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The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Volume 1
Scientist, painter, mechanical engineer, sculptor, thinker, city planner, storyteller, musician, architect — Leonardo da Vinci, builder of the first flying machine, was one of the great universal geniuses of Western civilization. His voluminous notebooks, the great storehouse of his theories and discoveries, are presented here in 1566 extracts that reveal the full range of Leonardo's versatile interest: all the important writings on painting, sculpture, architecture, anatomy, astronomy, geography, topography, and other fields are included, in both Italian and English, with 186 plates of manuscript pages and many other drawings reproduced in facsimile size.
The first volume, which contains all of Leonardo's writings on aspects of painting, includes discussions of such basic scientific areas as the structure of the eye and vision, perspective, the science of light and shade, the perspective of disappearance, theory of color, perspective of color, proportions and movements of the human figure, botany for painters, and the elements of landscape painting. A section on the practice of painting includes moral precepts for painters and writings on composition, materials, and the philosophy of art. The second volume contains writings on sculpture, architecture (plans for towns, streets, and canals, churches, palaces, castles, and villas, theoretical writings on arches, domes, fissures, etc.), zoology, physiology (including his amazingly accurate theories of blood circulation), medicine, astronomy, geography (including has famous writings and drawings on the movement of water), topography (observations in Italy, France, and other areas), naval warfare, swimming, theory of flying machines, mining, music, and other topics.
A selection of philosophical maxims, morals, polemics, fables, jests, studies in the lives and habits of animals, tales, and prophecies display Leonardo's abilities as a writer and scholar. The second volume also contains some letters, personal records, inventories, and accounts, and concludes with Leonardo's will. The drawings include sketches and studies for some of Leonardo's greatest works of art — The Last Supper, the lost Battle of Anghiari, The Virgin of the Rocks, and the destroyed Sforza monument.
The first volume, which contains all of Leonardo's writings on aspects of painting, includes discussions of such basic scientific areas as the structure of the eye and vision, perspective, the science of light and shade, the perspective of disappearance, theory of color, perspective of color, proportions and movements of the human figure, botany for painters, and the elements of landscape painting. A section on the practice of painting includes moral precepts for painters and writings on composition, materials, and the philosophy of art. The second volume contains writings on sculpture, architecture (plans for towns, streets, and canals, churches, palaces, castles, and villas, theoretical writings on arches, domes, fissures, etc.), zoology, physiology (including his amazingly accurate theories of blood circulation), medicine, astronomy, geography (including has famous writings and drawings on the movement of water), topography (observations in Italy, France, and other areas), naval warfare, swimming, theory of flying machines, mining, music, and other topics.
A selection of philosophical maxims, morals, polemics, fables, jests, studies in the lives and habits of animals, tales, and prophecies display Leonardo's abilities as a writer and scholar. The second volume also contains some letters, personal records, inventories, and accounts, and concludes with Leonardo's will. The drawings include sketches and studies for some of Leonardo's greatest works of art — The Last Supper, the lost Battle of Anghiari, The Virgin of the Rocks, and the destroyed Sforza monument.
367 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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About the author
Leonardo da Vinci
932 books1,509 followersIt was on April 15, 1452, that Leonardo was born in the town of Vinci, Republic of Florence, in what is now in Italy, the illegitimate son of a notary and a barmaid. It is from his birthplace that he is known as Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo seemed to master every subject to which he turned his attention: he was a painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer, wrote poetry and stories: the prototype Renaissance man!
His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, 1503-06) are among the most popular paintings from the Renaissance. He and his rival Michelangelo did great service to the medical arts by accurate paintings of dissections, which were only occasionally allowed by the Church. Yet, his artistry appeared to be an afterthought, as he frequently left his works unfinished, and only about fifteen of his paintings survive. His notebooks reveal that he was centuries ahead of his time in mechanics and physic, fortifications, bridges, weapons, and river diversions to flood the enemy, which aided Italian city-states in their many wars.
Leonardo was an early evolutionist regarding fossils. Through his careful observations he noted that “if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers — as we see them now in our time.” Leonardo reasoned that what is now dry land, where these aquatic fossils were found, must once have been covered by seawater.
He was for a short time accused of homosexuality: there is no evidence Leonardo had any sexual interest in women. As he wrote in his notebooks, “The act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions.”
And what of his religion? It is significant that at the end of his life he felt he had much spiritual negligence to atone for. His first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote in 1550:
"Finally, …feeling himself near to death, [he] asked to have himself diligently informed of the teaching of the Catholic faith, and of the good way and holy Christian religion; and then, with many moans, he confessed and was penitent; and … was pleased to take devoutly the most holy Sacrament, out of his bed. The King, who was wont often and lovingly to visit him, then came into the room; wherefore he, out of reverence … showed withal how much he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done."
There was much skepticism in Renaissance Italy at the time, and Leonardo was an intellectual genius, not just an artistic genius. While there was great intellectual freedom during the Italian Renaissance, there were limits as long as the Dominicans, the “Hounds of the Lord,” were active. This semblance of a deathbed conversion, by so critical a thinker and so great a genius as Leonardo, who would have nothing to lose by professing piety all his life, can only mean that during his prime years he was a secret freethinker.
Leonardo died quietly on the 2 of May, 1519, a few weeks following his 67th birthday.
His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, 1503-06) are among the most popular paintings from the Renaissance. He and his rival Michelangelo did great service to the medical arts by accurate paintings of dissections, which were only occasionally allowed by the Church. Yet, his artistry appeared to be an afterthought, as he frequently left his works unfinished, and only about fifteen of his paintings survive. His notebooks reveal that he was centuries ahead of his time in mechanics and physic, fortifications, bridges, weapons, and river diversions to flood the enemy, which aided Italian city-states in their many wars.
Leonardo was an early evolutionist regarding fossils. Through his careful observations he noted that “if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers — as we see them now in our time.” Leonardo reasoned that what is now dry land, where these aquatic fossils were found, must once have been covered by seawater.
He was for a short time accused of homosexuality: there is no evidence Leonardo had any sexual interest in women. As he wrote in his notebooks, “The act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions.”
And what of his religion? It is significant that at the end of his life he felt he had much spiritual negligence to atone for. His first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote in 1550:
"Finally, …feeling himself near to death, [he] asked to have himself diligently informed of the teaching of the Catholic faith, and of the good way and holy Christian religion; and then, with many moans, he confessed and was penitent; and … was pleased to take devoutly the most holy Sacrament, out of his bed. The King, who was wont often and lovingly to visit him, then came into the room; wherefore he, out of reverence … showed withal how much he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done."
There was much skepticism in Renaissance Italy at the time, and Leonardo was an intellectual genius, not just an artistic genius. While there was great intellectual freedom during the Italian Renaissance, there were limits as long as the Dominicans, the “Hounds of the Lord,” were active. This semblance of a deathbed conversion, by so critical a thinker and so great a genius as Leonardo, who would have nothing to lose by professing piety all his life, can only mean that during his prime years he was a secret freethinker.
Leonardo died quietly on the 2 of May, 1519, a few weeks following his 67th birthday.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 2, 2018
The version I read was an electric version, so the hard copy editions may be different.
I was expecting a lot more. I was expecting/hoping for more reproductions of the actual notebooks, and what I got was mostly just transliteration and translation of a lot of text. Granted, those are still important, but this version/edition dealt almost solely with optics and was rather limited.
If you want to read about da Vinci's work/thoughts in optics, this is probably at least a 3-star, maybe a 4-star work, but if you are looking/hoping for a fuller sense of his works in his notebooks, this isn't the right book.
I was expecting a lot more. I was expecting/hoping for more reproductions of the actual notebooks, and what I got was mostly just transliteration and translation of a lot of text. Granted, those are still important, but this version/edition dealt almost solely with optics and was rather limited.
If you want to read about da Vinci's work/thoughts in optics, this is probably at least a 3-star, maybe a 4-star work, but if you are looking/hoping for a fuller sense of his works in his notebooks, this isn't the right book.
November 21, 2011
I had a research about Leonardo da Vinci to do in Arabic, and I have to say, this came quite handy for understanding his great work, and for making it easier to present. Very good for any Leonardo enthusiast.
I just checked out this book from the school library, and im soo exited about it :D!! haha theres so many topics in this book, i cant believe there was more to write in volume 2!!! which i will be reading next!
I just checked out this book from the school library, and im soo exited about it :D!! haha theres so many topics in this book, i cant believe there was more to write in volume 2!!! which i will be reading next!
October 19, 2018
I'm not sure how you give a star rating to a book of document transcriptions, but I will say that I'm very glad to have this book on my shelf, and I'm moving right on to reading the second volume.
First, an explanation of what this book is. Dover often does reprints of classic reference works that are inaccessible or out of print (I'm sure that the Internet is undercutting some of the motivation for this), and decades ago, when I was in high school, I was given these editions of the Da Vinci notebooks. It's a reprint of the 1883 publication of selections from the notebooks. At the time, Richter was the first person to have had access to all the known notebooks (Queen Victoria endorsed his project, and that seems to have opened a lot of doors), and he tried to collate the scattered notes into coherent subjects (Painting, in this volume), and put them in a logical order.
This was a very difficult task, because Da Vinci never really prepared anything for publication. He wrote notes on different subjects on the same page (these are notebooks, after all), and he had in mind the publication of a variety books on a wide range of subjects. So he'd jot a note for his painting book on the upper left (and often the note is equivalent to "Write a chapter about moving shadows."), a note about a Law of Physics in the middle, and draw examples of column capitals and pediments on the rest of the page. So what Richter chose to do is to ignore the origin of the notes in favor of logical presentation; while carefully noting where each fragment comes from, and who owns that original page. It is, therefore, primarily a scholarly work. His transcription of the Italian text is on the left of each page, and the English translation is on the right, with many, many footnotes justifying his reading.
Remember that Da Vinci wrote primarily in almost a shorthand, and he wrote it backwards, from right to left.
Da Vinci was a contemporary of Columbus (born 1 year apart, and 200km apart), so it's very interesting to note some of the things he is already aware of. He understands a good deal about the circulation of the blood, already, and about how the eye works. He knows that vision depends on how much of the brain is directly associated with the optic nerve. He understands that the atmosphere quickly attenuates as you climb, and understands how that affects the light. He'd paid a lot of attention to how the human anatomy changes with age (which is vital for painting and sculpture), and has good theories as to why. He knows what clouds are, he knows how prisms work, he knows what rainbows are. He also knows his Vitruvius.
As I say, I was given this book in high school, and have fondly treasured it ever since, but I only read sections of it before. Now that I'm reading the whole thing, I note two problems with this particular edition. First, a number of Da Vinci notebooks have been discovered since 1883, so this is no longer the last word. Second, Richter was primarily interested in Da Vinci as a painter and sculptor, so while the second volume has some of the mechanical stuff and some of the scientific stuff, he left a lot of that out, as "not being of interest except to specialists." Frankly, much of that subject matter would be my primary interest in Da Vinci.
First, an explanation of what this book is. Dover often does reprints of classic reference works that are inaccessible or out of print (I'm sure that the Internet is undercutting some of the motivation for this), and decades ago, when I was in high school, I was given these editions of the Da Vinci notebooks. It's a reprint of the 1883 publication of selections from the notebooks. At the time, Richter was the first person to have had access to all the known notebooks (Queen Victoria endorsed his project, and that seems to have opened a lot of doors), and he tried to collate the scattered notes into coherent subjects (Painting, in this volume), and put them in a logical order.
This was a very difficult task, because Da Vinci never really prepared anything for publication. He wrote notes on different subjects on the same page (these are notebooks, after all), and he had in mind the publication of a variety books on a wide range of subjects. So he'd jot a note for his painting book on the upper left (and often the note is equivalent to "Write a chapter about moving shadows."), a note about a Law of Physics in the middle, and draw examples of column capitals and pediments on the rest of the page. So what Richter chose to do is to ignore the origin of the notes in favor of logical presentation; while carefully noting where each fragment comes from, and who owns that original page. It is, therefore, primarily a scholarly work. His transcription of the Italian text is on the left of each page, and the English translation is on the right, with many, many footnotes justifying his reading.
Remember that Da Vinci wrote primarily in almost a shorthand, and he wrote it backwards, from right to left.
Da Vinci was a contemporary of Columbus (born 1 year apart, and 200km apart), so it's very interesting to note some of the things he is already aware of. He understands a good deal about the circulation of the blood, already, and about how the eye works. He knows that vision depends on how much of the brain is directly associated with the optic nerve. He understands that the atmosphere quickly attenuates as you climb, and understands how that affects the light. He'd paid a lot of attention to how the human anatomy changes with age (which is vital for painting and sculpture), and has good theories as to why. He knows what clouds are, he knows how prisms work, he knows what rainbows are. He also knows his Vitruvius.
As I say, I was given this book in high school, and have fondly treasured it ever since, but I only read sections of it before. Now that I'm reading the whole thing, I note two problems with this particular edition. First, a number of Da Vinci notebooks have been discovered since 1883, so this is no longer the last word. Second, Richter was primarily interested in Da Vinci as a painter and sculptor, so while the second volume has some of the mechanical stuff and some of the scientific stuff, he left a lot of that out, as "not being of interest except to specialists." Frankly, much of that subject matter would be my primary interest in Da Vinci.
May 28, 2008
When I was a kid, I begged my mom to get this for me from a museum gift store in Boston (I think). I was thrilled, even though the volume I really wanted (the one with all the inventions) was sold out at the time, so I settled for this. But it did help me understand parallax and other optics problems, and the fact that it was bilingual (actually with Leonardo's original writing on facing pages!) was quite fascinating.
March 25, 2008
Facinating insight into the mind of a genius, with one of the most important factors for me - the original text in the original language next to an English translation.
January 19, 2014
Jednom genije, uvek genije. Leonardo, obožavam te.
June 10, 2023
One of the worlds greatest ever minds
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews