PREFACE

...mechanical construction, and his genius led him toward mathematical construction. Everything he accomplished in painting and in architecture, however grand, was a concession made to his era, but a violation of his true character.

He set out alongside Perugino and Credi, and with Bramante and Sangallo Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi were fellow pupils of Leonardo in Verrocchio's workshop; Donato Bramante and the Sangallo family were the preeminent architects of the age. upon the fertile path of practical application, yet, in his solitude, he lost himself in science; the necessities of life and the spirit of the age induced him to grasp at art for a brief moment, but the depths of his mind dragged him back once more to theoretical and abstract investigation. The story of his life is the repetition of this perpetual cycle, which fractured and undermined his work and his influence: it was not the serene life of tradition, but the shipwreck of an entire being, who yearned for what his century forbade him, and who desired what his century denied him.

Viewed in this light, Leonardo da Vinci appears in his true historical perspective: the "highly varied and indeterminate" Original: "vario et indeterminato forte." This contemporary description of Leonardo's character highlights how his peers struggled to categorize his multifaceted and often unfinished work. character of his existence is understood through his...