The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete by da Vinci Leonardo

3. The MS. Leic. being written about the year 1510 or later, it does

1880 words  |  Chapter 16

not seem to me to follow that the sketches must have been made at Piombino, where Leonardo was in the year 1502 and possibly returned there subsequently (see Vol. II. Topographical notes).] Of the water which leaps up from the spot where great masses fall on its surface. Of the winds of Piombino at Piombino. Eddies of wind and rain with boughs and shrubs mixed in the air. Emptying the boats of the rain water. [Footnote: The sketches on Pl. XXXV 3 stand by the side of lines 14 to 54.] Of depicting natural phenomena (610. 611). 610. The tremendous fury of the wind driven by the falling in of the hills on the caves within--by the falling of the hills which served as roofs to these caverns. A stone flung through the air leaves on the eye which sees it the impression of its motion, and the same effect is produced by the drops of water which fall from the clouds when it [16] rains. [17] A mountain falling on a town, will fling up dust in the form of clouds; but the colour of this dust will differ from that of the clouds. Where the rain is thickest let the colour of the dust be less conspicuous and where the dust is thickest let the rain be less conspicuous. And where the rain is mingled with the wind and with the dust the clouds created by the rain must be more transparent than those of dust [alone]. And when flames of fire are mingled with clouds of smoke and water very opaque and dark clouds will be formed [Footnote 26-28: Compare Pl. XL, 1--the drawing in Indian ink on the left hand side, which seems to be a reminiscence of his observations of an eruption (see his remarks on Mount Etna in Vol II).]. And the rest of this subject will be treated in detail in the book on painting. [Footnote: See the sketches and text on Pl. XXXVIII, No. 1. Lines 1-16 are there given on the left hand side, 17-30 on the right. The four lines at the bottom on the right are given as No. 472. Above these texts, which are written backwards, there are in the original sixteen lines in a larger writing from left to right, but only half of this is here visible. They treat of the physical laws of motion of air and water. It does not seem to me that there is any reason for concluding that this writing from left to right is spurious. Compare with it the facsimile of the rough copy of Leonardo's letter to Ludovico il Moro in Vol. II.] 611. People were to be seen eagerly embarking victuals on various kinds of hastily made barks. But little of the waves were visible in those places where the dark clouds and rain were reflected. But where the flashes caused by the bolts of heaven were reflected, there were seen as many bright spots, caused by the image of the flashes, as there were waves to reflect them to the eye of the spectator. The number of the images produced by the flash of lightning on the waves of the water were multiplied in proportion to the distance of the spectator's eye. So also the number of the images was diminished in proportion as they were nearer the eye which saw them [Footnote 22. 23: _Com'e provato_. See Vol. II, Nos. 874-878 and 892-901], as it has been proved in the definition of the luminosity of the moon, and of our marine horizon when the sun's rays are reflected in it and the eye which receives the reflection is remote from the sea. VI. THE ARTIST'S MATERIALS. Of chalk and paper (612--617). 612. To make points [crayons] for colouring dry. Temper with a little wax and do not dry it; which wax you must dissolve with water: so that when the white lead is thus tempered, the water being distilled, may go off in vapour and the wax may remain; you will thus make good crayons; but you must know that the colours must be ground with a hot stone. 613. Chalk dissolves in wine and in vinegar or in aqua fortis and can be recombined with gum. 614. PAPER FOR DRAWING UPON IN BLACK BY THE AID OF YOUR SPITTLE. Take powdered gall nuts and vitriol, powder them and spread them on paper like a varnish, then write on it with a pen wetted with spittle and it will turn as black as ink. 615. If you want to make foreshortened letters stretch the paper in a drawing frame and then draw your letters and cut them out, and make the sunbeams pass through the holes on to another stretched paper, and then fill up the angles that are wanting. 616. This paper should be painted over with candle soot tempered with thin glue, then smear the leaf thinly with white lead in oil as is done to the letters in printing, and then print in the ordinary way. Thus the leaf will appear shaded in the hollows and lighted on the parts in relief; which however comes out here just the contrary. [Footnote: This text, which accompanies a facsimile impression of a leaf of sage, has already been published in the _Saggio delle Opere di L. da Vinci_, Milano 1872, p. 11. G. GOVI observes on this passage: "_Forse aveva egli pensato ancora a farsi un erbario, od almeno a riprodurre facilmente su carta le forme e i particolari delle foglie di diverse piante; poiche (modificando un metodo che probabilmente gli eia stato insegnato da altri, e che piu tardi si legge ripetuto in molti ricettarii e libri di segreti), accanto a una foglia di Salvia impressa in nero su carta bianca, lascio scritto: Questa carta ... Erano i primi tentativi di quella riproduzione immediata delle parti vegetali, che poi sotto il nome d'Impressione Naturale, fu condotta a tanta perfezione in questi ultimi tempi dal signor de Hauer e da altri_."] 617. Very excellent will be a stiff white paper, made of the usual mixture and filtered milk of an herb called calves foot; and when this paper is prepared and damped and folded and wrapped up it may be mixed with the mixture and thus left to dry; but if you break it before it is moistened it becomes somewhat like the thin paste called _lasagne_ and you may then damp it and wrap it up and put it in the mixture and leave it to dry; or again this paper may be covered with stiff transparent white and _sardonio_ and then damped so that it may not form angles and then covered up with strong transparent size and as soon as it is firm cut it two fingers, and leave it to dry; again you may make stiff cardboard of _sardonio_ and dry it and then place it between two sheets of papyrus and break it inside with a wooden mallet with a handle and then open it with care holding the lower sheet of paper flat and firm so that the broken pieces be not separated; then have a sheet of paper covered with hot glue and apply it on the top of all these pieces and let them stick fast; then turn it upside down and apply transparent size several times in the spaces between the pieces, each time pouring in first some black and then some stiff white and each time leaving it to dry; then smooth it and polish it. On the preparation and use of colours (618-627). 618. To make a fine green take green and mix it with bitumen and you will make the shadows darker. Then, for lighter [shades] green with yellow ochre, and for still lighter green with yellow, and for the high lights pure yellow; then mix green and turmeric together and glaze every thing with it. To make a fine red take cinnabar or red chalk or burnt ochre for the dark shadows and for the lighter ones red chalk and vermilion and for the lights pure vermilion and then glaze with fine lake. To make good oil for painting. One part of oil, one of the first refining and one of the second. 619. Use black in the shadow, and in the lights white, yellow, green, vermilion and lake. Medium shadows; take the shadow as above and mix it with the flesh tints just alluded to, adding to it a little yellow and a little green and occasionally some lake; for the shadows take green and lake for the middle shades. [Footnote 618 and 619: If we may judge from the flourishes with which the writing is ornamented these passages must have been written in Leonardo's youth.] 620. You can make a fine ochre by the same method as you use to make white. 621. A FINE YELLOW. Dissolve realgar with one part of orpiment, with aqua fortis. WHITE. Put the white into an earthen pot, and lay it no thicker than a string, and let it stand in the sun undisturbed for 2 days; and in the morning when the sun has dried off the night dews. 622. To make reddish black for flesh tints take red rock crystals from Rocca Nova or garnets and mix them a little; again armenian bole is good in part. 623. The shadow will be burnt ,terra-verte'. 624. THE PROPORTIONS OF COLOURS. If one ounce of black mixed with one ounce of white gives a certain shade of darkness, what shade of darkness will be produced by 2 ounces of black to 1 ounce of white? 625. Remix black, greenish yellow and at the end blue. 626. Verdigris with aloes, or gall or turmeric makes a fine green and so it does with saffron or burnt orpiment; but I doubt whether in a short time they will not turn black. Ultramarine blue and glass yellow mixed together make a beautiful green for fresco, that is wall-painting. Lac and verdigris make a good shadow for blue in oil painting. 627. Grind verdigris many times coloured with lemon juice and keep it away from yellow (?). Of preparing the panel. 628. TO PREPARE A PANEL FOR PAINTING ON. The panel should be cypress or pear or service-tree or walnut. You must coat it over with mastic and turpentine twice distilled and white or, if you like, lime, and put it in a frame so that it may expand and shrink according to its moisture and dryness. Then give it [a coat] of aqua vitae in which you have dissolved arsenic or [corrosive] sublimate, 2 or 3 times. Then apply boiled linseed oil in such a way as that it may penetrate every part, and before it is cold rub it well with a cloth to dry it. Over this apply liquid varnish and white with a stick, then wash it with urine when it is dry, and dry it again. Then pounce and outline your drawing finely and over it lay a priming of 30 parts of verdigris with one of verdigris with two of yellow. [Footnote: M. RAVAISSON'S reading varies from mine in the following passages: 1._opero allor [?] bo [alloro?]_ = "_ou bien de [laurier]_."

Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. 2. _addi 22 di marzo 1508_. The Christian era was computed in 3. 3. _racolto tratto di molte carte le quali io ho qui copiate_. We 4. INTRODUCTION. 5. INTRODUCTION. 6. INTRODUCTION. 7. INTRODUCTION. 8. INTRODUCTION TO PERSPECTIVE:--THAT IS OF THE FUNCTION OF THE EYE. 9. INTRODUCTION. 10. 4. This diagram below should end at _a n_ 4 8. [4]That portion of 11. 307. OF PAINTING. 12. 1480. On the same leaf there is a drawing in red chalk of two 13. Part I of the _Nuovo Giornale Botanico Italiano_, by Prof. G. 14. 3. The first five lines of the text are written below the diagram 15. 1. 2. C. A. 157a; 463a has the similar heading: '_del cressciere 16. 3. The MS. Leic. being written about the year 1510 or later, it does 17. 6. _fregalo bene con un panno_. He reads _pane_ for _panno_ and 18. 7. _colla stecca po laua_. He reads "_polacca_" = "_avec le couteau 19. 1506. (See Milanesi's note to Vasari pp. 43--45 Vol. IV ed. 1880.) 20. 1. _Incominciai_. We have no other information as to the two 21. 1. A drawing in silver point on brown toned paper of a woman's head 22. 2. A study of drapery for the left leg of the same figure, done with 23. 3. A study in red chalk for the bust of the Infant Christ--No. 3 in 24. 4. A silver-point study on greenish paper, for the head of John the 25. 361. G. Govi remarks on these ornaments (_Saggio_ p. 22): "_Codesti 26. 1881. But the coincidence is probably accidental.] 27. 1492. Leonardo's opinions as to the shortcomings of plastic works 28. 12. The meaning of _orreve_ is unknown.] 29. 1. That which gets wet increases in proportion to the moisture it 30. 2. And a wet object shrinks, while drying, in proportion to the 31. introduction to Astronomy (see Nos._ 867 _and_ 877_). Some of the 32. 897. _He does not go into any theory of the motions of the planets; 33. 1600. _As LIBRI pointed out_ (Histoire des Sciences mathematiques 34. INTRODUCTION. 35. Book 15 of matters worn away by water. 36. Book 9, of accidental risings of water. 37. Book 9 of the meeting of rivers and their flow and ebb. The cause is 38. Book 9, of the meeting of rivers and of their ebb and flow. The 39. 1339. All the foregoing chapters are from Manuscripts of about 1510. 40. 1. _Diodario._ This word is not to be found in any Italian 41. 7. _Citta de Calindra (Chalindra)_. The position of this city is so 42. 8. _I_ corni del gra mote Tauro. Compare the sketches PI. 43. 7. _vicini ai nostri confini_. Dr. M. JORDAN has already published 44. BOOK 43. OF THE MOVEMENT OF AIR ENCLOSED IN WATER. 45. 1536. A. Percy neither does mention any eruptions of Etna during the 46. 1473. [Footnote: *W. An. I. 1368. 1369. This date is on a drawing of 47. 11. 13. [Footnote: _Brera_, now _Palazzo delle Scienze ed Arti. 48. 12. [Footnote: _Sco Lorenzo_. A church at Milan, see pp. 39, 49. 2. 3. _Francesco de' Melzi_ is often mentioned, see 50. 4. _Lorenzo_. See No. 1351, l. 10 (p. 408). Amoretti 51. 1466. This seems to be an account for two assistants. 52. 1467. 5. See No. 1465, 2. 53. 1476. BRUNET, _Manuel du libraire_ (IV, p. 97) 54. 1476. Where Leonardo found the statement that 55. 10. Compare No. 1475.] 56. 1. 8II in all 57. 450. Of these I gave 2 the same day to

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