Codex Leicester PDF Free Download

Codex Leicester PDF Download Info

Codex Leicester Book By Leonardo Da Vinci PDF Free Download, Price, Copy, Read Online, Pronunciation, Price In Rupees, Amazon, Original.

Codex Leicester PDF Free Download

Nearly All Of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Most Famous Works Were Determined By A Single Fatality. The Sforza Monument And The Wall-painting Of The Battle Of Anghiari Are Two Of The Three Most Significant Works That Were Never Finished Due To Challenges That Arose During His Lifetime And Forced Him To Abandon Them, While The Third, The Picture Of The Last Supper In Milan, Has Irreparably Been Damaged By Decay And The Repeated Restorations That It Was Carelessly Subjected To During The Xviith And Xviiith Centuries. However, No Other Renaissance Image Has Attained Such Popularity Through Copies Of Every Description.

Vasari Accurately States In His Biography Of Leonardo That “He Laboured Far More By His Word Than In Fact Or By Doing,” And It Is Clear That The Biographer Had In Mind The Many Manuscript Works That Have Survived To This Day. Now, It Seems Almost Inexplicable To Us That These Valuable And Fascinating Original Texts Remained Unpublished And Even Forgotten For So Long. There Is Little Doubt That Throughout The Xvi And Xvii Centuries, People Valued Them Highly For Their Exceptional Value. This Is Shown Not Only By The Prices They Brought In But Also By The Extraordinary Interest That Was Shown In The Transfer Of Ownership Of A Manuscript Consisting Of Just A Few Pages.

That Despite This Desire To Own The Manuscripts, Their Contents Remained A Mystery Can Only Be Explained By The Many And Significant Challenges Involved In The Task Of Deciphering Them. The Handwriting Is So Unique That It Takes A Lot Of Practise To Read Even A Few Isolated Phrases, Much Alone To Solve Reliably The Many Problems Presented By Alternative Readings And Master The Sense As A Whole. Regarding Leonardo’s Writing, Vasari Remarks, “He Wrote Backwards, In Rude Characters, And With The Left Hand, So That Any One Who Is Not Practised In Reading Them, Cannot Understand Them.” The Use Of A Mirror To Read Reversed Handwriting Seems To Be Limited To The First Experimental Reading, In My Opinion.

Speaking From My Experience, Considering The Enormous Volume Of Manuscripts That Need To Be Deciphered, The Constant Use Of It Is Too Taxing And Inconvenient To Be Practically Advised. The Difficulty Of Reading Directly From The Writing Is Not Insurmountable As Leonardo’s Handwriting Runs Backwards In The Same Manner As Any Oriental Character, I.e., From Right To Left. The Only Barrier To Understanding The Text Is Not, By Any Means, This Obvious Peculiarity In The Writing. He Had A Habit Of Combining Many Short Words Into One Long Word, Or He Would Haphazardly Divide A Long Word Into Two Separate Halves. Leonardo Used An Orthography That Was Peculiar To Himself.

The Reader May Assume That These Challenges Were Almost Sufficient To Make The Task Seem Hopeless To A Beginner. In Addition, There Is No Punctuation To Control The Division And Construction Of The Sentences, Nor Are There Any Accents. Therefore, It Is Not Surprising That Some Of Leonardo’s Most Revered Admirers’ Noble Intentions Ended In Failure. Leonardo’s Literary Endeavours In A Variety Of Fields, Including Art And Science, Were Fundamentally Those Of An Inquirer; As A Result, He Used The Analytical Method While Defending His Research And Dissertations.

It Is Regrettable That He Should Have Never Collected And Organised The Many Separate Studies That Make Up The Vast Structure Of His Scientific Theories. In Almost All Of The Manuscripts, The Various Paragraphs Seem To Us To Be In Utter Confusion; On One And The Same Page, Observations On The Most Dissimilar Subjects Follow Each Other Without Any Connection. This, It Seems To Me, Is Due To His Love For Thorough Research. For Example, A Page May Start With Some Astronomy Or Earth Motion Principles, Followed By The Laws Of Sound, And Then Some Colour Theory Principles. His Investigations Into The Structure Of The Intestines Will Be The Subject Of Another Page, Which Will Conclude With Philosophical Observations About The Connections Between Poetry And Painting.

And So It Went. Leonardo Himself Lamented This Confusion, Therefore I Don’t Believe That Publishing The Texts In The Order They Appear In The Originals Will Ever Accomplish What He Had In Mind. Leonardo Himself Could Not Have Navigated Such A Maze; Neither Could Any Reader. Additionally, More Than Half Of The 5,000 Manuscript Pages That Are Still In Our Possession Are Written On Loose Leaves And Are Now Organised In A Way That Serves No Purpose Other Than The Collector’s Whim In Creating Volumes Of Varying Sizes.

The Order Of The Texts In The Volumes, Whose Pages Leonardo Himself Numbered, Was Obviously Irrelevant To Him In Terms Of Their Relationship To One Another. When First Recording His Observations, The Only Thing He Seems To Have Kept In Mind Was That Each Observation Should Be Finished On The Page Where It Was Started. The Exceptions To This Rule Are Quite Rare, And It Is Noteworthy That In These Instances, We Find The Written Instructions “Turn Over,” “This Is The Continuation Of The Previous Page,” And The Like In Bound Volumes With His Numbered Pages. Isn’t This Sufficient Evidence That The Author Only Sometimes Intended For The Subsequent Pages To Remain Connected When He Finally Carried Out The Often Planned Organisation Of His Writings? Leonardo Has Often Indicated What This Final Arrangement Was To Be With A Fair Amount Of Completeness.

In Other Instances, This Authoritative Clue Is Lacking, But The Difficulties Resulting From This Are Not Insurmountable Because It Is Perfectly Possible To Put Together A Well-planned Whole Out Of The Fragments Of His Scientific System, And I Dare Say That I Have Given Extra Thought And Care To The Proper Execution Of This Responsible Task Because The Subject Of The Individual Paragraphs Is Always Distinct And Well Defined In Itself. The Start Of Leonardo’s Literary Endeavours Dates From About His 37th Year, And He Seems To Have Continued Them Uninterrupted Until His Death.

Thus, The Remaining Manuscripts Span A Period Of Around Thirty Years. It Is Impossible To Determine The Date Of Any Specific Text From His Handwriting Since It Changed So Little Throughout This Period Of Time. The Exact Dates, In Fact, Can Only Be Assigned To Specific Note-books Where The Year Is Incidentally Indicated And Where The Order Of The Leaves Has Not Changed Since Leonardo Used Them. It Should Be Clear That They Are Helpful For Organising The Manuscripts In Chronological Order. By Using This Clue, I’ve Assigned The Production Order Of The Original Manuscripts—which Are Now Dispersed Across England, Italy, And France—since It’s Crucial To Be Able To Confirm The Precise Moment And Location When Certain Observations Were Made And Recorded In Many Minute Details.

For These Purposes, The Bibliography Of The Manuscripts Provided At The End Of Volume Two May Be Regarded As A Nearly Exhaustive Index Of All Of Leonardo’s Published Works As They Exist Today. While The Letters And Figures To The Left Of Each Paragraph Refer To The Original Manuscript And Number Of The Page On Which That Particular Passage Is To Be Found, The Consecutive Numbers (From 1 To 1566) At The Head Of Each Passage In This Work Indicate Their Logical Sequence With Reference To The Subjects. Thus, The Reader Can Always Quickly Determine Not Only The Time Period To Which The Passage Belongs But Also The Precise Location Of That Passage In The Original Document By Consulting The Bibliography At The End Of Volume Ii And The List Of Manuscripts At The Beginning Of Volume I.

The Reader May Reconstruct The Original Sequence Of The Manuscripts By Following The Numbers In The Bibliographic Index And Recomposing The Various Texts Found On The Original Sheets, At Least To The Extent That They Fall Within The Scope Of This Work By Virtue Of Their Subject Matter. However, It Should Be Noted That Leonardo’s Manuscripts Also Include Many Notes And Dissertations On Mechanics, Physics, And Other Topics, Many Of Which Could Only Be Satisfactorily Handled By Experts. These Notes And Dissertations Are In Addition To The Passages That Have Been Printed Here. In The Bibliographical Notes, I’ve Provided As Thorough A Review Of These Writings As I Felt Was Necessary. A Selection From Leonardo’s Writings On Painting Was First Published In 1651 By Raphael Trichet Dufresne Of Paris. This Treatise Quickly Gained Popularity And Has Since Been Reprinted Around Two-and-a-half Dozen Times And In Six Different Languages.

However, None Of These Editions Were Derived From The Original Texts, Which Were Thought To Have Been Lost, But Rather From Early Copies, All Of Which Were Fragmentary And In Which Leonardo’s Text Had Been More Or Less Altered. The Vatican Library Has The Oldest And, Overall, Best Copy Of Leonardo’s Essays And Precepts On Painting. This Edition Was Published Twice, First By Manzi In 1817 And Again By Ludwig In 1882. However, This Ancient Copy And The Published Editions Of It Contain Many Things For Which It Would Be Unfair To Blame Leonardo, And Some Parts—like The Crucial Guidelines For The Proportions Of The Human Figure—are Wholly Lacking; On The Other Hand, They Contain Passages That, If They Are Genuine, Cannot Currently Be Confirmed From Any Original Manuscript That Is Still Extant. These Copies, At Least, Do Not Provide Any Substitute By Connecting The Texts According To A Logical Scheme, Nor Do They Provide The Texts In Their Original Order As Originally Written By Leonardo;

In Reality, They Are Everything But Satisfactory Reading In Their Chaotic Confusion. Without A Doubt, The Fault Lies With The Compiler Of The Vatican Copy, Which Would Appear To Be The Source From Which All The Published And Widely Known Texts Were Derived. Rather Than Organising The Passages Himself, He Was Content To Record A Suggestion For Their Final Division Into Eight Distinct Parts Without Actually Attempting To Carry Out His Plan. The Many Editors Up To The Present Have Very Foolishly Continued To Adopt This Order—or Rather Disorder—under The Mistaken Belief That This Distribution Strategy May Be That Of Leonardo Himself, Rather Than The Compiler. I Had Given Up On Finding The Original Manuscript Of The Trattato Della Pittura, Along With Other Researchers, Until I Was Allowed To Examine Lord Ashburnham’s Manuscripts At The Beginning Of 1880. I Was Delighted To Find The Original Text Of The Most Well-known Section Of The Trattato In His Magnificent Library At Ashburnham Place.

Even Though This Discovery Only Consisted Of A Small, But Significant, Fragment, It Inspired Me To Do Further Research And Provided The Answer To The Mystery That Had Long Surrounded The Original Source Of All Known Copies Of The Trattato. The Extensive Research I Was Subsequently Able To Conduct, And The Findings From Which Are Combined In This Work, Were Only Made Possible By The Unescorted Permission Granted To Me To Look Into All Of Leonardo’s Manuscripts Scattered Throughout Europe And To Reproduce The Extremely Significant Original Sketches They Contain Using The “Photogravure” Process. My Special Permission To Copy The Manuscripts At The Royal Library In Windsor For Publication Was Graciously Granted By Her Majesty The Queen. In Response To A Request From Sir Frederic Leighton, P. R. A., A Correspondent Member Of The Institut, The Commission Centrale Administrative De L’institut De France, Paris, Granted Me Free Permission To Work For Several Months In Their Private Collection At Deciphering The Manuscripts Preserved There.

The Earl Of Leicester, The Marchese Trivulsi, The Curators Of The Ambrosian Library In Milan, The Conte Manzoni In Rome, Other Private Owners Of Leonardo Manuscripts, The Directors Of The Louvre In Paris, The Accademia In Venice, The Uffizi In Florence, The Royal Library In Turin, The British Museum, And The South Kensington Museum All Extended To Me The Same Favour That Lord Ashburnham Had Already Done For Me. I Also Owe A Great Debt To The Librarians Of These Different Collections For Much Assistance In My Labors; And More Particularly To Monsieur Louis Lalanne, Of The Institut De France, The Abbate Ceriani, Of The Ambrosian Library, Mr. Maude Thompson, Keeper Of Manuscripts At The British Museum, Mr. Holmes, The Queens Librarian At Windsor, The Revd Vere Bayne, Librarian Of Christ Church College At Oxford, And The Revd A.

I Had The Benefit Of Receiving Insightful Criticism From Signor Gustavo Frizzoni Of Milan And Commendatore Giov. Morelli, Senatore Del Regno, When I Corrected The Italian Text For The Press. The Translation Of The Italian Text Into English, Which Was Difficult, Is Primarily The Responsibility Of Mrs. R. C. Bell; However, I Am Also Indebted To Mr. E. J. Poynter R. A. For His Unwavering Interest In This Work, Which Allowed Me To Render Some Of The Most Important And Perplexing Passages, Particularly In The Second Half Of Vol. 1. In Closing, I Must Thank Mr. Alfred Marks Of Long Ditton For His Kind Assistance In Helping Me Revise The Proof Sheets Throughout. I Am Indebted To My Friend Baron Henri De Geymuller Of Paris For The Notes And Dissertations He Provided On The Architectural Texts In Volume Ii.

Regarding The Illustrations, I Should Add That Monsieur Dujardin Of Paris Took All Of The Negatives For The “Photo-gravures” Directly From The Originals. It Hardly Needs To Be Said That The Majority Of The Drawings Reproduced In Facsimile Here Have Never Been Printed Before. As I Am Now, At The Conclusion Of A Lengthy Project, In A Position To Review The General Style Of Leonardo’s Writings, You Could Allow Me To Add A Little Statement On My Assessment Of The Value Of Their Contents.

I’ve Already Shown That The Only Reason We Haven’t Known Leonardo As A Writer, Philosopher, Or Naturalist For Very Long Is Because Of A Fortuitous Succession Of Unfortunate Events. Without A Shadow Of A Doubt, His Principles And Discoveries Were Infinitely More In Accord With The Teachings Of Modern Science Than With The Views Of His Contemporaries In More Than One Department. His Extraordinary Gifts And Merits Are Therefore Much More Likely To Be Acknowledged In Our Time Than They Could Have Been In The Previous Centuries.

He Has Been Falsely Accused Of Wasting His Abilities By Starting A Number Of Studies Only To Abandon Them Before They Had Even Begun. The Truth Is That Three Centuries’ Worth Of Labour Have Hardly Been Enough To Fully Explain Some Of The Issues That Preoccupied His Powerful Mind. “He Was The First To Start On The Road Towards The Point Where All The Impressions Of Our Senses Converge In The Idea Of The Unity Of Nature,” Alexander Von Humboldt Has Said, According To A Witness. No, There’s Still More To Say. The Exact Words “Majestati Naturae Par Ingenium,” Which Are Inscribed On Alexander Von Humboldt’s Monument In Berlin, Are Perhaps The Most Appropriate In Which We May Summarise Our Assessment Of Leonardo’s Genius.