PREFACE.

I.

O Leonardo, why do you labor so much? original: "perchè tanto penate?" This is a famous rhetorical question found in Leonardo’s own notebooks, where he often reflected on his relentless drive for knowledge and perfection.

Atlantic Codex, f. 71 r. The Atlantic Codex (Codice Atlantico) is the largest collection of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and writings, currently preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

Leonardo’s biography, in its essential outlines, is the history of the birth, the growth, the magnification, and the expansion of an intellectual love for nature—a love intent on reproducing her forms and understanding her laws. This love, born in a humble house in Anchiano Anchiano is a small hamlet near the town of Vinci, traditionally identified as Leonardo's birthplace. shortly after 1452, broadened through a progressive development to embrace nature within the infinity of space, time, and form.

L. DA VINCI.