The Invented World of Mariano Taccola

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The Invented World ABSTRACT The Sienese artist-engineer of Mariano Taccola: Mariano Taccola left behind five books of annotated drawings, presently in the collections of Revisiting a Once-Famous the state libraries of Florence and Munich. Taccola was well known in Siena, and his draw- Artist-Engineer of 15th-Century Italy ings were studied and copied by artists of the period, probably serving as models for Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. However, his work has received little Lawrence Fane attention from scholars and students in recent times. The author, a sculptor, has long been interested in Taccola’s drawings for his studio projects. Although Taccola lacked the fine drawing hand displayed by many of his contemporaries, his he name Mariano Taccola (1382–ca. 1453) as an engineer. His drawings, which inventive work may appeal T especially to viewers today. means little to most students of the Renaissance or to the gen- he carefully organized in bound Based on examination of the eral public, and yet he was a prominent figure in Siena in the notebooks, were studied by contem- original drawings, the author 15th century, leaving behind hundreds of extraordinary draw- porary artists, copied by followers discusses the qualities that ings of machines, war implements and other inventions, set in and distributed to military leaders make Taccola’s drawings unique fascinating environments with figures and animals. Taccola, who and statesmen throughout Europe. and considers what Taccola’s called himself “the Sienese Archimedes,” was primarily known These pages were probably known to intentions may have been in making them. Leonardo da Vinci, who was born Lawrence Fane (sculptor), 10 Beach Street, New York, NY 10013, U.S.A. E-mail: around the year of Taccola’s death, . and possibly served as models for

Fig. 1. (a) Taccola, CLM 28,800, folio 60v; (b) Taccola, CLM 28,800 folio 61r, black ink turned brown, on paper. (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich) ab

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Fig. 3. Francesco di Giorgio, water puriﬁer, Ms. Ashburnham 361, folio 24r, ink on paper with color washes. (Biblioteca Medicea Lau- renziana, Florence; with permission of the Ministry of Culture.)

and improvement of the great water- works system of Siena. Born in 1382, the son of a wine dealer, he was baptized Mar- iano Daniello. The name “Daniello” vanished and he called himself Ser Mariani Fig. 2. Taccola, CLM 28,800, folio 76v, black ink turned brown, on Jacobi decti Taccola; the name usually paper. (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich) considered correct now is Mariano di Ja- copo, detto Taccola [4]. Taccola is Italian for a small black bird, much like a crow. Leonardo’s own notebooks. But Taccola’s accomplishments. And yet these drawings This nickname goes back at least to his drawings vanished from sight and general appeal to our contemporary taste in a way grandfather, and a sketch of this small interest soon after his death, and it was not that they would not have some years ago. bird was even used by Taccola as a visual until 1972 that a major biography of him In addition to introducing Taccola’s draw- identification in one of his drawings. was published [1]. ings to those unfamiliar with them, one of Nothing is known of his apprenticeship I am a sculptor and for many years have my purposes here is to study how our read- or early training, but there is a record of been fascinated by Taccola’s drawings, ing of these works can reveal something his being paid for heads carved in wood sometimes copying them and often using about why we respond as we do to certain for the choir stall of the Chapel in the them as sources for my own projects. This kinds of imagery. These folios bring up Palazzo Publico in Siena early in his ca- essay is not a study of Mariano Taccola so questions about the function of drawings, reer. He must have had some legal train- much as an appreciation and is based on how they communicate their information, ing, because he was appointed a notary, my examination of his original drawings the place of Renaissance perspective in which seems to have been his “day job,” as well as facsimile reproductions. drawing, the “power of will” that can over- as we would say today. In 1424, he be- I am continually surprised at how few come an artist’s weakness in traditional came secretary to an organization called artists and art historians with whom I have drawing skills and the diverse readings of the Casa di Misericordia e Sapientia, or spoken are familiar with Taccola. Yet they artworks by people of different times and Domus Sapientiae, which served as the are invariably intrigued when they first see cultures. Also, since Taccola’s drawings university of Siena, and it is clear from reproductions of his drawings [2]. The were copied by his contemporaries and this rather important office that he was a only recent books I have found that in- near-contemporaries and have now been prominent humanist. His daughter’s clude reproductions of Taccola’s drawings reproduced by modern methods, we can godfather was Jacopo della Quercia, so deal primarily with better-known figures: gain some insight into what sets original he must have known the major Sienese The Writings and Drawings of Leonardo da drawings apart from later versions and re- artists and even such Florentines as Vinci by Robert Zwijnenberg, the exhibi- productions. Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello, who vis- tion catalog Mechanical Marvels: Inventions ited Siena often. His only recorded ac- in the Age of Leonardo, the catalog Prima di quaintanceship of note, however, is with Leonardo from an exhibition in Siena, a TACCOLA’S PERSONAL Filippo Brunelleschi. It is reasonable to book dealing with Giotto and geometry, AND PROFESSIONAL HISTORY surmise that, as an engineer, Taccola and a recent study of Brunelleschi’s Dome Mariano Taccola executed sculpture would have been interested in the great in Florence [3]. When discussed, Tac- commissions for the Cathedral in Siena builder of the Cupola of the Florence cola’s drawings are given historical im- but was primarily a civil and hydraulic en- Cathedral and, indeed, under circum- portance but are rarely viewed as artistic gineer who was active in the maintenance stances that are not known, he did inter-

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view the slightly older but much more fa- Leonardo, at the World Financial Center Villard de Honnecourt than to Leonardo mous Brunelleschi. This lengthy inter- in New York in 1997, the curators sought da Vinci. Perspective as we know it comes view, recorded by Taccola in one of his to reposition Leonardo as the successor and goes in his drawings, leading to what folios, is the only documented statement to a long tradition of artist-engineers, could be read as graphic inconsistency. by Brunelleschi. In the interview, rather than a genius without precedent But what earlier critics might have called Brunelleschi warned Taccola not to ex- [6]. Several of Taccola’s drawings were incompetence now reads as expressive plain his inventions to people who did included (though only in reproduction) power. It is not the charm of a folk artist not share his love of machines. In a rant and he was discussed at length as one of that strikes us, but a sophisticated system that has an amusingly contemporary ring Leonardo’s first and most influential pre- of marks and compositional gambits that to it, Brunelleschi says in part: decessors. Yet there was little considera- makes his drawings unique in the context If you disclose too much about your in- tion of Taccola’s artistic strength. of his times. An example is a pair of draw- ventions and achievements, you will give As a sculptor, I am interested in Tac- ings from De machinis (Fig. 1a, b). These away the fruit of your genius. . . . Morons cola’s unique and inventive presentation drawings, which were drawn to face each and inexperienced men understand of visual material, the emotional appeal other, forming one unit, deal with sys- nothing, even when things are explained of the drawings themselves and why they tems of defense during war. The Latin to them. Ignorance promptly moves are so intensely moving. The first thing inscriptions below the images read: them to anger; they remain ignorant, al- that strikes me is the earnestness of Tac- (a) “Pirates have made a house on hol- though they want to show themselves in- cola’s records of physical events, despite lowed tree trunks. These must be over- telligent, which they are not [5]. their lack of a “fingertip” feeling for Re- turned, so they do not hold rainwater.... Taccola worked on his drawings, which naissance perspective. He remains es- Bandits use boats to move back and forth are now preserved in four volumes called sentially a medieval artist, closer to to the lake house”; and (b) “The lord of De ingeneis (Concerning Engines), for many years, finishing them in 1433, at about the time that Brunelleschi com- Fig. 4. Taccola, CLM 28,800, folio 83v, black ink turned brown, on paper. (Bayerische Staats- bibliothek, Munich) pleted his work on the Cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. During that period, Taccola re-worked, altered and added to his illustrated manuscripts. After completing these notebooks, he began on a project of even greater ambition with more complex graphic construction, the volume known as De machinis (Concern- ing Machines), which he finished in 1449. This can be found, in a beautiful leather-bound edition, labeled Codex Lat. Monacensis 28,800 in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, along with Books I and II of De ingeneis (Codex Lat. Monacensis 197). Books III and IV of De ingeneis comprise Codex Palat. 766 in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Flo- rence. There are also 15th-century copies of De machinis held in libraries in New York, Paris and Venice. Many later artists and architects either copied Taccola’s drawings, or used them as sources in representing the mechanical inventions of Brunelleschi; among them were Fran- cesco di Giorgio Martini, Buonacorso Ghi- berti, grandson of Lorenzo Ghiberti, and perhaps even Leonardo da Vinci. In the 1440s Taccola retired from his official positions in Siena (he had been, among other things, Superintendent of Roads). He received a pension from the state and continued to live in the Casa Sapientia. He joined the fraternal order of the Humiliates and continued to draw. The year of his death is disputed but was probably 1453.

TACCOLA’S DRAWINGS In the fascinating exhibition Mechanical Marvels, Invention in the Age of

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the manor has strengthened its defense with a moat, etc.” The closest parallel to the method of representation in these drawings is found in medieval manuscript illustration, though the subject matter is also that of Renaissance artist- engineers. In the left-hand sheet (Fig. 1a), the lake is reduced to a symbolic oval, its size having no relationship to the size of the pirate’s barge. Because the lines representing the waves are equidis- tant from each other whether close to us or far away, the lake is in effect parallel to our plane of vision. The raft, however, tilts back, making some use of perspective, though not correctly by Renaissance standards. (We should not forget that Taccola was only about 5 years younger than Brunelleschi [1377–1446], the “fa- ther” of linear perspective, and knew him well, and the knowledge of perspective would certainly have been avail- able to him through conversations and discussions with colleagues and other practitioners.) Taccola’s method of representation falls between accepted categories and is both idiosyncratic and original. The hollowed-out logs become a bit narrower as they recede in space, but the transverse pieces that hold them together make no concessions—the con- necting piece on the left, in fact, has its side edge showing on the “wrong” side. The most obvious non-perspectival element is the pirates’ house, whose “foot- print,” drawn perspectivally, would be a trapezoid instead of a rectangle. This, I assume, is to show the oddly drawn door with more clarity. And of course the manor house, in the drawing opposite this one (Fig. 1b), sits in purely symbolic Fig. 5. Taccola, CLM 28,800, folio 51v, black ink turned brown, on paper. (Bayerische Staats- relation to the water that is supposed to bibliothek, Munich) surround it. Although this drawing is made for in- other Taccola drawings, small animals are placement. The message of this page is struction (what pirates do!), there is a used for page identification.) the moat, but though Taccola was an en- great deal more going on. There is an ob- The last coded marking system I will gineer, a builder would have difficulty vious attempt to organize the page in a mention is the light wash brushed over fabricating the drawbridge from this rep- persuasive and interesting way. Each ele- the linear waves of the water. In almost resentation. The boom that supports the ment is somewhere between a represen- all of Taccola’s drawings, washes are used decks would be too short, and we are left tation and a symbol. The strokes, only to represent water, gases and smoke. to guess how the whole contrivance is although freely executed, are codified. Everything else is delineated by lines. supported in the water [7]. Wavy lines mean water, scalloped edges Shading to show three-dimensional form, Yet, to my mind, these are anything but represent the shore and short curved when not done with parallel lines, is oc- naive drawings. Taccola did not have one strokes on one side of each log are used casionally indicated with back-and-forth of the great “lines,” like Pisanello or the to show roundness and hollowness. In pencil strokes on the ink drawings. later Leonardo da Vinci. In fact, his lines fact, it is doubtful that we would imme- The drawing in Fig. 1b has its own cen- are often quite clumsy, though always diately read them as hollowed-out logs tralized image but is connected to Fig. 1a earnest and drawn with feeling. They without the text. Then, there are the at- by the mountain line at the top of the tend toward the schematic and are in the mospheric symbols of grass, flowers and page. Most of what was said for the pirate service of thought. But the drawings have trees, placed as signs around the lake, page is also true of this one. Here, lest we such authority that they create their own and the charming bird that stands guard, not realize that we are seeing water, convincing world of reality. reminding us of animals in the margins Taccola has stocked it with various sea Choosing another drawing to discuss, of medieval manuscripts, placed there for creatures, symbolizing rather than rep- we look again at a page from De machinis reasons we are often not sure of. (In resenting them, both in drawing and (Fig. 2). This represents an implement

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the 20th century artists such as Cézanne and Picasso created new pictorial ten- sions by overturning many aspects of perspective as they knew it, and some people today see perspective as a vestigial arti- fact. And yet, perhaps reinforced by the ubiquitous presence of photography, the concept of linear perspective seems to remain deeply embedded in our reading of space. Taccola’s friendship with Brunelleschi and his tentative relationship to linear perspective in his drawings raises the question of what this emerging system of representation meant to Tac- cola. Was he, as an engineer, creating a sort of exploded view of the objects he represented, purposely violating rules he had learned in order to render his sub- jects with clarity? This seems improbable to me, for perspective is not simply a tool or a drawing convention, but, once introduced, goes to the very core of seeing. A few years ago I taught a class for ad- vanced art students, one part of which dealt with linear perspective. We visited an exhibition of drawings by Raphael and his contemporaries on the same day that we saw a show of early medieval illumi- nations. The graphic assignment for the next session of the class was for each student to make two drawings of his or her room—the first being a drawing accord- ing to the accepted rules of perspective and the second one deliberately break- ing the rules. Most students made interesting enough pages for the first part of the assignment, but fell apart with the second. Some said it was impossible after Fig. 6. After Taccola, Codex Spencer 136, folio 11v, black ink turned brown, on vellum. the first exercise, others were even angry (Spencer Collection, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations) at me for assigning it. And none of them had taken drawing courses promoting of war whose caption reads, “Lighted than real. I find the ox wonderful in spite linear perspective or explaining it in de- sparks cannot disturb his running toward of its rather freewheeling form and tail. These students, though not versed the enemy. One must arrange a device anatomy. As in the previous drawings, the in the principles of perspective, were im- like that which appears in back, showing lines are somewhat crude and formulaic, mersed in the culture of seeing perspec- an ox running with poles.” How this pow- the wash gives substance to the smoke, tivally. Extrapolating from this student erful and poignant image would have and although the information would be project, I believe that the systems of per- been read by 15th-century military men hard to translate into structure, the ef- spective that artists such as Masaccio in is impossible to know, but copies of the fect of the drawing is marvelous. Florence were beginning to use exten- manuscript were circulated among them. sively were simply not part of Taccola’s It was certainly a serious proposal. As in personal artistic culture [9]. While the all the drawings, the image is situated on TACCOLA AND RENAISSANCE marks and some aspects of his composi- the page so as to provide maximum im- PERSPECTIVE tions belong to the Renaissance, he was pact and readability. The perspectival I have been using the term “Renaissance still thinking as a medieval draftsman, decisions are still inconsistent with Re- perspective” as though it had a com- and this places him in an unusual posi- naissance theory, however. The board monly understood and accepted mean- tion. The question, which of course we that shields the ox’s eyes from the flames ing. This is certainly not the case. In a cannot answer with certainty, remains: would be a trapezoid and the pot of fire richly visual book, The Poetics of Perspec- Why does this combination have such al- obeys its own rules. We cannot account tive, James Elkins has argued that not only lure for us today? for the horizon line in terms of real have there been many perspectival sys- space, but it divides the page in an in- tems, often uncodified, but that per- teresting way and shows that the ox is not spective as we know it and as some artists TACCOLA’S INTENTIONS flying. Of course it almost is, for its rela- continue to use it is only a pale reminder Another intriguing aspect of Taccola’s tion to the ground is more conceptual of its earlier forms [8]. In the first half of carefully arranged notebooks is that we

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are not entirely sure what their function was. Did Taccola consider himself primarily an inventor who drew only to elu- cidate his mechanical ideas? Did he think of himself as an artist making drawings to be appreciated for their visual qualities? Were the drawings meant as pres- ents to important leaders to elevate his public stature? Did they feed Taccola’s fantasy life as he dealt with daily issues of engineering and administration? [10] Was humor a conscious part of his visual experiments? Starting with the last question, I find that I am continually smiling as I look at the later drawings (in De machinis), partly from the sheer pleasure of looking at the beautiful pages and partly from the strangeness of the juxtapositions, the scale differences, the idiosyncratic animals and the oddness of the ideas. There is often a sense of playfulness; the animals are drawn with great charm, and fre- quently Taccola’s inventive landscapes and peculiar trees take part in a curious and perhaps witty sort of ballet. There is no denying that Taccola wished to use his books for political ad- vancement. He admired King Sigis- mondo, who stopped with his troops in Siena in 1433 on his way to Rome to be crowned Emperor and on his return in 1434. On a dedication folio in De ingeneis, Book IV, he expressed his desire to become a “familiar” of Sigismondo—a rank of great honor. Furthermore, Taccola drew two portraits of Sigismondo. The crowns that float throughout De machinis (e.g. Fig. 2) may have been meant to honor him or added later for Sigis- mondo’s descendant Frederick III. Though he mentioned his desire to give Fig. 7. Taccola, CLM 28,800, folio 78v, black ink turned brown, on paper. (Bayerische Staats- his book to both of these rulers, Taccola’s bibliothek, Munich) interest in promoting himself by means of his books does not say much about the function of the drawings on a deeper [12]. Neither by reading this nor by look- chines have a quaintness that seems as level. ing at the drawings does it seem possible naive as some elements of the drafts- A clue to their function could be Tac- to believe that Taccola was simply writing manship. And yet these war machines cola’s own vision of himself as an artist. and drawing as an explicator of me- were copied by other draftsmen and cir- In addition to calling himself the Sienese chanical things. culated among military people, so this Archimedes, he described himself as a One of the oddest aspects of these reading cannot be totally in keeping with “writer, a miniaturist, and a man able to drawings for viewers today is their ani- the responses that they evoked during take care of water works” [11], although mated theatricality, their creation of a Taccola’s lifetime. It is true that Taccola’s only a few of his drawings are without me- fantasy world in which mechanical in- drawings are the first records of the lift- chanical lessons. A long entry relating to ventions become protagonists in a staged ing machines and reversible-gears systems a ship design gives insight into Taccola’s performance. This is particularly true of invented by Brunelleschi for the building sense of the limits of drawing to explain the later drawings, those of De machinis. of the Cupola on the Cathedral in Flo- mechanical things. He writes, “Let it be We appreciate them although his ma- rence and thus have great historical im- known that one cannot explain each and chines have virtually no relevance to our portance. Taccola has also left us drawings every detail. Ingenuity resides in the lives today. We can hardly hope to win of a ship invented and patented by mind and intelligence of the architect wars by sending dogs into battle loaded Brunelleschi. There is no question that rather than in drawing and writing. Many with burning sticks. We are not astonished Taccola drew as an engineer to instruct things occur in the course of work that by the idea of a fort being protected by a others in his observations, inventions, and the architect or worker never planned” moat with a drawbridge. Many of the ma- mechanical ideas. But what sets him apart

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bizarrely active tree. The anchor weights tied to the man’s boat are arranged to connect the two boats visually by means of a strong triangular composition, but the weights appear to ﬂoat in space rather than sink into the water. The winch that the man is turning is as ani- mated as he is. The tree-bearing island in the middle of the page is purely fantasti- cal and symbolic. Yet the page is lively and communicates a sense of internal logic. As noted earlier, it is not Taccola’s ability with lines or his command of perspective that makes these pages so captivating, but his “force of will” and his far-reaching imagination.

ORIGINALS VS. REPRODUCTIONS It is not easy to gain access to the original drawings of Taccola. The bound volumes drawn in his own hand are in the state libraries of Florence and Munich and, because of their fragility, may never be exhibited. When I first saw the De machinis volume at the Staatsbibliothek in Munich, I was already familiar with the elaborate facsimile edition published in Germany in 1971, edited by Gustina Scaglia. I brought my edition of this book to the library to compare, not really knowing what to expect. All of us who work in the field of visual arts are aware of the limits of reproductions. We look at art books and slides by the thousands and consistently caution ourselves and others to remember their limitations. And yet Taccola’s images are so persuasive that it is almost impossible to do so. When the leather-bound volume was brought to my table, I had reactions I had not antici- Fig. 8. Paolo Santini (after Taccola) Ms. Lat. 7239, folio 82v, brown ink with colored washes pated. First, I was so tremulous at having on vellum. (Photo: Bibliothéque Nationale de France, Paris) this fragile object in front of me that I could hardly open it. It was overwhelm- ing to experience its proximity and to from his more famous follower Francesco the consciousness of builders and were imagine the historical figures who must di Giorgio and other artist-engineers of known primarily as mysterious con- have seen it and held it. On viewing the the period is the artistic ambition of draw- trivances praised by Giorgio Vasari in his pages, against all expectations, I saw that ings that dealt with machinery and engi- biographies of the artists. To play a bit they bore only superficial similarity to the neering. As exemplified in the water with the word “invention,” Taccola’s pages of the beautiful facsimile volume. purifier drawn by Francesco di Giorgio greatest invention is the strange private For one thing, the attribute that Walter (Fig. 3), we read his image first in terms world he created in his illustrated note- Benjamin has described as the “aura” of how it works, beautiful as the drawing books. People, animals, machines, build- could not be denied. Then there was the may be. But Taccola’s drawings of ma- ings, rafts and ships, mountains and size. It was exactly the same measure- chinery, with all their oddities, address trees—all are placed in atmospheric ments as the facsimile, but it seemed more varied visual problems. arrangements creating spaces that are on astonishingly small and precious. Repro- So, while Taccola drew to explain his one hand illogical and, on the other, to- ductions have dulled our efforts at gaug- inventions as well as those of tally convincing. The drawing shown in ing the real size of art objects, but their Brunelleschi, his drawings had an ambi- Fig. 4, a boat being pulled upstream by actual size seems to me one of their most tion beyond the technical material. In another boat that is stationary, dramati- vital intrinsic qualities. I had imagined fact, the information itself was not to be cally illustrates these appealing qualities. the drawings bigger, as I usually do with of lasting importance. Even Brunel- The cliff in the upper left corner rises up Renaissance works, probably because of leschi’s lifting machines vanished from like a Corinthian capitol supporting a their visual power.

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Fig. 9. Taccola, CLM 28,800, folio 17r, black ink turned brown, on paper. (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)

Fig. 10. After Taccola, Lat. 2941, folio 81r, black ink on paper. (Bib- lioteca Nationale Marciana, Venice)

Next there was the complicated issue though the pen were pushed harder and is a clue here to his intentions.) Often, of color. For economic reasons, the fac- released more ink. With iron gall ink, in fact, the remaining pencil lines reveal simile was printed in black and white, thicker lines do not change their color as multiple positions of elements drawn ﬁ- whereas the original drawings are now a quickly as the lines using less ink, and nally in ink. This puts us in even closer beautiful brown or sepia. They have the they retain more of the violet-black of the touch with Taccola’s process of thinking appeal that we have come to expect from original mixture. (The washes, which use and adds a dimension of delight to view- the warm color of other drawings of the the thinnest solution of all, are now al- ing the drawings. But the pencil had an- period, though it is almost certain that most yellow.) So here we are somewhat other use as well: it was employed for Taccola’s pages, like most drawings in the deceived by the originals and must adjust shading. As stated above, Taccola’s marks Renaissance, were done with black iron our reading accordingly. Of course, the were, in a sense, coded. Wavy lines sug- gall ink that has turned brown over the different rates of deterioration of gested smoke and water, small parallel years [13]. So, ironically, the black and the black ink may have been caused by the strokes on the edge of a beam meant white facsimile edition may be truer to different preparations used either at one roundness, long parallel lines often the original ink color used by Taccola! sitting or at different times. We know that meant slats of wood, and so on. But But, even overlooking the allure of the Taccola continually reworked his draw- washes, which have now faded to a yel- lovely brown we mistakenly associate with ings, and his mixtures may have varied. lowish tone, usually signify ﬂuids. The so many older drawings, the pages of the The next issue was pencil lines. There washes are only occasionally used for ac- original have an artifactual quality; they are many in the Taccola drawings and cents, like decorating an elaborate letter are things, with ink both penetrating and they are hard to distinguish in repro- of the alphabet (De machinis, 27r) or sitting on the surface of the paper, and ductions. It is clear from the originals some peripheral element (e.g. the what in the reproductions are variations that Taccola did not brazenly take pen to feather on a fawn’s head in De machinis of light and dark are here direct acts per- paper without preliminary sketches to lo- (26v), but they are not used to suggest formed on the page by the artist. Many cate and lock in the elements of his draw- space or three-dimensionality. Shading, of the lines of the original are darker ings. (The same was often true even of when used, is in pencil. I assume the than others, showing themselves in their such eloquent draftsmen as Leonardo da scratchy penciled planes were drawn by present state as a much deeper brown. Vinci.) But unlike many artists, he did Taccola, but they could have been added Usually these darker lines are accents, as not erase most of them. (Perhaps there by a later hand. In any event, they stand

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in contrast to the ink washes and are only and the pages finally seem formulaic, 4. Prager and Scaglia [1] p. 3. vaguely readable in the reproductions— being rather generic examples of Re- 5. Quoted in Prager and Scaglia [1] pp. 11–12. and then only after seeing the originals. naissance illuminated manuscripts [15] 6. Galluzzi [3]. (Figs 7 and 8). The third major copy is in Venice. The 7. The sculptor Tom Doyle pointed out that the moat is not defendable without the drawbridge being en- COPIES OF TACCOLA’S few sheets that I have seen reproduced closed. He thought that Taccola may have purposely NOTEBOOKS have an almost surrealist beauty, but lack withheld information to protect his invention. This the visual imagination of Taccola (Figs 9 is consistent with Brunelleschi’s warning not to dis- There are at least three relatively com- close too much information about one’s inventions. and 10). plete copies of De machinis, two of which Taccola’s drawings were copied by 8. James Elkins, The Poetics of Perspective (Ithaca, NY: were definitely done during Taccola’s Cornell Univ. Press, 1994). many other artist-engineers as well, often lifetime. They were made to disseminate using his concepts instead of his images. 9. For a different interpretation, see Edgerton [3] the information in his notebooks, before p. 128. How much Taccola was appreciated by the technology of mechanical repro- his contemporaries for his visual inven- 10. Creighton Gilbert suggested another possible in- duction existed. A brief comparison with tention: that the drawings were demonstrations for tiveness we will probably never know. He the original in Munich reveals much prospective clients to show what he could do. Gilbert speaks to us now, however, as the artist proposed, some years ago, a comparable case in the about the individuality of Taccola as an that I believe he considered himself to notebooks of Jacopo Bellini. See Creighton Gilbert, artist. “Bellini’s Drawings,” The New Criterion (September be. His drawings straddle categories, but William M. Ivins, Jr., in his 1943 book 1985) pp. 72–73. Anthony Grafton expresses this live in a wonderful world of their own. opinion even more forcefully, writing that Taccola’s How Prints Look, wrote that copies (and illustrations “were clearly designed above all to ad- forgeries) can often be detected by their vertise his product.” Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance (Cam- more direct approach, that the invented References and Notes bridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2000) p. 98. and hard-won marking system of the orig- 1. Frank Prager and Gustina Scaglia, Mariano Taccola 11. Frank Prager and Gustina Scaglia, Brunelleschi, inal helps the copyist to simplify and clar- and His Book De Ingeneis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Studies of His Technology and Inventions (Cambridge, ify [14]. This is true of the most faithful Press, 1972). (This reproduces Books III and IV of MA: MIT Press, 1970) p. 127. de Ingeneis, Codex Palat. 766 in the Biblioteca Na- copy of De Machinis, the one in the tionale in Florence.) The original manuscripts of 12. Prager and Scaglia [11] p. 121. Spencer collection of the New York Pub- Taccola were rediscovered and identified by Gustina 13. This is the case with a huge number of drawings, lic Library. In a randomly chosen com- Scaglia in the early 1960s in the state libraries of Mu- nich and Florence, where they had long been buried including many of Leonardo’s “brown” drawings and parison (Figs 5 and 6), Taccola’s page has among other drawings. She personally introduced even Van Gogh’s now brown Tree in a Meadow. See a visual richness not present in the copy. me to them many years ago when I was looking for James Watrous, The Craft of Old Master Drawing (Madi- early engineering drawings relating to my sculpture. son, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975) p. 73. The drama of the space in Taccola’s ver- I derive most of my historical information, with grat- I am indebted to Antoinette Owen, paper conserva- sion is enhanced by the wedge-shaped itude, from her writings. tor at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, for pointing this out to me. void cutting through the mountains. The 2. There are beautiful facsimile editions of two man- artist of Codex Spencer was not sensitive uscripts by Taccola: James H. Beck, ed., Liber Tertius 14. William M. Ivins, How Prints Look: Photographs and to this issue and the diagonals are di- de Ingeneis (Milan, Italy: Il Polifilo, 1969) and Gustina Commentary (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Scaglia, ed., Mariano Taccola, De Machinis (Weisbaden, 1943) pp. 124ff. minished, the two mountains and the Germany: Reichert, 1971). space between them being more like 15. There is an elaborate facsimile edition with notes 3. Robert Zwijnenberg, The Writings and Drawings of by Eberhard Knobloch, L’art de la Guerre (Décou- equal-sized areas. Other differences are Leonardo da Vinci: Order and Chaos in Early Modern verte, Gallimard Albums, 1992). obvious. And yet the Spencer pages are Thought (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999)(a fascinating lovely, having an openness and purity interpretation of Taccola’s drawings); Mechanical Marvels: Inventions in the Age of Leonardo, exh. cat., that Taccola’s lack. Paolo Galluzzi, ed. (Florence: Giunti, 1996–1997); Galluzzi also organized an earlier show in Siena with The author of the second known copy Manuscript received 22 June 2001. an even more beautiful and ambitious catalog: Prima “enriches” Taccola’s drawings by at- di Leonardo; Cultura delle macchine a Siena nel Rinasci- tempting to normalize the drawings and mento (Milano: Electa, 1991). See also Samuel Y. by adding color. This version, now in the Edgerton, The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991); and Ross King, Lawrence Fane is a sculptor living in New Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, is opulent Brunelleschi’s Dome (London: Chatto & Windus, York City. He taught for many years at Queens and beautiful, but the drawing is weak 2000). College, of the City University of New York.

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