consist of fourteen manuscript volumes, large and small, now in the
library of the National Institute at Paris, whither they have been
some few years since removed from the Ambrosian library at Milan;
and of one folio volume in manuscript also, in the possession of his
Majesty the King of Great Britain. Of those at Paris, J. B. Venturi,
Professor of Natural Philosophy at Modena, and of the Institute of
Bologna, &c. who was permitted to inspect them, says[i77], that "they
contain speculations in those branches of natural philosophy nearest
allied to geometry; that they are first sketches and occasional notes,
the Author always intending afterwards to compose from them complete
treatises." He adds further, "that they are written backwards from
right to left, in the manner of the oriental writers, probably with
intention that the curious should not rob him of his discoveries.
The spirit of geometry guided him throughout, whether it were in the
art of analysing a subject in the connexion of the discourse, or the
care of always generalizing his ideas. As to natural philosophy, he
never was satisfied on any proposition if he had not proved it by
experiment." From the extracts given from these manuscripts by Venturi
himself, and which he has ranged under the different heads mentioned
in the note[i78], the contents of these volumes appear to be extremely
miscellaneous; and it is evident, as Venturi has marked by references
where each extract is to be found in the original, that from the great
distance at which passages on the same subject are placed from each
other, they must have been entered without any regard to method or
arrangement of any kind whatever.
The volume in the possession of his Britannic Majesty is described as
consisting "of a variety of elegant heads, some of which are drawn
with red and black chalks on blue or red paper, others with a metal
pencil on a tinted paper; a few of them are washed and heightened with
white, and many are on common paper. The subjects of these drawings
are miscellaneous, as portraits, caricatures, single figures, tilting,
horses, and other animals; botany, optics, perspective, gunnery,
hydraulics, mechanics, and a great number of anatomical subjects, which
are drawn with a more spirited pen, and illustrated with a variety of
manuscript notes. This volume contains what is of more importance, the
very characteristic head of Leonardo, as it was sketched by himself,
and now engraved by that eminent artist Mr. Bartolozzi[i79]." Specimens
from this volume have been published some years since by Mr. Dalton,
and more recently and accurately by Mr. Chamberlaine; and though it
must be confessed, that the former are extremely ill drawn, and betray
the grossest ignorance of the effect which light and shadow were
intended to produce, yet some of the subjects which the volume contains
may be ascertained by them; and among them is also a fac simile of a
page of the original manuscript, which proves this, like the other
volumes, to be in Italian, and written backwards. The latter is a
very beautiful work, and is calculated to give an accurate idea of
Leonardo's talents as a draughtsman[i80]. From these two publications
it appears, that this volume also is of a very miscellaneous nature,
and that it consists of manuscript entries, interspersed with finished
drawings of heads and figures, and slight sketches of mechanical
engines and anatomical subjects, some of which are intermixed with the
writing itself.
It has been already seen, that these volumes were originally given by
the will of Leonardo to Francisco Melzi; and their subsequent history
we are enabled to state on the authority of John Ambrose Mazenta,
through whose hands they passed. Du Fresne, in the life prefixed to
the edition which he published in Italian, of Leonardo da Vinci's
Treatise on Painting, has, in a very loose way, and without citing
any authority, given their history; but Venturi has inserted[i81]
a translation into French, from the original manuscript memoir of
Mazenta; and from him a version of it into English is here given, with
the addition of Venturi's notes, rendered also into English.
"It is near fifty years[i82] since there fell into my hands thirteen
volumes of Leonardo da Vinci in folio and quarto, written backwards.
Accident brought them to me in the following manner: I was residing
at Pisa, for the purpose of studying the law, in the family of Aldus
Manutius the younger, a great lover of books. A person named Lelio
Gavardi, of Asola, Prevost of S. Zeno, at Pavia, a very near relation
of Aldus, came to our house; he had been a teacher of the _belles
lettres_ in the family of the Melzi of Milan, called de Vavero, to
distinguish them from other families of the same name in that city.
He had, at their country house at Vavero, met with several drawings,
instruments, and books of Leonardo. Francisco Melzi[i83] approached
nearer than any one to the manner of De Vinci; he worked little,
because he was rich; his pictures are very much finished, they are
often confounded with those of his master. At his death he left the
works of Leonardo in his house at Vavero, to his sons, who having
tastes and pursuits of a different kind, neglected these treasures,
and soon dispersed them; Lelio Gavardi possessed himself of as many of
them as he pleased; he carried thirteen volumes to Florence, in hopes
of receiving for them a good price from the Grand Duke Francis, who
was eager after works of this sort; and the rather as Leonardo was in
great reputation in his own country. But this prince died[i84] as soon
as Gavardi was arrived at Florence. He then went to Pisa, to the house
of Manutius. I could not approve his proceeding; it was scandalous.
My studies being finished, I had occasion to return to Milan. He gave
me the volumes of Vinci, desiring me to return them to the Melzi: I
acquitted myself faithfully of my commission; I carried them all back
to Horatio, the chief of the family of Melzi, who was surprised at
my being willing to give myself this trouble. He made me a present
of these books, telling me he had still many drawings by the same
author, long neglected in the garrets of his house in the country.
Thus these books became my property, and afterwards they belonged to
my brothers[i85]. These latter having made too much parade of this
acquisition, and the ease with which I was brought to it, excited the
envy of other amateurs, who beset Horatio, and obtained from him some
drawings, some figures, some anatomical pieces, and other valuable
remains of the cabinet of Leonardo. One of these spungers for the works
of Leonardo, was Pompeo Aretin, son of the Cavalier Leoni, formerly a
disciple of Bonaroti, and who was about Philip II. King of Spain, for
whom he did all the bronzes which are at the Escorial. Pompeo engaged
himself to procure for Melzi an employment to the senate of Milan,
if he succeeded in recovering the thirteen books, wishing to offer
them to King Philip, a lover of such curiosities. Flattered with this
hope, Melzi went to my brother's house: he besought him on his knees
to restore him his present; he was a fellow-collegian, a friend, a
benefactor: seven volumes were returned to him[i86]. Of the six others
which remained to the Mazenta family, one was presented to Cardinal
Frederic Borromeo, for the Ambrosian library[i87]. My brother gave a
second to Ambrose Figini, a celebrated painter of his time, who left
it to his heir Hercole Bianchi, with the rest of his cabinet. Urged by
the Duke of Savoy, I procured for him a third; and in conclusion, my
brother having died at a distance from Milan[i88], the three remaining
volumes came also into the hands of Pompeo Aretin; he re-assembled
also others of them, he separated the leaves of them to form a thick
volume[i89], which passed to his heir Polidoro Calchi, and was
afterwards sold to Galeazzo Arconati. This gentleman keeps it now in
his rich library; he has refused it to the Duke of Savoy, and to other
princes who were desirous of it."
In addition to this memoir, Venturi notices[i90], that Howard Earl
of Arundel made ineffectual efforts to obtain this large volume,
and offered for it as far as 60,000 francs, in the name of the King
of England. Arconati would never part with it; he bought eleven
other books of Da Vinci, which came also, according to appearance,
from Leoni; in 1637 he made a gift of them all to the Ambrosian
library[i91], which already was in possession of the volume E, from
Mazenta, and received afterwards the volume K from Horatio Archinto, in
1674[i92].
Venturi says, this is the history of all the manuscripts of Vinci that
are come into France; they are in number fourteen, because the volume
B contains an appendix of eighteen leaves, which may be separated, and
considered as the fourteenth volume[i93].
In the printed catalogue of the library of Turin, one does not see
noticed the manuscript which Mazenta gave to the Duke of Savoy: it has
then disappeared. Might it not be that which an Englishman got copied
by Francis Ducci, library-keeper at Florence, and a copy of which is
still remaining in the same city[i94]?
The Trivulce family at Milan, according to Venturi[i95], possess also a
manuscript of Vinci, which is in great part only a vocabulary.
Of the volume in the possession of his Britannic Majesty, the following
account is given in the life of Leonardo, prefixed to that number
already published from it by Mr. Chamberlaine: "It was one of the three
volumes which became the property of Pompeo Leoni, that is now in his
Majesty's cabinet. It is rather probable than certain, that this great
curiosity was acquired for King Charles I. by the Earl of Arundel, when
he went Ambassador to the Emperor Ferdinand II. in 1636, as may indeed
be inferred from an instructive inscription over the place where the
volumes are kept, which sets forth, that James King of England offered
three thousand pistoles for one of the volumes of Leonardo's works. And
some documents in the Ambrosian library give colour to this conjecture.
This volume was happily preserved during the civil wars of the last
century among other specimens of the fine arts, which the munificence
of Charles I. had amassed with a diligence equal to his taste. And it
was discovered soon after his present Majesty's accession in the same
cabinet where Queen Caroline found the fine portraits of the court of
Henry VIII. by Hans Holbein, which the King's liberality permitted
me lately to lay before the public. On the cover of this volume is
written, in gold letters, what ascertains its descent; _Disegni di
Leonardo da Vinci, restaurati da Pompeo Leoni_."
Although no part of the collections of Leonardo was arranged and
prepared by himself, or others under his direction, for publication,
some extracts have been made from his writings, and given to the world
as separate tracts. The best known, and indeed the principal of these,
is the following Treatise on Painting, of which there will be occasion
to say more presently; but besides this, Edward Cooper, a London
bookseller, about the year 1720, published a fragment of a Treatise by
Leonardo da Vinci, on the Motions of the Human Body, and the Manner of
drawing Figures, according to geometrical Rules. It contains but ten
plates in folio, including the title-page, and was evidently extracted
from some of the volumes of his collections, as it consists of slight
sketches and verbal descriptions both in Italian and English, to
explain such of them as needed it.
Mr. Dalton, as has been before noticed, several years since published
some engravings from the volume in our King's collection, but they are
so badly done as to be of no value. Mr. Chamberlaine therefore, in
1796, took up the intention afresh, and in that year his first number
came out, which is all that has yet appeared.
Of the Treatise on Painting, Venturi[i96] gives the following
particulars: "The Treatise on Painting which we have of Vinci is only
a compilation of different fragments extracted from his manuscripts.
It was in the Barberini library at Rome, in 1630[i97]: the Cav. del
Pozzo obtained a copy from it, and Poussin designed the figures of it
in 1640[i98]. This copy, and another derived from the same source,
in the possession of Thevenot, served as the basis for the edition
published in 1651, by Raphael du Frêne. The manuscript of Pozzo,
with the figures of Poussin, is actually at Paris, in the valuable
collection of books of Chardin[i99]. It is from this that I have taken
the relation of Mazenta; it is at the end of the manuscript under this
title: "Some Notices of the Works of Leonardo da Vinci at Milan, and
of his Books, by J. Ambrose Mazenta of Milan, of the Congregation of
the Priests Regular of St. Paul, called the Barnabites." Mazenta does
not announce himself as the author of the compilation; he may however
be so; it may also happen, that the compilation was made by the heir
himself of Vinci, Francisco Melzo. Vasari, about 1567, says[i100], that
a painter of Milan had the manuscripts of Vinci, which were written
backwards; that this painter came to him, and afterwards went to Rome,
with intention to get them printed, but that he did not know what was
the result. However it may be, Du Frêne confesses that this compilation
is imperfect in many respects, and ill arranged. It is so, because the
compiler has not seized the methodical spirit of Vinci, and that there
are mixed with it some pieces which belong to other tracts; besides,
one has not seen where many other chapters have been neglected which
ought to make part of it. For example, the comparison of painting with
sculpture, which has been announced as a separate treatise of the same
author, is nothing more than a chapter belonging to the Treatise on
Painting, A. 105. All this will be complete, and put in order, in the
Treatise on Optics[i101]. In the mean time, however, the following are
the different editions of this compilation, such as it is at present:
"Trattato della Pittura di Leonardo da Vinci, nuovamente dato in Luce,
con la Vita dell' Autore da Raphaele du Frêne, Parigi 1651, in fol.;
reprinted at Naples in 1733, in folio; at Bologna, in 1786, in folio;
at Florence, in 1792, in 4to. This last edition has been given from a
copy in the hand-writing of Stephano della Bella.
"----Translated into French by Roland Freart de Chambray, Paris 1651,
fol. reprinted ibid. 1716, in 12mo, and 1796, in 8vo.
"----Translated into German, in 4to. Nuremberg 1786, Weigel.
"----Translated into Greek by Panagiotto, manuscript in the Nani
library at Venice.
"Another manuscript copy of this compilation was in the possession of
P. Orlandi, from whence it passed into the library of Smith[i102].
"Cellini, in a discourse published by Morelli, says[i103], that he
possessed a copy of a book of De Vinci on Perspective, which he
communicated to Serlio, and that this latter published from it all that
he could comprehend. Might not this be the tract which Gori announces
to be in the library of the Academy of Cortona[i104]?"
The reputation in which the Treatise on Painting ought to be held,
is not now for the first time to be settled; its merit has been
acknowledged by the best judges, though at that time it laboured under
great disadvantage from the want of a proper arrangement. In the
present publication that objection is removed, and the attempt has
been favourable to the work itself, as it has shewn it, by bringing
together the several chapters that related to each other, to be a
much more complete and connected treatise than was before supposed.
Notwithstanding however the fair estimation in which it has always
stood, and which is no more than its due, one person has been found
hardy enough to endeavour, though unsuccessfully, to lessen its credit:
a circumstance which it would not have been worth while to notice, if
it had not been intimated to us, that there are still some persons
in France who side with the objector, which, as he was a Frenchman,
and Leonardo an Italian, may perhaps be ascribed, in some measure at
least, to the desire which in several instances that people have lately
shewn of claiming on behalf of their countrymen, a preference over
others, to which they are not entitled. Abraham Bosse, of the city of
Tours, an engraver in copper, who lived in the last century, is the
person here alluded to; and it may not be impertinent in this place to
state some of the motives by which he was induced to such a conduct.
At the time when this Treatise first made its appearance in France,
as well in Italian as in French, Bosse appears to have been resident
at Paris, and was a member of the Academy of Painting, where he gave
the first lessons on perspective, and, with the assistance of Mons.
Desargues, published from time to time several tracts on geometry and
perspective, the manner of designing, and the art of engraving, some
of which at least are described in the title-page, as printed at Paris
for the author[i105]. This man, in his lectures, having, it is said,
attacked some of the pictures painted by Le Brun, the then Director of
the Academy, had been very deservedly removed from his situation, and
forced to quit the Academy, for endeavouring to lessen that authority,
which for the instruction and improvement of students it was necessary
the Director should possess, and attempting thus to render fruitless
the precepts which his situation required him to deliver. As this
Treatise of Leonardo had in the translation been adopted by Le Brun,
who fully saw its value, and introduced it into the Academy for the
advantage of the students, by which means the sale of Bosse's work
might be, and probably was, affected; Bosse, at the end of a Treatise
on Geometry and Perspective, taught in the Royal Academy of Painting
and Sculpture, published by him in octavo in 1665, has inserted a paper
with this title, which in the original is given in French, but we have
preferred translating it: "_What follows is for those who shall have
the curiosity to be acquainted with a part of the procedings of Mons.
Desargues, and myself, against some of our antagonists, and part of
their skill; together with some remarks made on the contents of several
chapters of a Treatise attributed to Leonardo de Vinci, translated
from Italian into French by Mons. Freart Sieur de Chambray, from a
manuscript taken from that which is in the library of the illustrious,
virtuous, and curious Mons. le Chevalier Du Puis at Rome_."
After the explanation of his motives above given, it is not wonderful
to find him asserting, that this Treatise of Leonardo was in a number
of circumstances inferior to his own; nor to observe, that in a list of
some of the chapters which he has there given, we should be frequently
told by him that they are false, absurd, ridiculous, confused,
trifling, weak, and, in short, every thing but good. It is true that
the estimation of Leonardo da Vinci was in France too high for him to
attack without risking his own character for judgment and taste, and he
has therefore found it necessary for his purpose insidiously to suggest
that these chapters were interpolations; but of this he has produced no
proof, which, had it been the fact, might have been easily obtained, by
only getting some friend to consult Leonardo's manuscript collections
in the Ambrosian library. That he would have taken this step if he
had expected any success from it, may fairly be inferred from the
circumstance of his writing to Poussin at Rome, apparently in hopes of
inducing him to say something to the disadvantage of the work; and his
omitting to make this inquiry after the enmity he has shewn against the
book, fully justifies an opinion that he forbore to inquire, because
he was conscious that such an investigation would have terminated in
vindicating his adversaries from his aspersions, and have furnished
evidence of their fidelity and accuracy.
What the letter which he wrote to Poussin contained, he has not
informed us; but he has given us, as he says, Poussin's answer[i106],
in which are some passages relating to this Treatise, of which we here
give a translation: "As to what concerns the book of Leonard Vinci, it
is true that I have designed the human figures which are in that which
Mons. le Chevalier du Puis has; but all the others, whether geometrical
or otherwise, are of one man, named Gli Alberti, the very same who has
drawn the plants which are in the book of subterraneous Rome; and the
awkward landscapes which are behind some of the little human figures of
the copy which Mons. du Chambray has caused to be printed, have been
added to it by one Errard, without my knowing any thing of it.
"All that is good in this book may be written on one sheet of paper, in
a large character, and those who believe that I approve all that is in
it, do not know me; I who profess never to give sanction to things of
my profession which I know to be ill done and ill said."
Whoever recollects the difference in the course of study pursued and
recommended by Leonardo (that of Nature), from that observed by Poussin
(that of the antique), and remembers also the different fortunes of
Le Brun and Poussin, that the one was at the head of his profession,
enjoying all its honours and emoluments, while the other, though
conscious of his own great powers, was toiling for a daily subsistence
in comparative obscurity, may easily conceive why the latter could not
approve a work which so strongly inculcates the adopting Nature as the
guide throughout; and which was at the same time patronized by one whom
he could not but consider as his more fortunate rival. It may however
be truly affirmed, that even the talents of Poussin, great as they
certainly were, and his knowledge and correctness in drawing, would
have been abundantly improved by an attention to the rules laid down
in this Treatise, and that the study of Nature would have freed his
pictures from that resemblance to statues which his figures frequently
have, and bestowed on them the soft and fleshy appearance for which
Leonardo was so remarkable; while a minute investigation of Leonardo's
system of colouring would have produced perhaps in him as fortunate a
change as we have seen it did in the case of Raphael.
Though Bosse tells us[i107], that he had seen in the hands of Mons.
Felibien, a manuscript copy of this Tract on Painting, which he said
he had taken from the same original mentioned before, for the purpose
of translating it into French; and that on Bosse's pointing out to
him some of these errors, and informing him that Mons. de Chambray
was far advanced in his translation, he abandoned his design, and
assigned to the Sieur de Chambray the privilege he had obtained for it;
we have no intention here to enumerate or answer Bosse's objections,
merely because such an undertaking would greatly exceed the limits
which can here be allowed us. Most of them will be found captious
and splenetic, and, together with the majority of the rest, might be
fully refuted by a deduction of facts; it is however sufficient on the
present occasion to say, that wherever opportunity has been afforded
of tracing the means by which Leonardo procured his materials for any
great composition, he is found to have exactly pursued the path which
he recommends to others[i108]; and for the success of his precepts, and
what may be effected by them, we need only appeal to his own example.