The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Volume 2 by Leonardo Da Vinci

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*(The Concave Mirror kindles a Fire, with which we heat the oven,
and this has its foundation beneath its roof.)*

A great part of the sea will fly towards heaven and for a long time
will not return. *(That is, in Clouds.)*

There remains the motion which divides the mover from the thing
moved.

Those who give light for divine service will be destroyed.*(The Bees
which make the Wax for Candles)*

Dead things will come from underground and by their fierce movements
will send numberless human beings out of the world. *(Iron, which
comes from under ground is dead but the Weapons are made of it which
kill so many Men.)*

The greatest mountains, even those which are remote from the sea
shore, will drive the sea from its place.

*(This is by Rivers which carry the Earth they wash away from the
Mountains and bear it to the Sea-shore; and where the Earth comes
the sea must retire.)*

The water dropped from the clouds still in motion on the flanks of
mountains will lie still for a long period of time without any
motion whatever; and this will happen in many and divers lands.

*(Snow, which falls in flakes and is Water.)*

The great rocks of the mountains will throw out fire; so that they
will burn the timber of many vast forests, and many beasts both wild
and tame.

*(The Flint in the Tinder-box which makes a Fire that consumes all
the loads of Wood of which the Forests are despoiled and with this
the flesh of Beasts is cooked.)*

Oh! how many great buildings will be ruined by reason of Fire.

*(The Fire of great Guns.)*

Oxen will be to a great extent the cause of the destruction of
cities, and in the same way horses and buffaloes.

*(By drawing Guns.)*

1298.

The Lion tribe will be seen tearing open the earth with their clawed
paws and in the caves thus made, burying themselves together with
the other animals that are beneath them.

Animals will come forth from the earth in gloomy vesture, which will
attack the human species with astonishing assaults, and which by
their ferocious bites will make confusion of blood among those they
devour.

Again the air will be filled with a mischievous winged race which
will assail men and beasts and feed upon them with much noise--
filling themselves with scarlet blood.

1299.

Blood will be seen issuing from the torn flesh of men, and trickling
down the surface.

Men will have such cruel maladies that they will tear their flesh
with their own nails. *(The Itch.)*

Plants will be seen left without leaves, and the rivers standing
still in their channels.

The waters of the sea will rise above the high peaks of the
mountains towards heaven and fall again on to the dwellings of men.
*(That is, in Clouds.)*

The largest trees of the forest will be seen carried by the fury of
the winds from East to West. *(That is across the Sea.)*

Men will cast away their own victuals. *(That is, in Sowing.)*

I.2 26a]

1300.

Human beings will be seen who will not understand each other's
speech; that is, a German with a Turk.

Fathers will be seen giving their daughters into the power of man
and giving up all their former care in guarding them. *(When Girls
are married.)*

Men will come out their graves turned into flying creatures; and
they will attack other men, taking their food from their very hand
or table. *(As Flies.)*

Many will there be who, flaying their mother, will tear the skin
from her back. (Husbandmen tilling the Earth.)

Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the Dead. (Who read
good works and obey them.)

1031.

Feathers will raise men, as they do birds, towards heaven (that is,
by the letters which are written with quills.)

The works of men's hands will occasion their death. (Swords and
Spears.)

Men out of fear will cling to the thing they most fear. (That is
they will be miserable lest they should fall into misery.)

Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue
that they will restore to man his lost memory; that is papyrus
[sheets] which are made of separate strips and have preserved the
memory of the things and acts of men.

The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who
moves them. (By Dice.)

Cattle with their horns protect the Flame from its death. (In a
Lantern [Footnote 13: See note page 357.].)

The Forests will bring forth young which will be the cause of their
death. (The handle of the hatchet.)

1302.

Men will deal bitter blows to that which is the cause of their life.
(In thrashing Grain.)

The skins of animals will rouse men from their silence with great
outcries and curses. (Balls for playing Games.)

Very often a thing that is itself broken is the occasion of much
union. (That is the Comb made of split Cane which unites the threads
of Silk.)

The wind passing through the skins of animals will make men dance.
(That is the Bag-pipe, which makes people dance.)

1303.

*( Of Walnut trees, that are beaten. )*

Those which have done best will be most beaten, and their offspring
taken and flayed or peeled, and their bones broken or crushed.

*( Of Sculpture. )*

Alas! what do I see? The Saviour cru- cified anew.

*( Of the Mouth of Man, which is a Sepulchre. )*

Great noise will issue from the sepulchres of those who died evil
and violent deaths.

*( Of the Skins of Animals which have the sense of feeling what is
in the things written. )*

The more you converse with skins covered with sentiments, the more
wisdom will* you acquire.

*( Of Priests who bear the Host in their body. )*

Then almost all the tabernacles in which dwells the Corpus Domini,
will be plainly seen walking about of themselves on the various
roads of the world.

1304.

And those who feed on grass will turn night into day *( Tallow. )*

And many creatures of land and water will go up among the stars *(
that is Planets.)*

The dead will be seen carrying the living *( in Carts and Ships in
various places. )*

Food shall be taken out of the mouth of many *( the oven's mouth. )*

And those which will have their food in their mouth will be deprived
of it by the hands of others *( the oven. )*

1305.

*( Of Crucifixes which are sold. )*

I see Christ sold and crucified afresh, and his Saints suffering
Martyrdom.

*( Of Physicians, who live by sickness. )*

Men will come into so wretched a plight that they will be glad that
others will derive profit from their sufferings or from the loss of
their real wealth, that is health.

*( Of the Religion of Friars, who live by the Saints who have been
dead a great while. )*

Those who are dead will, after a thou- sand years be those who will
give a livelihood to many who are living.

*( Of Stones converted into Lime, with which prison walls are made.
)*

Many things that have been before that time destroyed by fire will
deprive many men of liberty.

I.2 19a]

1306.

*( Of Children who are suckled. )*

Many Franciscans, Dominicans and Benedictines will eat that which at
other times was eaten by others, who for some months to come will
not be able to speak.

*( Of Cockles and Sea Snails which are thrown up by the sea and
which rot inside their shells. )*

How many will there be who, after they are dead, will putrefy inside
their own houses, filling all the surrounding air with a fetid
smell.

1307.

*( Of Mules which have on them rich burdens of silver and gold. )*

Much treasure and great riches will be laid upon four-footed beasts,
which will convey them to divers places.

1308.

*( Of the Shadow cast by a man at night with a light. )*

Huge figures will appear in human shape, and the nearer you get to
them, the more will their immense size diminish.

[Footnote page 1307: It seems to me probable that this note, which
occurs in the note book used in 1502, when Leonardo, in the service
of Cesare Borgia, visited Urbino, was suggested by the famous
pillage of the riches of the palace of Guidobaldo, whose treasures
Cesare Borgia at once had carried to Cesena (see GREGOROVIUS,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_. XIII, 5, 4). ]

1309.

*(Of Snakes, carried by Storks.)*

Serpents of great length will be seen at a great height in the air,
fighting with birds.

*(Of great guns, which come out of a pit and a mould.)*

Creatures will come from underground which with their terrific noise
will stun all who are near; and with their breath will kill men and
destroy cities and castles.

1310.

*(Of Grain and other Seeds.)*

Men will fling out of their houses those victuals which were
intended to sustain their life.

*(Of Trees, which nourish grafted shoots.)*

Fathers and mothers will be seen to take much more delight in their
step-children then in their own children.

*(Of the Censer.)*

Some will go about in white garments with arrogant gestures
threatening others with metal and fire which will do no harm at all
to them.

1311.

*(Of drying Fodder.)*

Innumerable lives will be destroyed and innumerable vacant spaces
will be made on the earth.

*(Of the Life of Men, who every year change their bodily
substance.)*

Men, when dead, will pass through their own bowels.

1312.

*(Shoemakers.)*

Men will take pleasure in seeing their own work destroyed and
injured.

1313.

*(Of Kids.)*

The time of Herod will come again, for the little innocent children
will be taken from their nurses, and will die of terrible wounds
inflicted by cruel men.

V.

DRAUGHTS AND SCHEMES FOR THE HUMOROUS WRITINGS.

Schemes for fables, etc. (1314-1323).

1314.

A FABLE.

The crab standing under the rock to catch the fish which crept under
it, it came to pass that the rock fell with a ruinous downfall of
stones, and by their fall the crab was crushed.

THE SAME.

The spider, being among the grapes, caught the flies which were
feeding on those grapes. Then came the vintage, and the spider was
cut down with the grapes.

The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of
that tree, and through that bad companionship must perish with it.

The torrent carried so much earth and stones into its bed, that it
was then constrained to change its course.

The net that was wont to take the fish was seized and carried away
by the rush of fish.

The ball of snow when, as it rolls, it descends from the snowy
mountains, increases in size as it falls.

The willow, which by its long shoots hopes as it grows, to outstrip
every other plant, from having associated itself with the vine which
is pruned every year was always crippled.

1315.

Fable of the tongue bitten by the teeth.

The cedar puffed up with pride of its beauty, separated itself from
the trees around it and in so doing it turned away towards the wind,
which not being broken in its fury, flung it uprooted on the earth.

The traveller's joy, not content in its hedge, began to fling its
branches out over the high road, and cling to the opposite hedge,
and for this it was broken away by the passers by.

1316.

The goldfinch gives victuals to its caged young. Death rather than
loss of liberty. [Footnote: Above this text is another note, also
referring to liberty; see No. 694.]

1317.

*(Of Bags.)*

Goats will convey the wine to the city.

L.1 39b]

1318.

All those things which in winter are hidden under the snow, will be
uncovered and laid bare in summer. *(for Falsehood, which cannot
remain hidden)*.

1319.

A FABLE.

The lily set itself down by the shores of the Ticino, and the
current carried away bank and the lily with it.

1320.

A JEST.

Why Hungarian ducats have a double cross on them.

1321.

A SIMILE.

A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a
baked one.

1322.

Seeing the paper all stained with the deep blackness of ink, it he
deeply regrets it; and this proves to the paper that the words,
composed upon it were the cause of its being preserved.

1323.

The pen must necessarily have the penknife for a companion, and it
is a useful companionship, for one is not good for much without the
other.

Schemes for prophecies (1324-1329).

1324.

The knife, which is an artificial weapon, deprives man of his nails,
his natural weapons.

The mirror conducts itself haughtily holding mirrored in itself the
Queen. When she departs the mirror remains there ...

1325.

Flax is dedicated to death, and to the corruption of mortals. To
death, by being used for snares and nets for birds, animals and
fish; to corruption, by the flaxen sheets in which the dead are
wrapped when they are buried, and who become corrupt in these
winding sheets.-- And again, this flax does not separate its fibre
till it has begun to steep and putrefy, and this is the flower with
which garlands and decorations for funerals should be made.

1326.

*(Of Peasants who work in shirts)

Shadows will come from the East which will blacken with great colour
darkness the sky that covers Italy.

*(Of the Barbers.)*

All men will take refuge in Africa.

1327.

The cloth which is held in the hand in the current of a running
stream, in the waters of which the cloth leaves all its foulness and
dirt, is meant to signify this &c.

By the thorn with inoculated good fruit is signified those natures
which of themselves were not disposed towards virtue, but by the aid
of their preceptors they have the repudation of it.

1328.

A COMMON THING.

A wretched person will be flattered, and these flatterers are always
the deceivers, robbers and murderers of the wretched person.

The image of the sun where it falls appears as a thing which covers
the person who attempts to cover it.

*( Money and Gold. )*

Out of cavernous pits a thing shall come forth which will make all
the nations of the world toil and sweat with the greatest torments,
anxiety and labour, that they may gain its aid.

*( Of the Dread of Poverty. )*

The malicious and terrible [monster] will cause so much terror of
itself in men that they will rush together, with a rapid motion,
like madmen, thinking they are escaping her boundless force.

*( Of Advice. )*

The man who may be most necessary to him who needs him, will be
repaid with ingratitude, that is greatly contemned.

1329.

*( Of Bees. )*

They live together in communities, they are destroyed that we may
take the honey from them. Many and very great nations will be
destroyed in their own dwellings.

1330.

WHY DOGS TAKE PLEASURE IN SMELLING AT EACH OTHER.

This animal has a horror of the poor, because they eat poor food,
and it loves the rich, because they have good living and especially
meat. And the excrement of animals always retains some virtue of its
origin as is shown by the faeces ...

Now dogs have so keen a smell, that they can discern by their nose
the virtue remaining in these faeces, and if they find them in the
streets, smell them and if they smell in them the virtue of meat or
of other things, they take them, and if not, they leave them: And to
return to the question, I say that if by means of this smell they
know that dog to be well fed, they respect him, because they judge
that he has a powerful and rich master; and if they discover no such
smell with the virtue of meat, they judge that dog to be of small
account and to have a poor and humble master, and therefore they
bite that dog as they would his master.

1331.

The circular plans of carrying earth are very useful, inasmuch as
men never stop in their work; and it is done in many ways. By one of
these ways men carry the earth on their shoulders, by another in
chests and others on wheelbarrows. The man who carries it on his
shoulders first fills the tub on the ground, and he loses time in
hoisting it on to his shoulders. He with the chests loses no time.
[Footnote: The subject of this text has apparently no connection
with the other texts of this section.]

Irony (1332).

1332.

If Petrarch was so fond of bay, it was because it is of a good taste
in sausages and with tunny; I cannot put any value on their foolery.
[Footnote: Conte Porro has published these lines in the _Archivio
Stor. Lombarda_ VIII, IV; he reads the concluding line thus: _I no
posso di loro gia (sic) co' far tesauro._--This is known to be by a
contemporary poet, as Senatore Morelli informs me.]

Tricks (1333-1335).

1333.

We are two brothers, each of us has a brother. Here the way of
saying it makes it appear that the two brothers have become four.

1334.

TRICKS OF DIVIDING.

Take in each hand an equal number; put 4 from the right hand into
the left; cast away the remainder; cast away an equal number from
the left hand; add 5, and now you will find 13 in this [left] hand;
that is-I made you put 4 from the right hand into the left, and cast
away the remainder; now your right hand has 4 more; then I make you
throw away as many from the right as you threw away from the left;
so, throwing from each hand a quantity of which the remainder may be
equal, you now have 4 and 4, which make 8, and that the trick may
not be detec- ted I made you put 5 more, which made 13.

TRICKS OF DIVIDING.

Take any number less than 12 that you please; then take of mine
enough to make up the number 12, and that which remains to me is the
number which you at first had; because when I said, take any number
less than 12 as you please, I took 12 into my hand, and of that 12
you took such a number as made up your number of 12; and what you
added to your number, you took from mine; that is, if you had 8 to
go as far as to 12, you took of my 12, 4; hence this 4 transferred
from me to you reduced my 12 to a remainder of 8, and your 8 became
12; so that my 8 is equal to your 8, before it was made 12.

[Footnote: G. Govi _says in the_ 'Saggio' p. 22: _Si dilett*
Leonarda, di giuochi di prestigi e molti (?) ne descrisse, che si
leggono poi riportati dal Paciolo nel suo libro:_ de Viribus
Quantitatis, _e che, se non tutti, sono certo in gran parte
invenzioni del Vinci._]

1335.

If you want to teach someone a subject you do not know yourself, let
him measure the length of an object unknown to you, and he will
learn the measure you did not know before;--Master Giovanni da Lodi.

_XXI._

_Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes._

_When we consider how superficial and imperfect are the accounts of
Leonardo's life written some time after his death by Vasari and
others, any notes or letters which can throw more light on his
personal circumstances cannot fail to be in the highest degree
interesting. The texts here given as Nos._ 1351--1353, _set his
residence in Rome in quite a new aspect; nay, the picture which
irresistibly dwells in our minds after reading these details of his
life in the Vatican, forms a striking contrast to the contemporary
life of Raphael at Rome._

_I have placed foremost of these documents the very remarkable
letters to the Defterdar of Syria. In these Leonardo speaks of
himself as having staid among the mountains of Armenia, and as the
biographies of the master tell nothing of any such distant journeys,
it would seem most obvious to treat this passage as fiction, and so
spare ourselves the onus of proof and discussion. But on close
examination no one can doubt that these documents, with the
accompanying sketches, are the work of Leonardo's own hand. Not
merely is the character of the handwriting his, but the spelling and
the language are his also. In one respect only does the writing
betray any marked deviation from the rest of the notes, especially
those treating on scientific questions; namely, in these
observations he seems to have taken particular pains to give the
most distinct and best form of expression to all he had to say; we
find erasures and emendations in almost every line. He proceeded, as
we shall see, in the same way in the sketches for letters to
Giuliano de' Medici, and what can be more natural, I may ask, than
to find the draft of a letter thus altered and improved when it is
to contain an account of a definite subject, and when personal
interests are in the scale? The finished copies as sent off are not
known to exist; if we had these instead of the rough drafts, we
might unhesitatingly have declared that some unknown Italian
engineer must have been, at that time, engaged in Armenia in the
service of the Egyptian Sultan, and that Leonardo had copied his
documents. Under this hypothesis however we should have to state
that this unknown writer must have been so far one in mind with
Leonardo as to use the same style of language and even the same
lines of thought. This explanation might--as I say--have been
possible, if only we had the finished letters. But why should these
rough drafts of letters be regarded as anything else than what they
actually and obviously are? If Leonardo had been a man of our own
time, we might perhaps have attempted to account for the facts by
saying that Leonardo, without having been in the East himself, might
have undertaken to write a Romance of which the scene was laid in
Armenia, and at the desire of his publisher had made sketches of
landscape to illustrate the text.

I feel bound to mention this singular hypothesis as it has actually
been put forward (see No. 1336 note 5); and it would certainly seem
as though there were no other possible way of evading the conclusion
to which these letters point, and their bearing on the life of the
master,--absurd as the alternative is. But, if, on a question of
such importance, we are justified in suggesting theories that have
no foundation in probability, I could suggest another which, as
compared with that of a Fiction by Leonardo, would be neither more
nor less plausible; it is, moreover the only other hypothesis,
perhaps, which can be devised to account for these passages, if it
were possible to prove that the interpretation that the documents
themselves suggest, must be rejected a priori; viz may not Leonardo
have written them with the intention of mystifying those who, after
his death, should try to decipher these manuscripts with a view to
publishing them? But if, in fact, no objection that will stand the
test of criticism can be brought against the simple and direct
interpretation of the words as they stand, we are bound to regard
Leonardo's travels in the East as an established fact. There is, I
believe nothing in what we know of his biography to negative such a
fact, especially as the details of his life for some few years are
wholly unknown; nor need we be at a loss for evidence which may
serve to explain--at any rate to some extent--the strangeness of his
undertaking such a journey. We have no information as to Leonardo's
history between 1482 and 1486; it cannot be proved that he was
either in Milan or in Florence. On the other hand the tenor of this
letter does not require us to assume a longer absence than a year or
two. For, even if his appointment_ (offitio) _as Engineer in Syria
had been a permanent one, it might have become untenable--by the
death perhaps of the Defterdar, his patron, or by his removal from
office--, and Leonardo on his return home may have kept silence on
the subject of an episode which probably had ended in failure and
disappointment.

>From the text of No. 1379 we can hardly doubt that Leonardo intended
to make an excursion secretly from Rome to Naples, although so far
as has hitherto been known, his biographers never allude to it. In
another place (No. 1077) he says that he had worked as an Engineer
in Friuli. Are we to doubt this statement too, merely because no
biographer has hitherto given us any information on the matter? In
the geographical notes Leonardo frequently speaks of the East, and
though such passages afford no direct proof of his having been
there, they show beyond a doubt that, next to the Nile, the
Euphrates, the Tigris and the Taurus mountains had a special
interest in his eyes. As a still further proof of the futility of
the argument that there is nothing in his drawings to show that he
had travelled in the East, we find on Pl. CXX a study of oriental
heads of Armenian type,--though of course this may have been made in
Italy.

If the style of these letters were less sober, and the expressions
less strictly to the point throughout, it miglit be possible to
regard them as a romantic fiction instead of a narrative of fact.
Nay, we have only to compare them with such obviously fanciful
passages as No. 1354, Nos. 670-673, and the Fables and Prophecies.
It is unnecessary to discuss the subject any further here; such
explanations as the letter needs are given in the foot notes.

The drafts of letters to Lodovico il Moro are very remarkable.
Leonardo and this prince were certainly far less closely connected,
than has hitherto been supposed. It is impossible that Leonardo can
have remained so long in the service of this prince, because the
salary was good, as is commonly stated. On the contrary, it would
seem, that what kept him there, in spite of his sore need of the
money owed him by the prince, was the hope of some day being able to
carry out the project of casting the_ 'gran cavallo'.

Drafts of Letters and Reports referring to Armenia (1336. 1337).

1336.

TO THE DEVATDAR OF SYRIA, LIEUTENANT OF THE SACRED SULTAN OF
BABYLON.

[*3] The recent disaster in our Northern parts which I am certain
will terrify not you alone but the whole world, which

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