INTRODUCTION

LEONARDO da Vinci is as sharply distinguished from his contemporaries by his mysteriously determined fate as he is by the magical uniqueness of his being. Even if much that other artists of his century planned remained unaccomplished, or much that they created was destroyed—the greatest part of their paintings still glows upon the walls, shines above the altars; their bronze and marble figures still shimmer as before in the squares and in the churches; their buildings still tower victoriously into the blue skies today with their proud facades, graceful arched pillars, and golden domed crowns. From Leonardo’s hand, almost nothing remains to us but the Mona Lisa. Whatever else his universal genius original: "Allgenie" created has been lost, spoiled, or perished—existing merely as sketches, doubted into pieces by critics, reduced to a few brushstrokes that might perhaps be authentic.

But while time and the learned gentlemen threaten to snatch Leonardo the artist away from us, until hardly more is left of him than his name and halo, we simultaneously experience in him a joyful Easter miracle. The immense outlines of his being, of which Burckhardt Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) was a seminal Swiss historian of the Renaissance. spoke, are filling out and becoming alive; Leonardo the researcher, the thinker, the poet celebrates in our days his resurrection from the grave of the libraries. For thirty years, efforts have been made to decipher and publish his writings. Of the more than 5,000 manuscript pages still preserved for us, more than three-quarters are now available in exemplary facsimile reproductions original: "Faksimilewiedergabe"