Section of Preface written by the translator of the notebooks - :
"A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of
Leonardo da Vinci's works. Two of the three most important were never completed,
obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them
unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of
Anghiari, while the third--the picture of the Last Supper at Milan--has suffered
irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was
recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no
other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through
copies of every description."
.... "The beginning of Leonardo's literary labours dates from about his
thirty-seventh year, and he seems to have carried them on without any serious
interruption till his death. Thus the Manuscripts that remain represent a period
of about thirty years. Within this space of time his handwriting altered so
little that it is impossible to judge from it of the date of any particular
text. The exact dates, indeed, can only be assigned to certain note-books in
which the year is incidentally indicated, and in which the order of the leaves
has not been altered since Leonardo used them. The assistance these afford for a
chronological arrangement of the Manuscripts is generally self evident. By this
clue I have assigned to the original Manuscripts now scattered through England,
Italy and France, the order of their production, as in many matters of detail it
is highly important to be able to verify the time and place at which certain
observations were made and registered. For this purpose the Bibliography of the
Manuscripts given at the end of Vol. II, may be regarded as an Index, not far
short of complete, of all Leonardo s literary works now extant. The consecutive
numbers (from 1 to 1566) at the head of each passage in this work, indicate
their logical sequence with reference to the subjects; while the letters and
figures to the left of each paragraph refer to the original Manuscript and
number of the page, on which that particular passage is to be found. Thus the
reader, by referring to the List of Manuscripts at the beginning of Volume I,
and to the Bibliography at the end of Volume II, can, in every instance, easily
ascertain, not merely the period to which the passage belongs, but also exactly
where it stood in the original document. Thus, too, by following the sequence of
the numbers in the Bibliographical index, the reader may reconstruct the
original order of the Manuscripts and recompose the various texts to be found on
the original sheets--so much of it, that is to say, as by its subject-matter
came within the scope of this work. It may, however, be here observed that
Leonardo s Manuscripts contain, besides the passages here printed, a great
number of notes and dissertations on Mechanics, Physics, and some other
subjects, many of which could only be satisfactorily dealt with by specialists.
I have given as complete a review of these writings as seemed necessary in the
Bibliographical notes."
Misc. excerpts from Leonardo Da Vinci's notes:
47.
DEFINITION OF THE NATURE OF THE LINE.
The line has in itself neither matter nor substance and may rather be called an
imaginary idea than a real object; and this being its nature it occupies no
space. Therefore an infinite number of lines may be conceived of as intersecting
each other at a point, which has no dimensions and is only of the thickness (if
thickness it may be called) of one single line.
1160.
Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.
1161.
OF THE ERRORS OF THOSE WHO DEPEND ON PRACTICE WITHOUT SCIENCE.
Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who
enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither
he is going.
II.
MORALS.
What is life? (1162. 1163).
1162.
Now you see that the hope and the desire of returning home and to one's former
state is like the moth to the light, and that the man who with constant longing
awaits with joy each new spring time, each new summer, each new month and new
year--deeming that the things he longs for are ever too late in coming--does not
perceive that he is longing for his own destruction. But this desire is the very
quintessence, the spirit of the elements, which finding itself imprisoned with
the soul is ever longing to return from the human body to its giver. And you
must know that this same longing is that quintessence, inseparable from nature,
and that man is the image of the world.
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