Volume Volume2\Miscellaneous Notes
Entry# 1379. Memoranda before 1500 (1379-l413).
Contents: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2
Memoranda before 1500 (1379-l413).
Find Longhi and tell him that you wait for him at Rome and will go
with him to Naples; make you pay the donation Footnote 2: _Libro di
Vitolone_ see No. 1506 note. and take the book by Vitolone, and the
measurements of the public buildings. 3 Have two covered boxes
made to be carried on mules, but bed-covers will be best; this makes
three, of which you will leave one at Vinci. 4 Obtain
the.............. from Giovanni Lombardo the linen draper of Verona.
Buy handkerchiefs and towels,.... and shoes, 4 pairs of hose, a
jerkin of... and skins, to make new ones; the lake of Alessandro.
Footnote: 7 and fol. It would seem from the text that Leonardo
intended to have instructions in painting on paper. It is hardly
necessary to point out that the Art of illuminating was quite
separate from that of painting.
Sell what you cannot take with you. Get from Jean de Paris the
method of painting in tempera and the way of making white Footnote:
The mysterious looking words, quite distinctly written, in line 1:
_ingol, amor a, ilopan a_ and on line 2: _enoiganod al_ are
obviously in cipher and the solution is a simple one; by reading
them backwards we find for _ingol_: logni-probably _longi_,
evidently the name of a person; for _amor a_: _a Roma_, for _ilopan
a_: _a Napoli_. Leonardo has done the same in two passages treating
on some secrets of his art Nos. 641 and 729, the only other places
in which we find this cipher employed; we may therefore conclude
that it was for the sake of secrecy that he used it.
There can be no doubt, from the tenor of this passage, that Leonardo
projected a secret excursion to Naples. Nothing has hitherto been
known of this journey, but the significance of the passage will be
easily understood by a reference to the following notes, from which
we may infer that Leonardo really had at the time plans for
travelling further than Naples. From lines 3, 4 and 7 it is evident
that he purposed, after selling every thing that was not easily
portable, to leave a chest in the care of his relations at Vinci.
His luggage was to be packed into two trunks especially adapted for
transport by mules. The exact meaning of many sentences in the
following notes must necessarily remain obscure. These brief remarks
on small and irrelevant affairs and so forth are however of no
historical value. The notes referring to the preparations for his
journey are more intelligible.
salt, and how to make tinted paper; sheets of paper folded up; and
his box of colours; learn to work flesh colours in tempera, learn to
dissolve gum lac, linseed ... white, of the garlic of Piacenza; take
'de Ponderibus'; take the works of Leonardo of Cremona. Remove the
small furnace ... seed of lilies and of... Sell the boards of the
support. Make him who stole it, give you the ... learn levelling and
how much soil a man can dig out in a day.
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