INTRODUCTION

different inks and the figures are shaded in watercolor and retouched with two shades of ink, as in the figures on the other sheets.

It is impossible to decide which of Folios 15 and 16 is the rectoThe front side of a leaf of paper. and which is the versoThe back side of a leaf of paper., because they have been trimmed on both sides—the right and the left; however, their height is equal to that of the other sheets.

Two sheets, 17 and 18, of double size, are of the same paper as the fourteen others and bear the same characteristics; Folio 17 has been trimmed at the sides; both have a blank verso.

There are therefore eighteen sheets and thirty-four pages in total.

The writing always runs, according to Leonardo's habit, from right to left Leonardo da Vinci was famously left-handed and wrote in "mirror writing," which is read from right to left and often requires a mirror to be easily deciphered., and the figures number two hundred and forty-five.

The method adopted in this publication is the very same that has already been employed for the Codex on the Flight of Birds 2; it consists of the diplomatic transcriptionA literal, letter-for-letter representation of the original manuscript, including all original errors and abbreviations., the critical transcriptionAn edited version of the text intended for clarity, where abbreviations are expanded and punctuation is modernized., and the translation.

We repeat here what we stated for the Codex on the Flight of Birds: the diplomatic transcription reproduces with the greatest accuracy everything contained in the sheets; it is, in short, nothing more than a second reproduction in typographic characters, accessible to everyone.

Here we also note that the joining of words does not follow fixed and constant rules, and that the author's intention is often neither clear nor obvious; keeping, therefore, as much as possible to Leonardo’s manner of writing, we have, in doubtful cases, joined or separated words according to the usual rules, while taking into account the usage of the time.

The critical transcription, while scrupulously preserving the integrity of what Leonardo wrote, will change only a few minor details original: "accidents", the modification of which is indispensable for proper understanding. The siglaAbbreviations or symbols used in shorthand. will be expanded, words regularly separated, and letters added where they are missing, as well as accents, apostrophes, and punctuation, and we

Codex on the Flight of Birds and several other matters. Published by Theodore Sabachnikoff. Transcriptions and notes by Giovanni Piumati. French translation by Charles Ravaisson-Mollien. Paris, Édouard Rouveyre, Publisher. original: "MDCCCXCIII" 1893.