in Milan. Although much smaller, it has the advantage of a pagination which, while not by Leonardo himself, is very old and matches the sequence of subjects³. On the first page, one finds a few lines that will seem worthy of the attention of those seeking to clarify the question of whether Leonardo traveled to the East; these are strange characters likely referring to Leonardo's experiments with non-Western scripts or cryptic ciphers, which should be compared with those found—though they are quite different—in another of the Institute's autograph notebooks and among several pages of the Atlanticus (for example, folios 4 recto and verso, 19 recto, 298 verso). In the same vein, many other passages in the rest of Manuscript B will be noted where, concerning matters of war, there is mention of Eastern lands. This manuscript is also important for the author's biography, because it can likely be assigned to a precise period of his life: the end of his time in the service of Ludovico the Moor Ludovico Sforza (1452–1508), the Duke of Milan and a major patron of the Renaissance., since we see him naming Milan, the Duke, and the Duchess, regarding works he seems to plan for the city and the princes. In one instance, he mentions a "Marchesino" (folio 4 recto), who might be, if I am not mistaken, Lord Marchesino Stange, Ludovico's secretary, to whom the latter wrote a letter on June 30, 1497, published by Mr. Richter⁴.

1. "Of the many problems posed to the world today, there is perhaps none greater than that of aerial navigation. Past failures must not be seen as precursors to future defeats, for it is only in these last few years that the subject of artificial flight has been taken up with a truly scientific spirit. — As societies for the advancement of aeronautics have been established in England, America, France, and other countries, there are reasons to believe that our knowledge of this most difficult department of science will continue to grow until the complicated problem is solved." J.-B. Pettigrew, Animal Locomotion (International Scientific Series).
2. On this occasion, I pointed out to the same Academy another passage of Manuscript B, interesting for a different reason, concerning telephones. (Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, August 29 and September 19, 1852. — See the notes for folios 6 recto and 83 verso.)
3. The author's very clear intention for this manuscript, as with Manuscript A and several others, was that the pages should follow—at least as drafts—the very order in which they are found. It is true that sometimes this intention is expressly indicated by references, numbers, or this instruction: "Turn the page" original Italian: "volta carta"; but I believe no conclusion can be drawn to the contrary from the absence of this elsewhere. Thus, in Manuscript D, where the pagination is in Leonardo's own hand and where it can hardly be contested that everything follows a sequence as in a treatise, we see the scholar writing: "turn the page," whereas he does not write these words at the bottom of the other pages. Leonardo usually makes these references when a sentence is not finished.
4. Leonardo, London, 1880, p. 18. — It was not until 1494 that Ludovico Sforza took the title of Duke, says Mr. de Geymüller in The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. I, p. 26, no. 751. Before 1494, "Duke and Duchess of Milan" would refer to Gian Galeazzo and Isabella of Aragon.