Notebooks (48 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
During this period his interest centred on engineering and mechanics. He made designs of weapons to co-ordinate the slings and catapults then in use with the more modern ideas of artillery. He invented machine-guns and breech-loading guns, armoured cars, and mechanical bows capable of hurling flaming projectiles. He drew plans of military bridges and of forts and other defensive devices. For war at sea, he designed contrivances for attack and defence, a ram for battering, and a double hull so that a damaged ship would keep afloat, diving suits, and swimming belts.
This instrument is employed in the Indian Ocean in pearl fishing. It is made of leather with many rings so that the sea cannot close it up, and the companion stays above in the boat watching, while he fishes for pearls and corals; and he has goggles of frosted glass and a cuirass with spikes set in front.
10
10
The following notes accompanied by drawings of apparatus refer to a mysterious scheme by which Leonardo hoped to destroy enemy ships by piercing them below the water line, and to release prisoners for half the ransom that had been offered.
Do not impart your knowledge and you alone will excel.
Employ a simple youngster and have the coat sewn at home.
Stop the galleys of the captains and sink the others afterwards and fire the cannon on the foot.
. . . When the watch has gone its round bring a small skiff under the poop and set fire to the whole all of a sudden. [
With drawing of a figure in a diving suit
.]
With drawing of a figure in a diving suit
.]
A breastplate of armour together with hood, doublet, and hose . . . and a wineskin to contain the breath, with half a hoop of iron to keep it away from the chest. If you have a whole wineskin with a valve . . . when you deflate it, you will go to the bottom pulled down by the sacks of sand; when you inflate it, you will return to the surface of the water.
A mask with the eyes protruding made of glass, but let its weight be such that you raise it while you swim.
Carry a knife which cuts well so that you do not get caught in a net.
Carry with you two or three small wine skins, deflated, and to be inflated like balls in case of need.
Take officers to your liking and many chains and hide them on the bank. But first have an understanding about the agreement how half of the ransom is to be yours without any deduction, . . . and payment may be made into the hands of Maneto, that is of the said ransom.
Carry a horn in order to give a signal whether or no the attempt has been successful. . . .
11
11
His first designs for the construction of a flying machine were made about this time.
Make trial of the actual machine over the water so that if you fall you do not do yourself any harm.
12
12
On 26 March 1485 Leonardo watched the total eclipse of the sun.
Method of seeing the sun eclipsed without pain to the eye
Take a piece of paper and pierce holes in it with a needle, and look at the sun through these holes.
13
Take a piece of paper and pierce holes in it with a needle, and look at the sun through these holes.
13
On 13 April 1485 Ludovico Sforza informed his ambassador at the court of Mathias Corvinus, king of Hungary, that he had asked a great painter who happened to be in Milan to paint a picture for the king. He was probably referring to Leonardo (cf. pp. 190-1).
The following memoranda were written on excursions into the romantic regions of Lake Como.
*
*
Opposite the castle of Bellaggio there is the river Latte which falls from a height of more than 100 braccia from the source whence it springs, perpendicularly, into the lake with an inconceivable roar and noise. This spring flows only in August and September.
About eight miles above Como is the Pliniana* which rises and falls every six hours, and as it rises it supplies two mills with water and there is a surplus; and as it falls it causes the spring to dry up: two miles higher up there is Nesso, a place where a river falls with great violence through a mighty chasm in the mountain.
These journeys should be made in the month of May.
And the largest bare rocks in these parts are the Mountains of Mandello near Lecco, and of Gravedona towards Bellinzona, thirty miles from Lecco; and those of the valley of Chiavenna. But the Mandello is the largest of all and it has at its base a gully towards the lake that descends two hundred steps, and here at all seasons there is ice and wind.
In Val Sasina between Vimognio and Introbbio, on the right hand where you enter the road to Lecco you come upon the river Troggia which falls from a very high rock and as it falls it goes underground so that the river ends there. Three miles further on you come to the buildings of the copper and silver mines near to the district known as Prato San Pietro, and the iron mines and various strange things. The highest mountain in these parts is La Grigna, and it is quite bare.
Above Lake Como towards Germany lies the valley of Chiavenna where the river Mera enters the Lake. Here are barren and very high mountains with huge crags. In these mountains the water-birds called cormorants are found; here grow firs, larches, and pines; deer, wild goats, chamois, and savage bears. One cannot go up there without using hands and feet. The peasants go there in time of snow with a great device to make the bears fall over these rocks. The mountains are close together and have the river between them. They extend both on the right and on the left in this way for a distance of twenty miles. One may find good inns there from mile to mile. Above the river there are waterfalls four hundred braccia high which are a fine sight; and there is good living at 4 soldi for your bill. A large quantity of timber is brought down by the river.
The Valtellina as has been said is a valley surrounded by lofty and terrible mountains; it produces a great quantity of strong wine, and has so great a stock of cattle that the peasants reckon that it produces more milk than wine. This is the valley crossed by the Adda, which first runs through Germany for more than forty miles. In this river is found the grayling which feeds on silver of which much is to be found in its sands.
Everyone in this district sells bread and wine. And the wine is worth at most one soldo the bottle, veal is a soldo the pound, and salt ten denari and butter the same, and their pound is thirty ounces and eggs are one soldo for a quantity.
At the head of the Valtellina are the mountains of Bormio which are terrible and always covered with snow. Here ermines breed.
14
14
In 1487 the Works Department of the Cathedral of Milan was considering the crowning of the central part of the building.
Leonardo was constructing a model for this
tiburio
with the help of the carpenter Bernardo Maggi da Abbiate. Payments towards the expenses of the model were made on 30 July, on 8
,
18
,
27 August, on 28 and 30 September, and again on 11 January 1488. Then the model was submitted to the Works Department with a letter of which the following draft has survived. He compares the building in need of repairs to an ailing body and the architect to a doctor.
tiburio
with the help of the carpenter Bernardo Maggi da Abbiate. Payments towards the expenses of the model were made on 30 July, on 8
,
18
,
27 August, on 28 and 30 September, and again on 11 January 1488. Then the model was submitted to the Works Department with a letter of which the following draft has survived. He compares the building in need of repairs to an ailing body and the architect to a doctor.
My Lords, Father Deputies, just as for doctors, guardians, nurses it is necessary that they should understand what man is, what life is, what health is, and how it is maintained by a balance and harmony of elements, while a discord of these is its ruin and undoing; and one with a good knowledge of these conditions will be better able to repair than one who is without it.
You know that medicines when well used restore health to the sick; and they will be well used when the doctor together with the understanding of their nature shall understand also what man is, what life is, what constitution is and what health is. Understanding these well he will also understand well their opposites and when this is the case he will know well how to repair. . . .
You know that medicines well used restore health to the sick, and he who knows them well will use them well if he also understands what man is, and what life and the constitutions are, and what health is. Knowing these well he will know their opposites, and being thus equipped he will be nearer a cure than anyone else. The need of the invalid cathedral is similar—it requires a doctor architect who well understands what an edifice is, and on what rules the correct method of building is based, and whence these rules are derived and into how many parts they are divided, and what are the causes that hold the structure together, and make it last, and what is the nature of weight, and what is the desire of force and in what manner they should be combined and related, and what effect their union produces. Whoever has a true knowledge of these things will satisfy you by his intelligence and his work. . . . Therefore I shall try without detracting and without abusing anyone, to satisfy you partly by arguments and partly by works, sometimes revealing the effects from the causes sometimes the reasoning by experiment . . . fitting with them certain principles of ancient architects and the evidence of buildings they constructed and what were the reasons of their ruin or their survival etc.
And I shall show at the same time what is the first law of weight and what and how many are the causes that bring ruin to buildings and what is the condition of their stability and permanence. But in order not to diffuse to your Excellencies, I will begin by the plan of the first architect of the cathedral and show clearly what was his intention as revealed by the edifice begun by him, and having understood this you will be able clearly to recognize that the model which I have made embodies that symmetry, that harmony and that conformity, which belongs to the building already begun: what is an edifice, and wherefrom do the rules of correct construction derive their origin, and what and how many are the parts that belong to these.
Either I, or others who can expound it better than I, choose him, and set aside all partialities.
15
15
The work which was proceeding on the cathedrals of Pavia, Como, and Milan and on Santa Maria delle Grazie inspired him to investigate the problems connected with domes rising from square and octagonal bases and to make numerous architectural drawings.
Here there cannot and ought not to be any campanile; on the contrary it must stand apart like that of the Cathedral and of San Giovanni [the Baptistery] at Florence, and the Cathedral of Pisa, where the campanile and the dome are quite detached, and each can display its own perfection. If, however, you wish it to be joined to the church make the lantern serve for the campanile as in the church of Chiaravalle.*
16
16
He was also drawing plans for a new city with plenty of light and air and with two-level highways, the lower to be used by carts and loads and the upper to be reserved for the convenience of the wealthy.
The terrible devastation caused by the plague in Milan in 1483 may have been the inducement to this work.
The following memoranda refer to his interests, activities, and acquaintances in Milan.
An algebra which the Marliani* have, written by their father. . . .
The measurement of Milan and its suburbs. You will draw Milan*. . . Plan of Milan.
A book treating of Milan and its churches which is to be had at the last stationer’s on the way to Cordusio.*
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