'Study me reader, if you find delight in me…Come, O men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose in nature.'Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, which represent perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. In them he recorded everything that interested him in the world around him, and his study of how things work. With an artist's eye and a scientist's curiosity he studied the movement of water and the formation of rocks, the nature of flight and optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting.He jotted down fables and letters and developed his belief in the sublime unity of nature and man. Through his notebooks we can get an insight into Leonardo's thoughts, and his approach to work and life.This selection offers a cross-section of his writings, organized around coherent themes. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo.
[Footnote: Either this description is incomplete, or, as seems to me highly probable, it refers to some ruin. The enormous dimensions forbid our supposing this to be any temple in Italy or Greece. Syria was the native land of colossal octagonal buildings, in the early centuries A. D. The Temple of Baalbek, and others are even larger than that here described. J. P. R.]
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_V. Palace architecture. But a small number of Leonardo's drawings refer to the architecture of palaces, and our knowledge is small as to what style Leonardo might have adopted for such buildings. Pl. CII No. 1 (W. XVIII). A small portion of a facade of a palace in two stories, somewhat resembling Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai.--Compare with this Bramante's painted front of the Casa Silvestri, and a painting by Montorfano in San Pietro in Gessate at Milan, third chapel on the left hand side and also with Bramante's palaces at Rome. The pilasters with arabesques, the rustica between them, and the figures over the window may be painted or in sgraffito. The original is drawn in red chalk.
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Pl. LXXXI No. 1 (MS. Tr. 42). Sketch of a palace with battlements and decorations, most likely graffiti; the details remind us of those in the Castello at Vigevano._ [Footnote 1: _Count GIULIO PORRO, in his valuable contribution to the_ Archivio Storico Lombardo, Anno VIII, Fasc. IV (31 Dec. 1881): Leonardo da Vinci, Libro di Annotazioni e Memorie, _refers to this in the following note:_ "Alla pag. 41 vi e uno schizzo di volta ed accanto scrisse: 'il pilastro sara charicho in su 6' e potrebbe darsi che si riferisse alla cupola della chiesa delle Grazie tanto piu che a pag. 42 vi e un disegno che rassomiglia assai al basamento che oggi si vede nella parte esterna del coro di quella chiesa." _This may however be doubted. The drawing, here referred to, on page 41 of the same manuscript, is reproduced on Pl. C No. 4 and described on page 61 as being a study for the cupola of the Duomo of Milan._ J. P. R.]
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_MS. Mz. 0", contains a design for a palace or house with a loggia in the middle of the first story, over which rises an attic with a Pediment reproduced on page 67. The details drawn close by on the left seem to indicate an arrangement of coupled columns against the wall of a first story. Pl. LXXXV No. 14 (MS. S. K. M. Ill 79a) contains a very slight sketch in red chalk, which most probably is intended to represent the facade of a palace. Inside is the short note 7 he 7 (7 and 7)._ _MS. J2 8a (see pages 68 Fig. 1 and 2) contains a view of an unknown palace. Its plan is indicated at the side._ _In MS. Br. M. 126a(see Fig. 3 on page 68) there is a sketch of a house, on which Leonardo notes; casa con tre terrazi (house with three terraces)._ _Pl. CX, No. 4 (MS. L. 36b) represents the front of a fortified building drawn at Cesena in 1502 (see No. 1040)._
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