PREFACE.

of external things, "to go with the imagination repeating the superficial outlines of forms" original: "andare co’ la imaginativa ripetendo li lineamenti superfiziali delle forme." From the Ashburnham Manuscript I, folio 26 recto.; and, like his mind, the little notebook he always carries with him is full of profiles of gentle and monstrous faces, of drawings of animals and plants, of rocks and mountains. Codex Atlanticus, folio 27 recto. This study, initially subordinate to artistic practice, gradually changes into a desire—independent of any concrete application—to understand the mechanism of natural phenomena in its processes and its laws: the art of painting becomes "a subtle invention, which with philosophical and subtle speculation considers all the qualities of forms" original: "una sottile invenzione, la quale con filosofica e sottile speculazione considera tutte le qualità delle forme." Ashburnham Manuscript I, folio 20 recto.; and the little notebook he always carries with him fills with considerations and principles of perspective and anatomy, zoology and botany, mechanics and hydraulics. Referencing Jean Paul Richter’s The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, section 4.

    To penetrate with the mind into the unknown, to investigate nature in its most hidden fibers, becomes the dominant passion in Leonardo: "And drawn by my eager...