Notebooks (37 page)
Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells
Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques
A new tower founded partly on old masonry.
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Water stairs
When the descent from the floodgates has been so hollowed out that at the end of its drop it is below the bed of the river, the waters which descend from them will never form a cavity at the foot of the bank, and will not carry away soil in their rebound, and so they will not proceed to form a fresh obstacle but will follow the transverse course along the length of the base of the floodgate from the under side. Moreover, if the lowest part of the bank which lies diagonally across the course of the waters be constructed in deep broad steps after the manner of a staircase, the waters which as they descend in their course are accustomed to fall perpendicularly from the beginning of this lowest stage, and dig out the foundations of the bank, will not be able any longer to descend with a blow of too great a force. And I give as an example of this the stair down which the water falls from the meadows of the Sforzesca at Vigevano, for the running water falls down it for a height of fifty braccia.
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The water should be allowed to fall from the whole circle
ab
.
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ab
.
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Town planning
Let the street be as wide as the universal height of the houses.
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[
With plan of town showing high- and low-level roads
.]
With plan of town showing high- and low-level roads
.]
The high-level roads are six braccia higher than the low-level roads, and each road should be twenty braccia wide and have a fall of half a braccio from the edges to the centre. And in this centre at every braccio there should be an opening of the width of a finger one braccio long, through which rainwater may drain off into holes made on the lower-level roads. And on each side of this road there should be an arcade six braccia broad resting on columns.
And if anyone wishes to go through the whole place by the high-level roads he will be able to use them for this purpose, and so also if anyone wishes to go by the low-level roads. The high-level roads are not to be used by wagons or like vehicles but are solely for the convenience of the gentle-folk. All carts and loads for the service and convenience of the common people should be confined to the low-level roads. One house has to turn its back on another, leaving the low-level road between them. The doors serve for the bringing in of provisions such as wood and wine, &c. The privies, stables, and noisome places are emptied by underground passages situated at a distance of three hundred braccia from one arch to the rest, each passage receiving light through openings in the street above, and at every arch there should be a spiral staircase. . . . At the first turn there should be a door of entry into the privies, and this staircase should enable one to descend from the high-level to the low-level road.
The high-level roads begin outside the gates at the height of six braccia. The site should be chosen near to the sea, or some large river, in order that the impurities of the city may be carried far away by water.
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Plan of house
A building ought always to be detached all round in order that its true shape can be seen.
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[
With architectural drawings
.]
With architectural drawings
.]
Large room for the master, room, kitchen, larder, guard-room, large room for the family, and hall.
The large room for the master and that for the family should have the kitchen between them, and in both the food may be served through wide and low windows or by tables that turn on swivels. The large room of the family is on the other side of the kitchen so that the master of the house may not hear the clatter.
The wife should have her own apartment and hall apart from that of the family, so that she may set her serving maids to eat at another table in the same hall. She should have two other apartments as well as her own, one for the serving maids, the other for the nurses, and ample space for their utensils. And the apartment will be in communication with the various conveniences; and the garden and stable in contact.
He who is stationed in the buttery ought to have behind him the entrance to the kitchen, in order to be able to do his work expeditiously; and the window of the kitchen should be facing the buttery so that he may extract the wood. And let the kitchen be convenient for cleaning pewter so that it may not be seen being carried through the house. I wish to have one door to close the whole house.
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A water mill
By means of a mill I shall be able at any time to produce a current of air; in the summer I shall make the water spring up fresh and bubbling, and flow along in the space between the tables which will be arranged thus [
drawing
]. The channel may be half a braccio wide, and there should be vessels there with wines, always of the freshest. Other water should flow through the garden moistening the orange and citron trees according to their needs. These citron trees will be permanent, because their situation will be so arranged that they can easily be covered over and the continuous warmth which the winter season produces will be the means of preserving them far better than fire, for two reasons: one is that this warmth of the springs is natural and is the same as warms the roots of all the plants; the second is that fire gives warmth to these plants in accidental manner, because it is deprived of moisture and is neither uniform nor continuous, being warmer at the start than at the end and is very often overlooked through the carelessness of those in charge of it.
drawing
]. The channel may be half a braccio wide, and there should be vessels there with wines, always of the freshest. Other water should flow through the garden moistening the orange and citron trees according to their needs. These citron trees will be permanent, because their situation will be so arranged that they can easily be covered over and the continuous warmth which the winter season produces will be the means of preserving them far better than fire, for two reasons: one is that this warmth of the springs is natural and is the same as warms the roots of all the plants; the second is that fire gives warmth to these plants in accidental manner, because it is deprived of moisture and is neither uniform nor continuous, being warmer at the start than at the end and is very often overlooked through the carelessness of those in charge of it.
The herbage of the little brooks ought to be cut frequently so that the clearness of the water may be seen upon its shingly bed, and only those plants should be left which serve the fishes for food, such as watercress and like plants. The fish should be such as will not make water muddy, that is to say eels must not be put there nor tench, nor yet pike because they destroy the other fish.
By means of the mill you will make many water conduits through the house, and springs in various places, and a certain passage where, when anyone passes, from all sides below the water will leap up, and so it will be there ready in case anyone should wish to give a shower bath from below to the women or others who shall pass there.
Overhead we must construct a very fine net of copper which will cover over the garden and shut in beneath it many different kinds of birds. So you will have perpetual music together with the scents of the blossoms of the citrons and the lemons.
With the help of the mill I will make continuous sounds from all sorts of instruments, for so long as the mill shall continue to move.
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IV. THE ARTIST’S LIFE228
The painter strives and competes with nature.
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The painter ought to be solitary and consider what he sees, discussing it with himself in order to select the most excellent parts of whatever he sees. He should act as a mirror which transmutes itself into as many colours as are those of the objects that are placed before it. Thus he will seem to be a second nature.
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The life of the painter in his studio
In order that the well-being of the body may not sap that of the mind the painter or draughtsman ought to remain solitary, and especially when intent on those studies and reflections of things which continually appear before his eyes and furnish material to be well kept in the memory. While you are alone you are entirely your own; and if you have but one companion you are but half your own, or even less in proportion to the indiscretion of his conduct. And if you have more companions you will fall deeper into the same trouble. If you should say, ‘I will go my own way, I will withdraw apart the better to study the forms of natural objects’, I tell you that this will work badly because you cannot help often lending an ear to their chatter; and not being able to serve two masters you will badly fill the part of a companion, and carry out your studies of art even worse. And if you say, ‘I will withdraw so far that their words shall not reach me nor disturb me’, I can tell you that you will be thought mad; but bear in mind that by doing this you will at least be alone; and if you must have companionship find it in your study. . . . This may assist you to obtain advantages which result from different methods. All other company may be very mischievous to you.
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Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones distract it.
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Denial of the assertion that painters should
not work on feast days
not work on feast days
For painting is the way to learn to know the maker of all marvellous things—and this is the way to love so great an inventor. For in truth great love springs from the full knowledge of the thing that one loves; and if you do not know it you can love it but little or not at all.
And if you love Him for the sake of the good benefits that you expect to obtain from Him, you are like the dog wagging its tail, welcoming and jumping up at the man who may give him a bone. But if the dog knew and would be capable of understanding the virtue of this man how much greater would be his love!
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The life of the painter in the country
A painter needs such mathematics as belong to painting, and the severance from companions who are not in sympathy with his studies; and his brain should have the power of adapting itself to the variety of objects which present themselves before it; and he should be free from other cares. And if, while considering and defining one case, a second should intervene, as happens when an object occupies the mind, then he must decide which of these cases is the more difficult to work out, and follow that until it becomes entirely clear, and then work out the explanation of the other; and above all he should keep his mind as clear as the surface of a mirror, which becomes changed to as many different colours as are those of the objects; and his companions should resemble him as to their studies, and if he fail to find any he should keep his speculations to himself alone, for in the end he will find no more useful company.
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Studying when you wake, or before you go to sleep in the dark
I have found in my own experience that it is of no small benefit when you lie in bed in the dark to go over again in the imagination the outlines of the forms you have been studying or of other noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly a praiseworthy exercise and useful in impressing things on the memory.
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The mind of a painter should be like a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is filled by the images of as many objects as are in front of it. Therefore you must know that you cannot be a good painter unless you are universal master to represent by your art every kind of form produced by nature. And this you will not know how to do unless you see them and retain them in your mind. Therefore as you walk through the fields turn your attention to the various objects and look now at this thing and now at that, collecting a store of divers facts selected and chosen from those of less value. And do not do like some painters who, when tired in their mind, dismiss their work from their thoughts and take exercise by walking for relaxation keeping, however, such weariness of mind as prevents them from apprehending the objects they see; but often when they meet friends or relatives and being saluted by them although they may see and hear them take no more cognizance of them than if they had met so much air.
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What induces you, O man, to depart from your home in town, to leave parents and friends, and go to the countryside over mountains and valleys, if it is not the beauty of the world of nature which, if you consider well, you can only enjoy through the sense of sight; and since the poet in this claims to compete with the painter, why do you not take the poet’s descriptions of such landscapes and stay at home without exposing yourself to the excessive heat of the sun? Would that not be more expedient and less fatiguing, since you could stay in a cool place without moving about and exposing yourself to illness? But your soul could not enjoy the pleasures that come to it through the eyes, the windows of its habitation, it could not receive the reflections of bright places, it could not see the shady valleys watered by the play of meandering rivers, it could not see the many flowers which with their various colours compose harmonies for the eye, nor all the other things which may present themselves to the eye. But if a painter on a cold and severe winter’s day shows you his paintings of these or other countrysides where you once enjoyed yourself beside some fountain, and where you can see yourself again in flowery meadows as a lover by the side of your beloved under the cool, soft shadows of green trees, will it not give you much greater pleasure than listening to the poet’s description of such a scene?
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