OF LEONARDO DA VINCI.

...manner those thirteen volumes were written, of which we have already made mention; and the handwriting being good, it was read quite easily by means of a large mirror. Leonardo da Vinci famously used "mirror writing," writing from right to left, possibly to prevent smudging ink as a left-handed writer or to keep his notes private. It is probable that he did this so that not everyone could so easily read his writings.

The project of the Martesana canal The Naviglio della Martesana is one of the famous canals in Milan which Leonardo helped modernize. gave him the occasion to write a book on the nature, weight, and motion of waters, full of a great number of drawings of various wheels and machines for mills, and for regulating the course of waters and raising them on high.

He wrote on the anatomy of the human body, as has already been said, which work was adorned with various drawings made with great study and diligence, and he himself makes mention of it in chapter 22 of this treatise on painting.

The book on the anatomy of horses is mentioned by Vasari, Borghini, and Lomazzo. These were prominent 16th-century art historians and theorists. Since he was excellent at sculpting them and painting them—as the painting of the four fighting knights mentioned above bears witness—there is no doubt that the work was of extraordinary beauty and utility.

In chapters 81 and 110 of this treatise, he cites a work of his on perspective, divided into several books. Perhaps in that work, the method of drawing figures larger than life was taught, which was praised by Lomazzo in his "Idea," Idea del tempio della pittura A foundational book on art theory by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, published in 1590. chapter 4.

In chapters 112 and 123, he promises to make a book on the movements of the body and its parts: an anatomical subject that has never been touched by anyone.

He also promises in chapter 268 a treatise on "ponderation," or rather, the balancing of the body. ponderatione From the Latin 'ponderare,' this refers to the distribution of weight in a figure to achieve a natural, balanced posture (contrapposto).

The book on shadows and lights is found today in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, in folio, A "folio" is a large-format book made by folding sheets of paper only once. covered in red velvet; it is the one that, as was said above, was given by Signor Guido Mazzenta to Cardinal Borromeo. He treats that subject as a philosopher, a mathematician, and a painter, and mentions it in this treatise, chapter 278. He was miraculous in this part of painting, imitating with such sagacity the effects that light produces with color, that his works had more of the natural than of the artificial.

There remains the "Treatise on Painting," which contains various precepts of that art, along with the methods of drawing and coloring. Vasari recounts that a certain Milanese painter, passing through Florence, showed him that work and told him that when he reached Rome, he would immediately have it printed; but that was not carried out by him. What was not done in Rome is now, after a full century, put into execution in Paris, where, by the comparison of various manuscripts—all corrupt and spoiled—a work has been restored by me which, for the excellence of its precepts and the merit of its author, is worthy of immortality. And to make it even more familiar to our nation, The "nation" here refers to France; this text served as the introduction to the first printed edition of Leonardo's work, published in Paris in 1651. Signor di Ciambre original: "Signor di Ciambre." This refers to Roland Fréart de Chambray, the French diplomat and art theorist who translated Leonardo's work into French., a gentleman most intelligent in all parts of design and who (as we said of the great Pope Leo X) by an instinct shared by his family delights in every sort of virtue and study, has made a version of it in the French language, which is worth an entire commentary, having expressed the sense of the author with exquisite and successful diligence.