INTRODUCTION

standard alphabetic forms, writing for example: to rejoin, you will judge, length, hills, dust, emery, plates, cause, science, etc., where Leonardo wrote: ricongugnere, gudicherai, lungeza, cholli, poluere, smeriglo, piasstre, cavsa, sscientia, etc. The editors have updated Leonardo’s archaic and often phonetic Renaissance-era spelling to modern standards in the "critical transcription" to make the text more readable. For example, Leonardo often omitted double consonants or used "v" and "u" interchangeably.

Excluded from this transcription are the few words added by another hand and the few words deleted by Leonardo.

To this second transcription, understood in this manner, corresponds the French translation. This was necessitated by the international character that Mr. T. Sabachnikoff Theodor Sabachnikoff (1850–1912) was a Russian patron and scholar who funded the publication of several high-quality facsimiles of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. intends to give to his work as a publisher, and by the desire to bring the various manifestations of Leonardo’s genius within reach of the greatest possible number of scholars.

Paris, August 1897.