The Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. 6

FOREWORD

After the publication of the first three volumes of this collection, the French Academy The Académie française, the preeminent French council for matters pertaining to the French language. did me the great honor of awarding me, in its entirety, during its session on November 14, 1889, the Bordin Prize¹ The Bordin Prize is a prestigious academic award established to recognize high-quality works of literature or history..

I have done everything within my power, in the pursuit and completion of the second part of my undertaking—which concludes with this sixth volume—to ensure that it lives up to such high-level encouragement, according to the measure of my strength.

This volume contains the manuscript from the Institute The Institut de France, which houses many of Leonardo’s notebooks. marked H, which consists of no fewer than 284 pages; to this, I have added the composite notebooks The original French "cahiers factices" refers to notebooks compiled from loose leaves that were not originally bound together., formed almost entirely of pages removed from manuscripts A and B, which the director of the National Library, Mr. Léopold Delisle, recently saw returned to France Léopold Delisle was a famous librarian and historian known for tracking down and recovering stolen manuscripts..

The Quantin Publishing House has generously assisted in the creation of this considerable supplement, and I reiterate the thanks that its directors and collaborators deserve.

The small booklet H, scattered throughout with various figures—among which one notices figures, horses, and interlace patterns—offers many allegories to be compared with the "prophecies of Leonardo da Vinci," as well as fables, maxims, and various thoughts. Sometimes in this train of thought, sometimes out of a taste for natural history, and sometimes with an artistic purpose, the author concerns himself with all sorts of animals, moving from fables concerning them to their instincts and their physical structure. Other pages touch upon philosophy, speaking of the progression that leads from matter to spirit, the uselessness of suffering in plants, the end and the first cause, etc.; others relate to various personages, to viols A family of bowed string instruments popular in the Renaissance., to carriages and harnesses; still others to subjects treated in previous manuscripts, for example, architecture, water, and Latin and Italian grammars², etc.

The first of the two composite notebooks from the National Library, Ashburnham 2, no. 2038 Named after Lord Ashburnham, from whose collection these stolen manuscripts were recovered., has only 68 pages; but these pages are large and contain very dense texts of exceptional importance for art. It is there, in fact, that one finds many of the principal chapters of the Treatise on Painting original: "Traité de la peinture". Some passages possess a beautiful literary color; others are important for the question of the teaching of drawing, which is so controversial today³!

In this notebook, a host of remarks, whether general and theoretical or detailed and practical, offer much interest. Leonardo treats the honor of art, the study of the masters (which must be followed by the imitation and love of nature), the universality and the specialization of painters, their spirit, and their lives, in...

1. See the foreword to the 4th volume (manuscripts F and I).
2. Studied for the education of Maximilian according to C. Amoretti (Historical Memories original: "Memorie storiche", p. 62 and 204).
3. See The Blue Review original: "Revue Bleue" of November 12, 1887, p. 627 (Leonardo da Vinci and the Teaching of Drawing original: "Léonard de Vinci et l'enseignement du dessin", by Félix Ravaisson, of the Institute), and the foreword of the 3rd volume (manuscripts C, E, K), p. 3, note 1.