Volume XXXXIV · 1994  

The Anthony J. and Frances A. Guzzetta Collection of Leonardo da Vinci: An Exhibition: 18 November 1993-31 March 1994

Leonardo’s Notebooks

--BERNARD BARRYTE

Leonardo's legacy includes relatively few paintings but an astonishing number of manuscripts. These sheets afford unparalleled insight into the mind of an exceptional individual who habitually worked out ideas on paper. Words and images are intermingled on nearly every page. Neither medium is subordinated to the other; rather, they function in tandem to explicate ideas either as personal memoranda or for the "Reader," who is frequently invoked as the recipient of Leonardo's insights.

Intact folios suggest that Leonardo frequently worked out single ideas on individual sheets, but any sheet might also contain additional drawings or texts (or both) that relate to other matters — pictorial, architectural, mechanical, or perhaps mathematical in nature. Leonardo's occupations and preoccupations are reflected in the character of the drawings, which differ in form and content according to the intended function. Some are diagrammatic others are fantastically elaborate; perceived reality is precisely transcribed in some, while in others nature is manipulated to conform with the artist's fancy. Thus, the Notebooks include schematic drawings of military devices as well as depictions of horrendous military encounters, scrupulous hydraulic studies, and apocalyptic storms. Some drawings elucidate scientific principles; others are more imaginative, representing permutations of pose, gesture, or expression related to developing pictorial or sculptural compositions. Technical drawings as well as those of a purely artistic character occur in varying states of completion, revealing the workings of Leonardo's mind as he refined ideas in successive renderings. Some drawings serve to illustrate adjacent texts; others relate to ideas written about elsewhere; some — such as the frequently drawn idealized and grotesque heads — appear independent of any surviving context.

The texts are as varied as the drawings, ranging from the utilitarian to the poetic. There are terse and objective descriptions of observed phenomena, apothegmatic passages, riddles and allegories, as well as fanciful narratives. Even statements of fundamental principles are tinged with a poetic sensibility, as when Leonardo links the practical with the theoretical in declaring mechanics to be "the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics" (Ms. E, 8v). Just as pictorial forms were repeated with variations, similar ideas recur in the texts, evidence of Leonardo's effort to cast his thoughts in ever more satisfactory forms. Common to both the verbal and pictorial components of the Notebooks is a distinct personal style notable for its directness, natural grace, and poetic clarity. 1

Throughout his life Leonardo assiduously recorded his thoughts. Statements connected with his professional activities are intermingled with observations and conclusions associated with personal intellectual pursuits and a variety of other matters as well. The surviving manuscripts support Leonardo's reputation as a "universal" man. They contain prophecies and allegories, scatological stories, studies of motion, weight, and water, explanations of the mechanism of sight, observations concerning anatomical, atmospheric and other natural phenomena, precepts for artists, mathematical puzzles and studies of perspective, proposals for myriad machines, plans for irrigation projects and ideal churches, palaces, and cities, designs for musical instruments and instruments of war, drafts of letters, vocabulary lists, and notes on his readings. It is presumed, therefore, that the content of the surviving Notebooks mirrors the range of Leonardo's interests and investigations.

The approximately 7000 whole or fragmentary sheets that survive are estimated to represent a quarter to a fifth of his total production. In fact the loss is probably greater. Discounting dispersed sheets and such posthumous anthologies as the Codex Atlanticus and Codex Arundel which were largely composed from loose folios, the thirty surviving notebooks hardly accord with the "infinite number of volumes" seen by Antonio de'Beatis in 1517. For example, no trace remains of fifteen "small books" on anatomy, or the books on water and on the "Elements of Mechanics" that Leonardo refers to elsewhere as "completed." Likewise, treatises on the "Anatomy of the Horse" and on perspective mentioned by contemporary and sixteenth-century authors are now lost.

The notes that survive are in great confusion, in part because of historical circumstances and in part because of Leonardo's own psychological makeup. By nature an empiricist who distrusted received knowledge and generalizations, he was uninterested in and perhaps incapable of halting his relentless curiosity. As the philosopher Karl Jaspers observes, Leonardo was engaged in a "superhuman effort to specialize in everything." 2 The result, as Kenneth Keele concludes, is that "Leonardo's whole activity in art and science may well be considered as the epitome of greatness in failure." 3 Few studies, it seems, were ever definitively completed.

Though years might intervene, Leonardo habitually renewed his investigations. Symbolic of his method and its consequences was Leonardo's effort to trace the most minute filiation of veins in the human body, for his attempts to comprehend the interrelated phenomena of nature were foiled by his need to trace the underlying principles and ramifications suggested by each successive observation. Coupled with this was Leonardo's incessant inventiveness, which caused him to try ceaselessly to give practical application to the principles he discovered. The Notebooks are full of descriptions and designs for devices that demonstrate the truth of his hypotheses and of machines utilizing the principles he discovered.

Leonardo acknowledged the consequences of his intellectual habits. The Codex Arundel, a manuscript in which he transcribed earlier notes, begins with an apology: "This will be a collection without order, made up of many sheets which I have copied here, hoping afterwards to arrange them in order in their proper places according to the subjects of which they treat" (B.M. 1r). Leonardo never fulfilled this intention. He neither published nor did he systematize his notes and after his death the manuscripts were dispersed and subjected to rearrangement and mutilation. Although his influence as an artist continued to resonate, his potential impact on science and technology was curtailed by this circumstance. Dispersal of the manuscripts — and consequent losses — meant that any implicit order was disrupted. Moreover, the records that survive are fragmentary because of the very nature of note-taking itself. Consequently, any comprehensive assessment remains tentative and — to a degree — conjectural because judgments depend on documents that represent an uncertain phase in the development or resolution of their author's ideas.

Because no individual had access to the entire range of his activities for almost four centuries, the history of the manuscripts is crucial to the history of Leonardo studies. 4According to his will, all of Leonardo's papers passed to his friend and pupil Francesco Melzi. Intending to organize this material into publishable form, Melzi evidently got no further than sifting though the welter of documents to collate notes on painting from eighteen notebooks, of which only seven and a fragment can be traced today. 5 Although his compilation — known today as the Codex Urbinas Latinus 1270 (Vatican, Biblioteca) —was not published until 1817 (No. 43), Melzi evidently made his redaction accessible. Abbreviated versions circulated in several manuscript copies and these served as the basis for the abridged version of the Trattato della Pittura that was first published in 1651 (Nos. 29, 30). 6

When Melzi died circa 1570, the bulk of the manuscripts was inherited by his nephew, Orazio Melzi. 7 Between 1585 and 1587 Gavardi d’Asola, a tutor at the Villa Melzi at Valprio d’Adda, stole thirteen manuscripts. His plan to sell them to the Grand Duke of Tuscany failed and in 1588 he was persuaded by Ambrogio Mazenta to return them. According to his own account, 8 Mazenta acted as intermediary, but Orazio was uninterested in the documents and allowed Mazenta to retain the purloined Notebooks, adding that he had many more manuscripts in his possession. When news spread, many came seeking this material and it is not known how much was dispersed. It is presumed, however, that collections of uncertain provenance, such as the three Forster Codices belonging to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the sheets in Christ Church Library, Oxford, and those in the Accademia, Venice, might be traced back to this moment in the history of the manuscripts.

By far the most avid collector was the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who promised Orazio political preferments if he might sell the manuscripts to his patron, the King of Spain. Melzi gave Leoni an undetermined number of manuscripts and also sought to add the thirteen Notebooks given previously to Mazenta, who returned only seven which were then acquired by Leoni. Mazenta's six remaining Notebooks passed to his brother. Of these, three were acquired by Leoni and one was given to Cardinal Francesco Borromeo, who donated it (Ms. C) to the Ambrosian Library in 1609. The painter Ambrogio Figino and the Duke of Savoy each acquired single manuscripts that are now lost.

Leoni attempted to organize his collection, categorizing the documents according to their artistic or scientific content. He evidently preserved most Notebooks intact, but cut up unbound folios and regrouped the fragments, fitting up to ten to a page in large bound volumes. The massive Codex Atlanticus (Milan, Ambrosiana; Nos. 5, 16), the volume at Windsor (see No. 426), and the Codex Arundel (London, British Library; No. 10) are the results of his enterprise. Leoni never sold the manuscripts he brought to Spain, for they were still in his possession when he died in 1608. Although the bulk of the Leonardo material returned with his heirs to Italy, at least two Notebooks remained on the peninsula. They had entered the collection of Juan de Espina by 1629, at which time they were sought by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, an exceptionally avid British collector. Espina refused to sell, bequeathing them instead to the King of Spain in 1642. Shortly after the royal library was moved to Madrid in 1830, the two Notebooks were lost until they were rediscovered in 1964-65 (see No. 15).

In 1614, Leoni's heirs offered the Codex Atlanticus, fifteen manuscripts, and three Leonardo cartoons to Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. When he declined the purchase, these materials were acquired by Count Galeazzo Arconati, who donated the Codex Atlanticus and eleven other manuscripts to the Ambrosian Library in 1637. In 1674, Count Orazio Archinti added to the library's trove by donating Ms. K. These manuscripts remained in Milan until 1796, when Napoleon proclaimed such works of genius to be French and transported the collection to Paris, where the Italian scholar Giambattista Venturi was inspired to begin the first systematic study of these materials. 9 After Napoleon's defeat, the Codex Atlanticus was returned to Italy, but the smaller Notebooks remained in France (No 2).

When he made his initial donation, Arconati evidently retained some items for he later substituted Ms. D for the Codex Trivulzianus (No. 3). This Codex passed to Gaetano Caccia before 1750 and was acquired by the Trivulzio family, which donated it to the Castello Sforzesco, Milan, in 1935.

The provenance of the manuscripts in British collections is somewhat more obscure. It is known that both James I and Charles I made attempts to purchase some of the Notebooks, but it was not until about 1778 that the manuscripts now at Windsor were discovered in a chest in Kensington Palace. They come from Leoni's collection and in the introduction to Original Designs of the Most Celebrated Master in His Majesty's Collection (London, 1812), John Chamberlaine conjectured that "it is rather probable than certain that this great curiosity was acquired for King Charles I by the Earl of Arundel when he was sent as Ambassador to the Emperor Ferdinand II in 1636." Arundel was an avid collector and the manuscript now in the British Library once belonged to him. The Forster Codices (No. 12) now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, were acquired in Vienna by E. G. Lytton sometime before 1873. The Codex Hammer, until recently known as the Codex Leicester, was acquired in Rome about 1717 by Thomas Coke, the first Earl of Leicester, after having passed through the hands of the sixteenth-century sculptor Guglielmo della Porta and the seventeenth-century artist Giuseppe Ghezzi.

The complicated history of the Notebooks helps explain why Leonardo's extraordinarily prescient inventions, scientific observations, and fascinating technological accomplishments failed to exert any perceptible influence. The manuscripts were widely dispersed and since each page may be the repository of ideas and sketches relating to quite varied projects, it was impossible to form a cohesive idea of their contents. Only after facsimiles began to be published in 1872 could scholars seriously begin the arduous task of transcribing Leonardo's mirror writing, collating related portions, and tracing his sources to establish an appropriate context for evaluating his accomplishments. 10

For almost three centuries after his death, the manuscripts were treasured by collectors because of Leonardo's fame as an artist and as rare curiosities exemplifying his genius. The end of the eighteenth century witnessed a burgeoning interest in their contents, which coincided with the beginning of the industrial revolution and the triumph of empiricism. Finally in the later nineteenth century — in the era of Jules Verne — Leonardo was identified as a romantic figure of intellectual daring and elevated to a new status as the prime symbol of the Renaissance. Without loss of artistic stature he became a "culture hero" embodying the spirit of scientific and technological enterprise. Since that time, generations of scholars have enhanced our understanding of the brilliant diversity of this truly universal man.

NOTES

1. For a succinct description of Leonardo's literary style, see Augusto Marinoni, "Leonardo as a Writer," in C. D. O'Malley, ed., Leonardo's Legacy (No. 191), pp. 57-66. The best introduction to Leonardo's drawings remains A. E. Popham, The Drawings of Leonardo (No. 395).
2. Karl Jaspers, "Leonardo," in Three Essays: Leonardo, Descartes, Max Weber (No. 145), p. 45.
3. Kenneth Keele, Leonardo da Vinci on the Movement of the Heart and Blood (No. 308), p.122.
4. The following summary is based upon these sources: Pedretti, Libro A (No. 237), pp. 252-59; Pedretti, Commentary (No. 238), pp. 393-40; Richter, Literary Works(No. 27), II, pp. 393-99; Reti, Madrid Codices (No. 15), III, pp. 11-21; Elmer Belt and Kate Steinitz, The Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci (No. 474); MacCurdy, Notebooks (No. 26), pp. 41-54.
5. For passages derived from extant manuscripts (Mss. A, [C], E, E G, Trivuizianus, one Windsor folio, and Madrid Codex II), see the concordances in McMahon, Treatise on Painting (No. 52), I, pp. 398-424; and Reti, Madrid Codices (No. 15), III, p. 89.
6. Steinitz, Trattato della Pittura (No. 475), PP. 39-137; see also Pedretti, Commentary (No. 238), I, pp. 12-36.
7. From other sources we know of the existence of four additional manuscripts: one belonging to the Duke of Amalfi, a manuscript on painting belonging to an anonymous Milanese painter, and the "Codex Sforza" containing a comparison of painting with sculpture are lost.
8. See No. 212.
9. See De Toni, Giambattista Venturi (No. 172).
10. On the history of these editions, see Belt and Steinitz (as in footnote 4, above), and Pedretti, Commentary (No. 238), I, pp. 3-8.