truth alone, which is gold. {45} Truth cannot be concealed in the end,
dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is frustrated before so
great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask.
There is nothing hidden under the sun. Fire must represent truth
because it destroys all sophistry and lies, and the mask is for
sophistry and lies, which conceal truth.
113.
Rather privation of limbs than weariness of doing good. The power of
using my limbs shall fail me before the power of being useful. Rather
death than weariness. I cannot be satiated with serving. I do not
weary of giving help. No amount of work is sufficient to weary me.
This is a carnival motto: "Sine lassitudine." Hands in which ducats
and precious stones abound like snow never grow weary of serving, but
such a service is for its utility only and not for our profit. Nature
has formed me thus.
[Sidenote: Ingratitude]
114.
This shall be placed in the hand of ingratitude: The wood nourishes the
fire that consumes it. When the sun, the scatterer of darkness,
shines, you put out the light which for you in particular, and for your
need and convenience, expelled the darkness.
[Sidenote: Physiological Inferiority of Man]
115.
I have found that in the composition of the human body as compared with
the bodies of {46} animals the senses are less subtle and coarser; it
is thus composed of less ingenious machinery and of cells less capable
of receiving the power of senses. I have seen that in the lion the
sense of smell is connected with the substance of the brain and
descends through the nostrils which form an ample receptacle for it;
and it enters into a great number of cartilaginous cells which are
provided with many passages in order to receive the brain. A large
part of the head of the lion is given up to the sockets of the eyes,
and the optic nerves are in immediate contact with the brain; the
contrary occurs in man, because the sockets of the eyes occupy a small
portion of the head, and the optic nerves are subtle and long and weak,
and owing to the weakness of their action we see little by day and less
at night; and the animals above mentioned see better at night than in
the daytime; and the proof of this is that they seek their prey at
night and sleep during the daytime, as do also the nocturnal birds.
[Sidenote: Man's Ethical Inferiority]
116.
Thou hast described him king of animals, but I would rather say, king
of beasts, thou being the greatest--for hast thou not slain them in
order that they may give thee their children to glut thy greed with
which thou hast striven to make a sepulchre for all animals? And I
would say still more if I might speak the whole truth. But let us {47}
confine ourselves to human matters, relating one supreme infamy, which
is not to be found among the animals of the earth; because among these
you will not find animals who eat their young, except when they are
utterly foolish (and there are few indeed of such among them), and this
occurs only among the beasts of prey, such as the lions, and leopards,
panthers, lynxes, cats and the like, which sometimes feed on their
young; but thou, besides thy children, dost devour thy father, thy
mother, thy brother and thy friends; and not satisfied with this, thou
goest forth to hunt on the islands of others, seizing other men and
these half naked ... thou fattenest and chasest them down thy own
throat. Now does not nature produce enough vegetables for thee to
satisfy thyself? And if thou art not content with vegetables, canst
thou not by a mixture of them make infinite compounds as Platina wrote,
and other writers on food?
[Sidenote: Man in the Animal World]
117.
The description of man, including that of such creatures belonging
almost to the same species, such as apes, monkeys and the like, of
which there are many.
118.
The way of walking in man is similar in all cases to the universal way
of walking in four-footed animals, because, just as they move their
feet {48} crosswise, like a trotting horse, so man moves his four limbs
crosswise, that is to say, in walking he puts forward his right foot
simultaneously with his left arm, and so on vice versa.
119.
Write a special treatise to describe the movements of four-footed
animals, among which is man, who in his childhood also walks on four
feet.
[Sidenote: Fragment of a Letter]
120.
There is one who having promised me much less than his due, and being
disappointed of his presumptuous desire, has tried to deprive me of all
my friends; and finding them wise and not pliable to his will, he has
threatened me that he would bring accusations against me and alienate
my benefactors from me: hence I have informed Your Lordship of this, so
that this man, who wishes to sow the usual scandals, may not find a
soil fit for sowing the thoughts and deeds of his evil nature; and that
when he tries to make Your Lordship the tool of his infamous and
malicious nature he may be disappointed of his desire.
[Sidenote: Giacomo of Pupil of Leonardo]
121.
On the 23d of April, 1490, I began this book; and started again on the
horse. Giacomo came to live with me on Saint Mary Magdalen's day in
1490; {49} he was ten years old. He was a thief, a liar, obstinate,
and a glutton. On the second day I had two shirts made for him, a pair
of socks and a jerkin, and when I placed the money aside to pay for
these things, he stole it out of the purse and I could never force him
to confess the fact, though I was quite certain of it--4 lire. On the
following day I went to sup with Giacomo Andrea, and this same Giacomo
supped for two and did mischief for four, since he broke three bottles,
spilled the wine, and after this came to sup where I... Item: on the
7th of September he stole a silver point, worth twelve soldi, from
Marco, who was living with me, and took it from his studio; and when
Marco had looked for it for some time he found it hidden in Giacomo's
box--lire 1, soldi 2. Item: on the 26th of the following January,
being in the house of Messer Galeazzo di San Severino, in order to
arrange the festivity of his joust, and certain henchmen having
undressed to try on the costumes of rustics who were to take part in
the aforesaid festivity, Giacomo took the purse of one of them, which
was on the bed with other clothes, and stole the money he found in
it--2 lire, 4 soldi. Item: Maestro Agostino of Padua gave me while I
was in the same house a Turkish hide to have a pair of shoes made of
it, and Giacomo stole this from me within a month and sold it to a
cobbler for 20 soldi, with which money by his own confession he bought
sweets of aniseed. Item: {50} again, on the 2d of April, Giovanni
Antonio left a silver point on one of his drawings, and Giacomo stole
it; it was worth 24 soldi,--1 lire, 4 soldi. The first year a cloak, 2
lire; six shirts, 4 lire; three doublets, 6 lire: four pairs of socks,
7 lire, 8 soldi.
122.
And in this case I know that I shall make not a few enemies, since no
one will believe what I say of him; because there are but few whom his
vices have disgusted, indeed they only disgusted those men whose
natures are contrary to such vices; and many hate their fathers and
break off friendship with those who reprove their vices, and they will
have no examples brought up against them, nor tolerate any advice. And
if you meet with any one who is good and virtuous drive him not away
from you, do him honour, so that he may not have to flee from you and
hide in hermitages, or caverns and other solitary spots, in order to
escape from your treachery; and if there be such an one do him honour,
because these are your gods upon earth, they deserve statues from you
and images ... but remember that you are not to eat their images, as is
practised still in some parts of India, where, when images have
performed some miracle, the priests cut them in pieces (since they are
of wood) and distribute them among the people of the country, not {51}
without payment, and each one grates his portion very fine and puts it
upon the first food he eats; and thus they believe that they have eaten
their saint by faith, who will preserve them from all perils. What is
thy opinion, O man, of thy own species? Art thou so wise as thou
believest to be? Are these things to be done by men?
[Sidenote: Pleasure and Pain]
123.
This represents pleasure together with pain because one is never
separated from the other; they are depicted back to back because they
are opposed to each other; they are represented in one body because
they have the same basis, because the source of pleasure is labour
mingled with pain, and the pain issues from the various evil pleasures.
And it is therefore represented with a reed in its right hand which is
ineffectual and devoid of strength, and the wounds inflicted by it are
poisonous. In Tuscany such reeds are placed to support beds, to
signify that this is the place of idle dreams, that here a great part
of life is consumed, here much useful time is wasted, that is, the
morning hours when the mind is sober and rested and the body disposed
to start on fresh labours; there, again, many vain pleasures are
enjoyed by the mind, which pictures to itself impossible things, and by
the body, which indulges in those pleasures that are so often the cause
of the {52} failing of life; and for this reason the reed is used as
their support.
[Sidenote: Brain and Soul]
124.
The spirit returns to the brain whence it had departed, with a loud
voice and uttering these words:
O blissful and fortunate spirit, whence comest thou? I have known this
man well, against my will. He is a receptacle of villainy, he is a
very heap of the highest ingratitude combined with all the other vices.
But why should I tire myself with vain words? Nothing is to be found
in him save the accumulation of all sins, and if there is to be found
among them any that possess good, they will not be treated differently
than I have been by other men; in short I have come to the conclusion
that they are bad if they are enemies, and worse if they are friends.
[Sidenote: Of the Eye]
125.
The eye, which reflects the beauty of the universe to those who see, is
so excellent a thing that he who consents to its loss deprives himself
of the spectacle of the works of nature; and it is owing to this
spectacle, effected by means of the eye, which enables the soul to
behold the various objects of nature, that the soul is content to
remain in the prison of the body; but he who loses his eyesight leaves
the soul in a dark prison, where {53} all hope of once more beholding
the sun, the light of the whole world, is lost.... And how many are
they who feel great hatred for the darkness of night, although it is
brief. Oh! what would they do were they constrained to abide in this
darkness during the whole of their life? Certainly there is no one who
would not rather lose his hearing or his sense of smell than his
eyesight, and the loss of hearing includes the loss of all sciences
which find expression in words; and this loss a man would incur solely
so as not to be deprived of the sight of the beauty of the world which
consists in the surfaces of bodies artificial as well as natural, which
are reflected in the human eye.
[Sidenote: The Eye in Animal Life]
126.
Animals suffer greater loss in losing their sight than their hearing
for many reasons: firstly, because it is by means of their sight that
they find the food which is their nourishment, and is necessary for all
animals; secondly, because by means of sight the beauty of created
things is apprehended, especially those which lead to love, while he
who is born blind cannot apprehend such beauty by hearing, because he
has never received any knowledge as to what is beauty of any kind.
There remains hearing, by which I mean only the human voice and speech;
they contain the names of all things whatsoever. It is possible to
live happily without the knowledge of these {54} words, as is seen in
those who are born deaf, that is to say, the dumb, who take delight in
drawing.
[Sidenote: Ascension of Monte Rosa]
127.
I say that the azure we see in the atmosphere is not its true colour,
but is caused by warm moisture evaporated in minute and insensible
atoms which the solar rays strike, rendering them luminous against the
darkness of the infinite night of the fiery region which lies beyond
and includes them. And this may be seen, as I saw it, by him who
ascends Mounboso (Monte Rosa), a peak of the Alps which separates
France from Italy. The base of this mountain gives birth to the four
large rivers which in four different directions water the whole of
Europe; and no mountain has its base at so great a height as this. It
rises to such a height that it almost lifts itself up above the clouds;
snow seldom falls on it, but only hail in summer, when the clouds are
at their greatest height, and this hail is preserved there so that were
it not for the absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does
not occur twice in an age, a great quantity of ice would be piled up
there by the hail, which in the middle of July I found to be very
considerable; and I saw above me the dark air, and the sun which struck
the mountain shone far lighter than in the plains below, because a
lesser quantity of atmosphere lay between the summit of the mountain
and the sun.
{55}
[Sidenote: Prophecies]
128.
Men will communicate with each other from the most distant countries,
and reply.
Many will abandon their own habitations and take with them their own
goods, and go and inhabit other countries.
Men will pursue the thing which they most greatly fear; that is to say,
they will be miserable in order to avoid falling into misery.
Men standing in separate hemispheres will converse with each other,
embrace each other, and understand each other's language.
129.
We should not desire the impossible.
{59}
II
THOUGHTS ON ART
* *
*
[Sidenote: Painting declines when aloof from Nature]
The painter's work will be of little merit if he takes the painting of
others as his standard, but if he studies from nature he will produce
good fruits; as is seen in the case of the painters of the age after
the Romans, who continued to imitate one another and whose art
consequently declined from age to age. After these came Giotto the
Florentine, who was born in the lonely mountains, inhabited only by
goats and similar animals; and he, being drawn to his art by nature,
began to draw on the rocks the doings of the goats of which he was the
keeper; and thus he likewise began to draw all the animals which he met
with in the country: so that after long study he surpassed not only all
the masters of his age, but all those of many past centuries. After
him art relapsed once more, because all artists imitated the painted
pictures, and thus from century to century it went on declining, until
Tomaso the Florentine, called Masaccio, proved by his perfect work that
they who set up for themselves a standard other than nature, the
mistress of all masters, labour in vain.
{60}
Thus I wish to say, in regard to these mathematical matters, that they
who merely study the masters and not the works of nature are the
grandchildren, and not the children, of nature, the mistress of good
masters. I abhor the supreme folly of those who blame the disciples of
nature in defiance of those masters who were themselves her pupils.
[Sidenote: Its Origin]
2.
The first picture was a single line, drawn round the shadow of a man
cast by the sun on the wall.
3.
Vastness of the field of painting: All that is visible is included in
the science of painting.
[Sidenote: Defence of Painting]
4.
With due lamentation Painting complains that it has been expelled from
the liberal arts, because it is the true daughter of nature and is
practised by means of the most worthy of the senses. Whence wrongly, O
writers, you have excluded painting from the liberal arts, since it not
only includes in its range the works of nature, but also infinite
things which nature never created.
5.
Because writers have had no knowledge of the science of painting, they
have not been able to {61} describe its gradations and parts, and since
painting itself does not reveal itself nor its artistic work in words,
it has remained, owing to ignorance, behind the sciences mentioned
above, but it has thereby lost nothing of its divinity. And truly it
is not without reason that men have failed to honour it, because it
does honour to itself without the aid of the speech of others, just as
do the excellent works of nature. And if the painters have not
described the art of painting, and reduced it to a science, the fault
must not be imputed to painting and it is no less noble on that
account, since few painters profess a knowledge of letters, as their
life would not be long enough for them to acquire such knowledge.
Therefore we ask, Is the virtue of herbs, stones and plants
non-existent because men have been ignorant of it? Certainly not; but
we will say that these herbs remained noble in themselves without the
aid of human tongues or letters.
[Sidenote: Painting]
6.
A science is more useful in proportion as its fruits are more widely
understood, and thus, on the other hand, it is less useful in
proportion as it is less widely understood. The fruits of painting can
be apprehended by all the populations of the universe because its
results are subject to the power of sight, and it does not pass by the
ear to the brain, but by the same channel by which {62} sight passes.
Therefore it needs no interpreters of diverse tongues, as letters do,
and it has instantly satisfied the human race in the same manner as the
works of nature have done. And not only the human race, but other
animals; as was shown in a picture representing the father of a family
to whom little children still in the cradle gave caresses, as did the
dog and the cat in the same house; and it was a wonderful thing to see
such a sight.
7.
The arts which admit of exact reproduction are such that the disciple
is on the same level as the creator, and so it is with their fruits.
These are useful to the imitator, but are not of such high excellence
as those which cannot be transmitted as an inheritance like other
substances. Among these painting is the first. Painting cannot be
taught to him on whom nature has not conferred the gift of receiving
such knowledge, as mathematics can be taught, of which the disciple
receives as much as the master gives him; it cannot be copied, as
letters can be, in which the copy equals the original; it cannot be
stamped, in the same way as sculpture, in which the impression is in
proportion to the source as regards the quality of the work; it does
not generate countless children, as do printed books. It alone remains
noble, it alone confers honour on its author and remains precious {63}
and unique, and does not beget children equal to itself. And it is
more excellent by reason of this quality than by reason of those which
are everywhere proclaimed. Now do we not see the great monarchs of the
East going about veiled and covered up from the fear of diminishing
their glory by the manifestation and the divulgation of their presence?
and do we not see that the pictures which represent the divine deity
are kept covered up with inestimable veils? their unveiling is preceded
by great sacred solemnities with various chants and diverse music, and
when they are unveiled, the vast multitude of people who are there
flocked together, immediately prostrate themselves and worship and
invoke those whom such pictures represent that they may regain their
lost holiness and win eternal salvation, just as if the deity were
present in the flesh. This does not occur in any other art or work of
man. And if you say that is owing to the nature of the subject
depicted rather than to the genius of the painter, the answer is that
the mind of man could satisfy itself equally well in this case, were
the man to remain in bed and not make pilgrimages to places which are
perilous and hard of access, as we so often see is the case. But if
such pilgrimages continually exist, what is then their unnecessary
cause? You will certainly admit that it is an image of this kind, and
all the writings in the world could not succeed in representing the
{64} semblance and the power of such a deity. Therefore it appears
that this deity takes pleasure in the pictures and is pleased that it
should be loved and revered, and takes a greater delight in being
worshipped in that rather than in any other semblance of itself, and by
reason of this it bestows grace and gifts of salvation according to the
belief of those who meet together in such a place.
[Sidenote: Painting excels all the Works of Man]
8.
The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means
by which the brain can most abundantly and splendidly contemplate the
infinite works of nature; and the ear is the next in order, which is
ennobled by hearing the recital of the things seen by the eye. If you,
historians and poets, or mathematicians, had not seen things with the
eyes, you could not report of them in writing. If thou, O poet, dost
tell a story with thy painting pen, the painter will more easily give
satisfaction in telling it with his brush and in a manner less tedious
and more easily understood. And if thou callest painting mute poetry,
the painter can call poetry blind painting. Now consider which is the
greater loss, to be blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the
painter in his creations and compositions, they are not so satisfactory
to men as paintings, because if poetry is able to describe forms,
actions and places in words, the painter deals with the very {65}
semblance of forms in order to represent them. Now consider which is
nearer to man, the name of man or the image of man? The name of man
varies in diverse countries, but death alone changes his form. If thou
wast to say that painting is more lasting, I answer that the works of a
coppersmith, which time preserves longer than thine or ours, are more
eternal still. Nevertheless there is but little invention in it, and
painting on copper with colours of enamel is far more lasting.
We by our art can be called the grandsons of God. If poetry deals with
moral philosophy, painting deals with natural philosophy; if poetry
describes the action of the contemplative mind, painting represents the
effect in motion of the action of the mind; if poetry terrifies people
with the pictures of Hell, painting does the same by depicting the same
things in action. If a poet challenges the painter to represent
beauty, fierceness, or an evil, an ugly or a monstrous thing, whatever
variety of forms he may produce in his way, the painter will cause
greater satisfaction. Are there not pictures to be seen so like
reality that they deceive men and animals?
[Sidenote: Painting creates Reality]
9.
The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which
causes the shadow, and the proportion is the same between poetry and
painting. Because poetry produces its results in the {66} imagination
of the reader, and painting produces them in a concrete reality outside
the eye, so that the eye receives its images just as if they were the
works of nature; and poetry produces its results without images, and
they do not pass to the brain through the channel of the visual
faculty, as in painting.
10.
Painting represents to the brain the works of nature with greater truth
and accuracy than speech or writing, but letters represent words with
greater truth, which painting does not do. But we say that the science
which represents the works of nature is more wonderful than that which
represents the works of the artificer, that is to say, the works of
man, which consist of words--such as poetry and the like--which issue
from the tongue of man.
[Sidenote: The Painter goes to Nature]
11.
Painting ministers to a nobler sense than poetry, depicts the forms of
the works of nature with greater truth than poetry; and the works of
nature are nobler than the words which are the works of man, because
there is the same proportion between the works of man and those of
nature as there is between man and God. Therefore it is a more worthy
thing to imitate the works of nature, which are the true images
embodied in reality, than to imitate the actions and the words of men.
{67}