Leonardo da Vinci Society Newsletter editor: Matthew Landrus
Issue 40, May 2014
Recent and forthcoming events A symposium at the 24th International Con- gress of History of Science, Technology and The Annual General Meeting and Annual Medicine Lecture 2014 The Society arranged a symposium on “Leonardo On Friday, 9 May 2013, Dr Ashok Roy, Director da Vinci and the History of Science” for the of Scientific Research at the National Gallery, International Congress of History of Science, will offer the Annual Lecture: Analysing Leonar- Technology and Medicine, which was held at the do: New Research on his Practice of Painting. University of Manchester in July 2013 The lecture will start at 6 pm at the Kenneth Clark (ichstm2013. com). The meeting was well attend- Lecture Theatre of the Courtauld Institute of Art ed and featured four speakers: J.V. Field, Martin (Somerset House, The Strand). Before the lecture, Kemp, Eduardo Kickhöfel, and Matthew Landrus. at 5:30 pm, the annual general meeting (open only Drs Field and Landrus organised and chaired the to members) will address matters arising with the discussions. Here below are abstracts for the Society. The Annual Lecture will be free and open event and essays. For iCHSTM’s call for papers, to the public. Dr Field provided the following abstract: Dr Roy provides the following initial notes Leonardo has often had an ambiguous treat- about his talk: in comparison with other great ment from historians. Historians of art have painters of the European tradition, our understand- never dealt with anything that looks to them ing of Leonardo da Vinci’s technical practices for so ‘scientific’ and historians of science have his easel paintings has advanced quite slowly in never had to deal with diagrams that are so the 20th and 21st centuries. This is partly because beguilingly beautiful. The difficulties are part- of the rarity of his autograph works, their often ly caused by the narrow specialisms of our unfinished nature, and the relative infrequency of day. In Leonardo’s time the pattern of division conservation treatments of Leonardo’s paintings into recognised areas of specialised intellectu- and, therefore, a lack of opportunity for accompa- al and practical work was very different. The nying scientific study under favourable condi- obvious division is largely social: between tions. The full-scale conservation treatments of university education, in Latin, and practical the Virgin of the Rocks in London (at the National instruction, in the vernacular, but the borders Gallery between 2009–11) and the Virgin and seem to have been fairly porous (at least in Child with St Anne (at the Musée du Louvre, Italy). Unlike university graduates, trained in carried out at Centre de Recherche et de Restaura- the arts of the trivium and the quadrivium (the tion des Musées de France [C2RMF] between four mathematical ones often called ‘scienc- 2010–2012), both of which involved comprehen- es’), craftsmen were expected to make direct sive technical study in support of conservation, use of practical knowledge in their workplac- have changed the state of this knowledge deci- es. In the practical world, ‘art’ also had a spe- sively. At the same time further recent studies of cialised meaning for the trades associated with Leonardo’s painted work by technical experts guilds; for instance the wool guild was called around the world have intensified and the results the Arte della Lana. These changes in the of these investigations, many of which have now meaning of the terms ‘art’ and ‘science’ can appeared in print, have contributed significantly to make it difficult to use “actors’ categories” a more integrated and scientifically-grounded properly, but whatever terms one uses it is view of Leonardo as a practitioner. This talk will clear that the intellectual map was very differ- deal with recent developments and newer assess- ent from what it is today and that craftsmen ments of Leonardo’s technical procedures. (among them painters and sculptors) regularly brought considerable ‘scientific’ knowledge to nardo da Vinci’s systematic approaches to the art their work. of engineering and the means by which he re- In recent years some bridges have been built sponded to similar approaches in medieval and across today’s disciplinary divide, and the classical antiquity. Recognized in his plans for emergence of a healthier body of literature on treatises on military and mechanical engineering, Leonardo offers some opportunities to histori- this work involved research on Greek and Roman ans of science to integrate him into a viable systems of proportional geometry. To address a image of the natural philosophy, mathematics, general question with regard to his engineering medicine and technology of his time - and, of drawings: for what purposes were they devel- course, to assess his possible contributions to oped? Evidence of their development with sys- what happened next. tematic proportional methods provides part of the J.V. Field (Birkbeck) discussed ‘What the answer. craftsmen taught the scholars about natural phi- Eduardo Kickhöfel (Universidade Federal de losophy’. In the fifteenth century, technology (the São Paulo) addressed ‘The place of Leonardo da crafts) was doing better than either natural philos- Vinci in the history of natural philosophy’. He ophy or the sciences in producing works that still discussed the way in which the Renaissance was a have something to say to the twenty-first century. period dominated by Aristotelian philosophy. We may contrast Brunelleschi’s dome for Flor- Varchi, in the preface of the second of his “Two ence cathedral (still standing) with contemporary lessons on painting and sculpture”, says that theories of the motion of the Sun (which could not science is “nothing more than the knowledge of correctly predict dates of equinoxes). Craftsmen, the universal things, necessary and consequently whose activities were attracting increasing atten- eternal, obtained by demonstration”, and art is tion from the learned, had much to teach scholars “the disposition to make involving a true course about the power of approximate, non-rigorous of reasoning”, following the definitions of Ni- methods and the usefulness of focussed observa- comachean Ethics. Toletus, in his Commentary on tion. Aristotle’s Physics, divides philosophy into specu- Martin Kemp (University of Oxford) dis- lative, practical and productive, following the cussed ‘Science and the Codex Leicester’, ad- beginning of the sixth book of Metaphysics. dressing the state of Leonardo’s research on However, instead of the higher value given to the natural science around 1508-12, with particular vita contemplativa in Antiquity still present in the interest in the Codex Leicester and his studies of Middle Ages, Renaissance men like Salutati and water, hydrology, astronomy, cosmology, fossils, Manetti gave new values to the vita activa, and geology, and more generally, the “body” of the craftsmen-writers like Alberti, Ghiberti and Mar- earth. tini aimed to elevate the value of their knowledge Matthew Landrus (University of Oxford) and their own social status. Different from the spoke on ‘Leonardo and the art of engineering’. unlettered craftsmen, the craftsman imagined by Traditional academic assessments of preliminary them was a sort of lettered man who could work or unconstructed mechanical engineering projects from the knowledge of principles and was able to often address the authors’ intuitive approaches to speak about them. However, the definitions and this ‘paper engineering’. Estimates for machine the organizations of knowledge of the ancient studies, compared with detailed calculations for texts were well established and clear. Leonardo da practical engineering projects, were often rooted Vinci tried to surpass them and tried to identify art in similar systematic approaches. In both cases, and science. After his education in Verrocchio’s structural intuitions and measured calculations atelier, in Milan Leonardo began to study matters often extended from standard assessments of like optics, physics and anatomy. In the case of proportional geometry. Standard systematic meth- anatomy, Leonardo took a very distinctive path, ods helped with updates to projects, from their separating himself progressively from the crafts- initial stages to advanced stages. As reflections of men and the physicians. Without the prejudices of antique engineering methods, Renaissance engi- the university professors, he did dissections, and neers valued these geometric standards for their for him the painter-anatomist had to know “the supposed structural and stylistic reliability and good draughtsmanship”, “the knowledge of per- permanence. Landrus’ discussion addressed Leo- spective”, “the methods of geometrical demon-
The Leonardo da Vinci Society Page 2 Registered Charity 1012878 stration and the method of calculation of the Countries before 1800’ forces and power of the muscles”. Using his art of Matthew Craske, ‘“A Wonderful Force of Na- drawing, his experience of dissection and his ture”: an Account of how Leonardo da Vinci knowledge of mechanics, he could recreate the Sustained the Eighteenth-Century English Idea of human figure “without seeing the living [and] a “Universal” Genius’ without error”. However, the definitions and the Rodney Palmer, ‘Leonardo’s Nonconformist organizations of knowledge did not permit the Choices and his Legendary Death, from Vasari to synthesis Leonardo da Vinci was proposing. He 1869’ did not have disciples as an anatomist. It is argued Michela Passini, ‘A fin-de-siècle Leonardo here that Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical studies between History and Fiction: Gabriel Séailles and are products of an active view of life, but still his “Psychological Biography” of Leonardo facing the limits of the Aristotelian philosophy (1892)’ present in the Renaissance. Natural philosophy, Julia Friedman, ‘Three Faces of Leonardo da part of the speculative branch of philosophy, Vinci in Fin-de-Siècle Russia’ could be aided by the arts, but not directly elabo- Bradley Collins, ‘Freud’s Leonardo. Its Cul- rated by them. tural Moment and Legacy’ David Ekserdjian, ‘Renato Castellani: Leo- Conference Proceedings: Lives of Leonardo nardo (1971)’ The Lives of Leonardo. Edited by Thomas Martin Kemp, ‘Do Biographies (and Portraits) Frangenberg and Rodney Palmer. London and Matter?’ Turin: The Warburg Institute and Nino Aragno The book may be purchased at the School of Editore, 2013, 272 pp., 30 illustrations, £50. Advanced Study - http://events.sas.ac.uk/ support- In 2013, Thomas Frangenberg and Rodney research/publications/994 - where it is the twenty- Palmer published the proceedings of the 2006 second publication of the Warburg Institute Col- Society conference on the ‘Lives of Leonardo’, loquia. A book review would be most welcome in held at the Warburg Institute on 15 September the present Newsletter, and readers are invited to 2006. Organised by Dr Palmer (on behalf of the email the editor with this or other submissions. Society), the conference explored “the biograph- ical, fictional and psychological approaches to Special project: 30-Second Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo”, as he noted in the conference pro- 30-Second Leonardo da Vinci: His 50 Greatest gramme, and as he now describes in the book: Ideas and Inventions, Each Explained in Half a “What light do these different narratives shed on Minute. Edited and introduced by Marina Wal- Leonardo himself, and on the cultures in which lace, with a foreward by Martin Kemp, and with they were written? Why has Leonardo’s life story contributions by Francis Ames-Lewis, Juliana attracted so much attention? How did anecdotes Barone, Paul Calter, Brian Clegg, Matthew about Leonardo affect Leonardesque art theory? Landrus, Domenico Laurenza, and Marina Wal- When and why were myths of Leonardo created, lace. 30-Second Series. London and New York: and in what ways have they biased responses to Ivy Press and Metro Books, February 2014, 160 his art?” All speakers at the meeting, with the pp., in hard cover and Kindle formats, £13. addition of David Ekserdjian, contribute the In December 2012, members of the Society following essays to the book, introduced by Dr were approached for contributions to the 30- Frangenberg: Second book series, which in February 2014 Charles Hope, ‘The Biography of Leonardo in resulted in the 30-Second Leonardo da Vinci. Vasari’s Vite’ Because of the interdisciplinary and often pro- Paul Taylor, ‘Leonardo in the Low Countries’ found nature of Leonardo’s work, summarizing Juliana Barone, ‘The “official” Vita of Leo- his contributions into essential components is an nardo: Raphael Trichet Du Fresne’s biography in interesting task, particularly for Leonardo special- the Trattato della pittura’ ists. Society members wrote most of this book, Giovanna Perini, ‘Leonardo and his Eight- and a portion of the authors’ fees was donated to eenth-Century Italian biographies’ the Society. The book is designed to help readers Thomas Frangenberg, ‘Between Translation understand Leonardo in a series of relatively brief and Fabrication: Leonardo in German-Speaking readings and images, divided into seven sections:
The Leonardo da Vinci Society Page 3 Registered Charity 1012878 painting and sculpture, geometry, mechanics, civil Special Report engineering, military engineering, nature, and anatomy and anatomical studies. As Martin Kemp Romano Nanni (1952 – 2014) notes in the foreword: “Leonardo roundly criti- cized the ‘abbreviators’ – those who try to take shortcuts to knowledge. This book is necessarily about abbreviation. We have, in the face of the daunting range of delightful and often exceeding- ly difficult material in his surviving legacy, to effect some kind of summary and synthesis.” The 30-Second Leonardo Vinci provides this useful synthesis for new and experienced students of Leonardo.
Francis Wells, The Heart of Leonardo, Fore- ward by HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, Foreward by Martin Kemp, Heidel- berg: Springer, 2013, £100 Romano Nanni atop the castle and Museo Leonardiano in Vinci; photograph courtesy of the Comune di Vinci In June, Francis Wells was honoured at The On 14 February, Romano Nanni passed away in Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, with a Empoli, after a long illness. He was an exception- reception for his new book, The Heart of Leonar- al scholar and gentleman. Since 1994, he had been do, a magnificent, ground breaking assessment of director of the Biblioteca Leonardiana, and there- Leonardo’s research on the anatomy and function by sponsored, wrote and assisted major develop- of the heart. Martin Kemp, Martin Clayton, and ments in Leonardo scholarship, not to mention Francis Wells offered presentations. As a cardio- extensive Renaissance through modern studies in thoracic surgeon at Papworth Hospital, Cam- the history of art, science and technology. He was bridge, Mr Wells offers the most informative and also director of the Museo Leonardiano in Vinci thorough comparisons of the heart with Leonar- and the Leonardo Casa Natale in Anchiano. His do’s observations, discussions, and illustrations, long list of books and articles include his most explaining in some cases Leonardo’s accuracy. recent monograph, Leonardo and the ‘artes me- The book is a culmination of Mr Wells’ research chanicae’ (Skira 2013), in Italian and English. The at different stages since the early 1990s, and book addresses Leonardo’s approaches to the especially since 2002, when he restarted part of mechanical arts, within the context of this tradi- this project in Oxford and Windsor. For the Socie- tion, from Piero della Francesca to the early Gali- ty, he delivered the 2006 Annual Lecture on “The leo Galilei. Especially at issue are the ways in Mathematical Heart: Why we should take Leo- st which Leonardo understood and contributes to our nardo da Vinci seriously in the 21 Century.” knowledge of the technicians of his time, and to Portions of that discussion on interior structures of the practice of geometry. The book may be ob- the heart reappear in the very interesting fourth tained here: www.bibliotecaleonardiana.it . Also chapter of the recent book, where Wells explains published last year was a substantial volume he and illustrates Leonardo’s notes alongside modern edited with Maurizio Torrini: Leonardo ‘1952’ e images and explanations. This is the first mono- la cultura dell’Europa nel dopoguerra (Olschki graph to reproduce all of Leonardo’s drawings of 2013). This project, with twenty-three leading the heart and circulation with relevant contempo- Leonardo specialists at a conference in Florence rary English translations of his texts. Those tran- and Vinci in 2009, is one of many important scriptions and translations are by Carlo Pedretti collaborative initiatives arranged by Nanni over and Kenneth Keele (founder of the Society). As the years. With Maria Chiara Monaco in 2007 he Prince Charles notes in his foreward, “it is com- produced another significant contribution: Leda: mon to speak of a ‘meeting of the minds’ across Storia di un mito dalle origini a Leonardo, (Zeta the ages; but rarely can the work of a scientist of Scorpii Editore). On 12 April 2014, the LIV centuries past be shown to be so relevant to con- Lettura Vinciana that he was scheduled to deliver temporary concerns.” – on his 20th anniversary as Director of the Bibli-
The Leonardo da Vinci Society Page 4 Registered Charity 1012878 oteca Leonardiana and Museo Leonardiano – was and necessarily limited each section to a maxi- read by Carlo Vecce. The subject, as noted at the mum of eight entries. There are over 30,000 website, was “Le metamorfosi dell'ira” (the met- articles, books, and catalogues on Leonardo, on amorphosis of anger): which specialized bibliographies can be most In his preliminary studies for the 54th Vinci helpful. The best exhaustive annotated Leonardo Lecture, which he conceived with the title bibliography, is at the Biblioteca Leonardiana: Between the Adoration of the Magi and the www.catalogo.bibliotecaleonardiana.it. There are downfall of «terrestrial nature», Romano plans to periodically update the Oxford bibliog- Nanni focuses on war as a theme, prefiguring raphy, which is in the following order: it as a fight among horse-riders, where belli- GENERAL OVERVIEWS: Encyclopaedia en- cose anger is common to humans and animals tries; Cultural Context; Documentation of His alike. Leonardo’s interest for “modern” war- Life; Biographies; Catalogue Raisonnés; Mono- fare calls for a broader investigation into the graphs; Criticism and Interpretation; Collections multiple registers and levels of his globally of Essays; Leonardo’s Artistic Legacy acknowledged work: Leonardo can be seen BIBLIOGRAPHIES: Scholarly Journals and as an acute observer of state-of-the-art tech- Serial Publications nology or as a man who considered war as a WRITINGS: Primary Sources; Reference natural, physiological event, a consequence Works; Current editions and translations (Manu- and manifestation of the cycle of life and scripts A – M; The Forster Codices; Codex Arun- death, and finally as an artist whose rhetoric del; Madrid Codices; Codex Atlanticus; Codex on shaped his public image and the relationship the Flight of Birds; Codex Leicester; Codex Triv- with his patrons. ulzianus; Windsor Folios); Treatise on Painting Following the lecture, presentations on Nan- (Editions and Translations; Reference Works); ni’s recent book, ‘Leonardo and the ‘artes me- Modern Anthologies chanicae,’ were chaired by Carlo Maccagni. DRAWINGS: Overviews; Facsimiles and Speakers included: Elio Nenci (Università degli Catalogues of Permanent Collections (Windsor studi di Milano), Fabio Frosini (Università degli Folios; Other Permanent Collection Catalogues) studi di Urbino), Paola Manni (Università degli CONSERVATION STUDIES studi di Firenze and Accademia della Crusca), PAINTINGS: INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS: Gaetano Cascini (Politecnico di Milano), and Adoration of the Magi; Battle of Anghiari; Lady Pascal Brioist (Centre d'études supérieures sur la with an Ermine; The Last Supper; Mona Lisa; Renaissance, Tours). Virgin of the Rocks; Other More on Nanni’s academic work may be read SCULPTURE in his CV, here: www.bibliotecaleonardiana.it/ ARCHITECTURE bbl/CVNanni.pdf. In memory of Romano Nanni, MUSIC these brief notes could only begin to offer some SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: Perspec- recognition of his remarkable contributions and tive, Optics, and Painting; Anatomy and the Hu- support. man Body; Arithmetic, Geometry, Physical Sci- ences, Engineering, and Technology (Overviews; Leonardesque News Physical Sciences; Engineering; Technology) EXHIBITION CATALOGUES Oxford Bibliographies: Leonardo da Vinci ‘Leonardo and the history of the earth: from In September, Oxford Bibliographies (oxfordbib- fossils to the Mona Lisa’ liographies.com), posted a substantial annotated bibliography of 250 resources, written by Claire Review of the Rowe Lecture by Martin Kemp, Farago and Matthew Landrus. It is designed to Magdalen College, Oxford, 18 October 2013 offer researchers a quick, thorough, and up-to- Juliana Barone writes: Martin Kemp initiated his date assessment of the essential Leonardo schol- stimulating lecture by juxtaposing an image of the arship in the broad range of his interests, and in Mona Lisa with a sheet from the Codex Leicester. the depth of his work and its context and recep- A manuscript draft in the most advanced state of tion This was an interesting and difficult task for any surviving treatise by Leonardo that has the writers, who carefully organised the sections reached us, the Codex is primarily about Leonar-
The Leonardo da Vinci Society Page 5 Registered Charity 1012878 do’s dynamic view of the body of the earth. Com- shows the irrigation of the microcosm but also posed around 1508-10 from earlier notes, several refers to the formation of the child in the womb of its passages overlap in time with his painting of and the cycle of life. This led to further analysis of the Mona Lisa. The connection between Leonar- Leonardo’s maps and studies of the body of the do’s ideas on painting and nature were initially earth in the Codex Leicester. Kemp notes that the addressed by Kemp in relation to the issue of lengthy discussion on sea shells and fossils, not light. Leonardo’s discussions in the Codex Leices- least their presence in separate geological strata, ter about the new moon were shown to have more leads Leonardo to question the biblical Deluge to do with his studies of reflected light than with (even if not questioning that it took place) as the astronomy. The lumen cinererum, that is, the reason they ended up where they did. Leonardo glimmer visible in the shaded portion of the suggests an alternative view, that the sea levels moon, is produced by sunlight reflected from the must have been higher and that there must have seas of the earth onto the surface of the moon. It been a series of inundations. His studies of geolo- thus relates to Leonardo’s ideas on percussion and gy and physical geography revealed some of the painting, to his studies of reflected light and vast changes that the structure of the world had rebound. An example of such studies is seen, for undergone, through redistribution of land and of instance, in his London version of the Virgin of water masses. He also became convinced that the the Rocks, in the palm of the Virgin and in the Tuscan landscape had once been very different angel’s chin. from what he could see. He suggested that before The next topic addressed in Kemp’s lecture the Arno could flow to the sea it formed two great was water. Most of the sheets in the Codex lakes, one where the city of Florence now stands, Leicester are about water in the body of the earth, and the other was from the Val d’Arno upwards; it the studies ranging from direct observation to would have discharged its waters into the first. experiments and constructed models. Leonardo Kemp argues that in the Mona Lisa, the two-level insists on the importance of experience, and as he background (the upper above its natural position) expresses his views the sheets are covered with reflects what Leonardo had learned about high numerous propositioni. The way he uses and fills and low places in Tuscan landscape. up the paper is unique and the archaeological Kemp’s reading of the Mona Lisa via the Co- exercise of mapping how his thought moves dex Leicester addressed key issues of Leonardo’s through the page affects our reading of his argu- scientific investigations and their relationships ment. The examination of water studies in the with his painting of the portrait. The lecture con- Codex Leicester led to a vibrant succession of cluded with a quote from Walter Pater’s powerful maps by Leonardo, from detailed studies for the view of the Mona Lisa: ‘She is older than the diversion of the Arno to apparently freer sketches. rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she But nothing is random. Kemp points out that there has been dead many times, and learned the secrets is a visual scale even in the freest maps, and that of the grave... The fancy of perpetual life, sweep- there is also evidence of reasoning on the eco- ing together ten thousand experiences, is an old nomics of the project. Although the Arno project one; and modern philosophy has conceived the did not go ahead, Leonardo undertook a highly idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and sum- detailed study of Tuscan geography. His interest ming up in itself, all modes of thought and life. in the history of the earth was closely connected Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodi- with that of the microcosm, which was the next ment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern topic developed in the lecture. idea.’ The analogies between the human body and the body of the earth were shown through Leo- The Renaissance Society of America Annual nardo’s anatomical studies. Leonardo compares Meeting, San Diego, 4-6 April 2013 the vessels of an old man (twisted and with no Four sessions at the 2013 RSA Meeting offered adequate ‘ebb and flow’) to those of a youth and new assessments of Leonardo studies, the ab- to the flow of rivers; the heart to a germinating stracts of which are available in the conference seed and so on, solving problems by analogy. One program, here: www.rsa.org/?page=Pastmeetings of his most accomplished anatomical drawings is that of the ‘Great Lady anatomy’. It not only
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Leonardo Studies in Honour of Carlo Pedretti Leonardo da Vinci and Optics, Edited by Fran- Constance Moffatt (Pierce College) organised cesca Fiorani and Alessandro Nova, Kunsthis- three sessions in honour of Carlo Pedretti that torisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck- took place on 4 April. A list of the speakers and Institut, Studi e Ricerche 10, Venice: Marsilio, their subjects: 2013 Joyce Pellerano Ludmer (Independent Schol- This substantial selection of fourteen essays in- ar): ‘Researching Leonardo (2005–12)’ cludes seven of the ten presentations in a May Francesca Fiorani (University of Virginia): 2011 conference at the Kunsthistorisches Institut ‘Leonardo’s Early Scientific Inquiries’ in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut, which was co- Joanna Woods-Marsden (University of Cali- sponsored by the McIntire Department of Art, fornia, Los Angeles): ‘Leonardo’s Portrait of University of Virginia. A copy of the program is Mona Lisa’ here: http://www.khi.fi.it/pdf/c20110526.pdf. As Rolando Bellini (Accademia di Brera): ‘Leo- with the Studi e Ricerche 7 on Leonardo da Vin- nardo and Milan: From an Epistemic Inquiry of ci’s Anatomical World (ed. Alessandro Nova and Water to Holistic Representation’ Domenico Laurenza, with ten essays), the 10th Damiano Iacobone (Politecnico di Milano): ‘A Studi e Ricerche contribution offers a state-of-the Hydraulic System Drawing by Leonardo: Some research study of optics and associated topics, Evaluations’ with Leonardo specialists. An important nexus for Leslie A. Geddes (Princeton University): ‘Le- science and art, optics for Leonardo extended to onardo’s Mobile Bridges’ research and discourses on painting, ancient Sara Taglialagamba (Ecole pratique des hautes rhetoric, ophthalmology, geometry, and philoso- etudes): ‘Hydraulic Devices and Fountains by phy. The book’s essays address these issues, Leonardo da Vinci for the French Patrons Charles expanding on the subject of painting practice with d’Amboise and King Francis I’ the help of modern technical analyses. The au- Constance Joan Moffatt (Pierce College): ‘Le- thors therefore include conservators, restorers, onardo’s Topographic Studies’ philosophers, and historians of art and science. Robert J. Williams (University of California, The essays: Santa Barbara): ‘The Discursivity of the Devo- Francesca Fiorani and Alessandro Nova: ‘In- tional Image in Leonardo and Raphael’ troduction’ New Perspectives on the Leonardeschi David Summers: ‘Chiaroscuro or the rhetoric of realism’ Maya Corry (University of Oxford) and Jill Ped- Elizabeth Walmsley: ‘Technical images and erson (Arcadia University) organised a session on painting technique in Leonardo’s portrait of the followers of Leonardo, the papers for which Ginevra de’ Benci’ were: Janis Bell: ‘Leonardo’s prospettiva delle om- Luke Syson (Metropolitan Museum of Art): bre - Another branch of non-linear perspective’ ‘“By Leonardo da Vinci”: Leonardism in Milan Fabio Frosini: ‘“Come calamita il ferro” - Le- Revisited’ onardo da Vinci dalla magia alla prospettiva Maya Corry (University of Oxford): ‘The (1487-1492)’ “Repulsive Effusion of an Aging Homosexual”? Frank Fehrenbach: ‘Il fratello del nulla - Il The Role of Beauty in Leonardesque Religious “punto” nell’ottica di Leonardo’ Works’ Cinzia Pasquali: ‘Leonardo's painting tech- Ricardo de Mambro-Santos (Willamette Uni- nique in the Virgin and Child with St. Anne versity): ‘In the Name of the Baptist: Leonardo, Pietro Marani: ‘Il primate dell’occhio e della Pedro Fernández de Murcia, and the Amadeits’ pittura - I ritratti milanesi di Leonardo e Giancarla Periti (University of Toronto): il Paragone delle arti’ ‘“Delicatissimo e vago”: The Art of Bernardino Romano Nanni: ‘Luce e ritratto nel Trattato Luini in Renaissance Milan’ della pittura di Lionardo da Vinci’ Roberto Belucci, L’ “underdrawing” dell’ Annunciazione e la prospettiva di Leonardo’ Francesca Fiorani: ‘Leonardo's optics in the 1470s’
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Dominique Raymond: ‘Leonardo, optics and curates this series, which is expected to run until ophthalmology’ at least 2015, with catalogues published by De- Frank Zöllner: ‘The measure of sight, the Agostini (Milan). Matthew Landrus curated the measure of darkness - Leonardo da Vinci and exhibition, 17 - Strumenti e meccanismi. Leonar- the history of blurriness’ do e l’art dell’ingegneria (Instruments and Mech- Cecilia Frosinini: ‘L’Adoraizone dei Magi di anisms: Leonardo and the Art of Engineering: Leonardo da Vinci e le prime indagini diag- Drawings by Leonardo from the Codex Atlanti- nostiche presso l'Optificio delle Pietre Dure - cus). Addressing Leonardo’s engineering meth- Oltre il visibile’ ods, the exhibition and accompanying book have provided evidence about working components of Maurizio Zecchini, The Caprotti Capprotti, A forty-four engineering designs in the Codex At- Study of a Painter Who Never Was, Foreward lanticus, in some cases offering the first explana- by Bernardo Caprotti, Venice: Marsilio, 2013 tions of their uses and functions. Zecchini offers here the most appropriate analysis At the start Leonardo’s working process he and attribution of a painting - Head of Christ - to apparently considered the necessary instruments Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salaì (Leonar- and mechanisms, the way to apply a design and do’s student, the ‘little devil’). This, as it happens, how it would function. He studied the essential is the only painting to be reasonably attributed to means by which his subject functioned and the Salaì, and it deserves further review. Bernardo necessary tools for its operation, construction, and Caprotti purchased the painting at a Sotheby’s illustration. The key to his process, particularly auction in New York in 2007, with the help of with regard to understanding and making an advice from Maurizio Zecchini. Using historical, invention, was his preparation for it, his technical state-of-the-research, and stylistic, scientific, scholarship. As his engineering studies developed chemical, multi-layered, reflectographic, thermal, in the 1470s, starting at the Verrocchio workshop, tomographic, radiographic, and ultraviolet evi- he collected ideas and information about tools and dence, Zecchini provides a compelling case for mechanisms on sheets of paper, and in notebooks. the authenticity of the painting and its recently This process would lead to his series of mecha- discovered original gold leaf inscription under nism presentation drawings around 1480, at a time layers of paint and varnish: FE • SALAI • 1511 • when he thought about engineering commissions DINO. The first recorded owner of the painting is in Florence and Milan. Thereafter he produced Count Johann Rudolf Czernin, who purchased it other clever and inventive engineering solutions, in 1830 (pp.16-19). The Czernin Gallery in Vien- compiling treatises on instruments and mecha- na had the painting in 1920. Wilhelm Suida pub- nisms. In volumes that are now entitled the Codex lished a photograph of it in that year, noting the Atlanticus there are impressive and thorough Christuskopf was not likely by A. Pacchietti, as assessments of these engineering solutions, and per the visible signature at that time – A. PAC- they address Leonardo’s rationale throughout his CHIETI • FE • 1511 – though was instead possi- career for collecting more drawings on engineer- bly by a student of Leonardo’s with skills similar ing than on painting. Still, there are few modern to those of Boltraffio or Salaì. Suida’s notes are publications on his instruments and mechanisms, on “A. Pacchieti”, in “Leonardo da Vinci und especially by comparison with publications on his seine Schule in Mailand, II,” in Monatshefte für paintings. It is with Pietro Marani’s comprehen- Kunstwissenschaft, 1920, Abhandlungen, Band I, sive Codex Atlanticus exhibition project that we pp. 48-49, Tafel 10, Abb. 14. (http://archive.org/ have some of the first reliable explanations of stream/monatsheftefrk13leipuoft/monatsheftefrk1 many of these drawings. Adding to what we know 3leipuoft_djvu.txt) about the social history of them, the present exhi- bition not only explains Leonardo’s fascination Mostre sul Codice Atlantico di Leonardo, at with instruments and mechanisms, though espe- the Biblioteca Ambrosiana cially how they worked, what he said about them, how he thought they could be improved, how he From 10 September through 8 December 2013, could invent new devices, and especially his The Ambrosiana Library and Picture Gallery methods for studying them and presenting them to hosted the seventeenth exhibition in the series a learned engineering audience. This exhibition devoted to the Codex Atlanticus. Pietro Marani
The Leonardo da Vinci Society Page 8 Registered Charity 1012878 provides for many of the drawings the first expla- demonstrations, and illustrations, Leonardo wrote nations of their specific design components, and about principles, capabilities and inventive uses of of Leonardo’s thinking and descriptive writing instruments and mechanisms. The basic ‘ele- processes. For the collection as a whole, these ments’ of these devices were joints, gears, pul- new assessments provide new evidence of the leys, levers, springs, screws, arbalests, hoists, specific trajectory of his engineering career, from bearings, pendulums, and escapements, all of that of an exceptional student to that of famous which are discussed in the exhibition catalogue. engineer. These were essential for understanding and using The elements of mechanics were for Leonardo the forces of Nature, which was governed by the necessary for natural movements and for the proportional mathematics of the cosmos. As natural essence of something. To identify the Leonardo notes, “mechanics is the paradise of the authenticity of his work one has to look for his mechanical sciences, because with that, one application of this inner life to the subject, his comes to the fruits of mathematics” (Manuscript E signature expression of the mechanics and neces- folio 8 v). He had such faith in the perfect me- sity of Nature. His approaches to instruments and chanical system of the Aristotelian microcosm of mechanisms are keys to understanding his motiva- Nature that he would early in his career calculate tions and his brilliance. It was therefore the focus similar properties for units of weights as for units of the seventeenth Ambrosiana Codex Atlanticus of measurements, assuming that they were com- exhibition to address Leonardo’s consistent inter- mensurable, and that a valid, working design ests in how things worked and how they would be would have a force that is proportional to its size. explained, as these issues are informative of the This was of course helpful for understanding the qualities and capabilities that have earned him due scale and geometry of a project, though not in recognition as a genius. every case the arithmetic for its physical proper- Around 1510, while writing about the bones, ties and capabilities. tendons and muscles of the hand on a page for his There are five categories of instruments and treatise on anatomy, Leonardo adds a reminder for mechanisms in the catalogue, ranging from basic the eventual publication of the treatise: “Make tools to sophisticated automata and textile ma- sure that the book on the elements of machines, chines. Item numbers 1-7 are instruments that with its practical functions, should come before serve as basic tools, whereas item numbers 8-20 the demonstration of the motion and force of man are basic machines that often serve as tools for and other animals; and according to these, you larger projects. Items 21-25 are mechanisms that will be able to prove your propositions” (Windsor engage with hydraulic problems and systems. The Royal Library folio 19009 r). This book of formal ownership and use of water was a lucrative busi- demonstrations on the elements of machines dates ness, one that motivated creative entrepreneurs to around 1493 and partially survives as a manu- like Leonardo. Before his return to Milan in 1508, script now entitled Codex Madrid I. Luca Pacioli for example, he negotiated his earlier rights to the referred to it in his 1498 De divina proportione as, Naviglio Grande, a canal in southwest Milan, “an inestimable work on local motion, percussion, writing to the French governor the need, “to set up weights and all the forces, that is, accidental my instruments and things which will most great- weights, having already with great diligence ly please Our Most Christian King” (Codex Atlan- finished a worthy book on painting and human ticus folio 872 r). The fourth category of items 26- movements.” Thus Leonardo had at least two 33 addresses Leonardo’s automata, his automatic presentable manuscripts by 1498, the first on devices. Although studied and developed most painting and human movements, and the second often for formal events, these were also part of his on statics, which is the branch of mechanics that study of methods for perpetual motion, a popular explains the forces of bodies at rest. Pacioli’s note and fascinating trend in north Italy near the turn of and other comments by Leonardo indicate that the sixteenth century. The final category, with this book on statics is his book on the elements of items 34-44, provides an assessment of his ma- machines, which assessed more specifically the chines for the textile industry, most likely for a elements of mechanics. Set up in a manner in- project to develop automated machines for a spired by popular publications in the 1480s of textile factory near Milan in 1493-95. There are Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, with propositions, nonetheless projects that overlap categories, as is
The Leonardo da Vinci Society Page 9 Registered Charity 1012878 typical with Leonardo’s abilities to use one device visited at the following address: < http://www. for several different projects. For example, his bbk.ac.uk/hosted/leonardo > perpetual water pump (number 24) is both hydrau- Officers: lic device and automation. President: Dr J.V. Field, School of History of One can read a technical illustration by Leo- Art, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College, 43 nardo as one of at least three possibilities: (1) a Gordon Square, London WC1H.0PD; e-mail: demonstration of basic principles of mechanics, [email protected] (2) a practical, buildable device that he observed Vice-President: Emeritus Professor Francis or invented, or (3) a practical construction work- Ames-Lewis, 52, Prebend Gardens, London W6 sheet for an instrument or machine that also re- 0XU; tel: 020.8748.1259; e-mail: f.ames-lewis@ veals its basic mechanical principles. But in any bbk.ac.uk event, he regularly advises in his drawings that Secretary and Treasurer: Tony Mann, School one observe at first its basic mechanical princi- of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Uni- ples. He also reflected on this problem around versity of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, 1510, when writing about the anatomical mechan- Park Row, London SE10 9LS; 020.8331.8709; e- ics of the hand, implying that his book on anato- mail: [email protected] my would only be understood only after one read Newsletter Editor and Web manager: Dr Mat- his book on mechanics (Windsor folio 19009 r). thew Landrus, Research Fellow, Wolfson College His instruments and mechanisms, like those of and History Faculty, University of Oxford; e-mail: Nature would govern its biological mechanisms, [email protected] governing movements of the human body, water, or air, etc., as they were all set in motion by the Committee members: Aristotelian prime movement of the cosmos. Dr Monica Azzolini, Department of History, Addressing this general issue with specific exam- University of Edinburgh; e-mail: m.azzolini@ ples of the instruments and mechanisms, this ed.ac.uk exhibition hereby locates Leonardo within the Dr Juliana Barone, School of History of Art, tradition of self-educated tradesmen of his time, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College, 43 within a prestigious group of universal or Renais- Gordon Square, London WC1H.0PD; e-mail: sance artist-engineers who include Piero della [email protected] Francesco, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Donato Noël-Ann Bradshaw, School of Computing Bramante, Giuliano da Sangalo, Antonio Filarete, and Mathematical Sciences, University of Green- Leon Battista Alberti, Donatello, Andrea del wich, Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, Lon- Verrocchio, Niccolò di Buonaccorso, Lorenzo don SE10 9LS; 020.8331.8484; e-mail: Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Giovanni Fontana, [email protected] Mariano Taccola, Guido da Vigevano and others. Dr Jill Burke, Department of History of Art, Although most of these gentlemen will not be University of Edinburgh; e-mail: j.burke@ed. discussed in the exhibition catalogue, they were ac.uk important influences on Leonardo, who honored Professor Frank A.J.L. James, Royal Institu- them by improving on their approaches. His tion Centre for the History of Science and Tech- technical demonstrations are both scholarly re- nology, Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 search projects and innovative entrepreneurial Albemarle Street, London W1X.4BS; e-mail: assessments. [email protected] Please send items for publication to the editor The Leonardo da Vinci Society of the Leonardo da Vinci Society Newsletter, Dr Matthew Landrus, Research Fellow, Wolfson The Secretary and Newsletter Editor are very College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6UD; grateful for the comments and suggestions made tel: 07530 942043, and 001 401 374 4159; e-mail: by members. We welcome suggestions of materi- [email protected]. al, such as forthcoming conferences, symposia and other events, exhibitions, publications, re- views, and so on, that would be of interest to members of the Society for inclusion in this Newsletter or on the webpage, which can be
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