Leonardo's Method · Chapter 9 of 15
7. Plans for Publication
It would be misleading to assume that the notebooks are solely treatises waiting for a publisher. The notebooks also contain very different kinds of material some military, some personal, some effectively lab notes and in these cases Leoanrdo is obviously less interested in communicating his ideas.
His military notes are almost always secretive, although when he writes to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan he offers to teach him "my secrets."[311] In everyday work he is guarded. In the Codex attanticus, for instance, he makes a note to himself to "make this secret."[312] He has good reason to be cautious. While he was Rome (1512-1515) working on burning mirrors, considered to be of great military use, there was a German competitor who practiced an early form of industrial espionage, trying to steal his ideas, not balking at writing hate letters to the pope.[313]
Some of Leonardo's notes are personal. Sometimes it is to remind himself that he has done something as when he notes "On the first day of August 1499, I wrote here on weight and motion."[314] Sometimes it is to remind himself to do something: "Tomorrow make the figures descending through the air, of various forms of carton, falling from our little bridge and then draw the figures and the motions which descents each one makes in various parts of their descent."[315] Sometimes this idea is put more succinctly as: "Experiment of tomorrow[316]," and elsewhere a larger time frame is involved: "Here one will make a record of all those things which have to do with the bronze horse which is presently in preparation."[317] In the personal notes we also find confirmation that he is concerned with spreading his ideas. For instance, in the midst of his studies of birds there is a revealing little note on CA214rd (c. 1507-1508). "Tomorrow look at all these cases, then copy them and cancel the originals and leave them in Florence, in order that if you should lose those which you are carrying with you, the invention will not be lost."[318] With comments such as this, it comes as no surprise that Leonardo's notes give evidence that he was writing to be read. On numerous occasions Leonardo refers specifically to readers. The most famous example is in the Madrid Codex I:
Read me, o reader, if you delight in me, because they are very rare the times that I am reborn into the world. Because the patience of such a profession is found in few who wish to recompose anew similar things once more. And come, o men, to see the miracles which by such studies are discovered in nature.[319]
There are other instances in the Codex Atlanticus. One is headed "On motion and weight: But make sure, o reader, that in this case you know to take into account the air."[320] Another refers to ancient philosophy: "Now observe, o reader, that which we can believe of our ancients who wished to define what kind of a thing is soul and life, unprovable things, while those things which at any hour can be known clearly and tested have been ignored and falsely believed for so many centuries."[321] In a third case Leonardo writes: "I request you, o reader, that when I speak of beam, that you understand that I wish to say a piece of equal length and weight, that is a body which has a length of equal weight and thickness."[322]
On other occasions Leonardo gives instructions to specific readers. When he writes to Diodarius of Soria, the lieutenant of the sacred Sultan of Babylon, "Do not be dismayed, O Diodarius, by the tardiness of my reply to your desirous request[323]," an imaginary reader may be involved. But elsewhere the persons addressed sound hardly fictive. In the Madrid Codex, for instance, Leonardo writes: "I remind you, o constructor of instruments."[324] In BN 2038 Leonardo refers to what the painter must consider, in the third person.[325] But on one occasion at least he shifts to the second person: "Hence, since you, o painter, know."[326] Similarly he writes "When you, o draughtsman, wish to make a good and useful study."[327] Elsewhere this becomes a plural: "When you, o draughtsmen, wish"[328] and in like fashion: "If you historians or poets or other mathematicians had not seen things badly with the eye..."[329] In the Windsor Corpus there is further direct discourse: "o observer of this machine of ours, do not be saddened that through the death of another you give knowledge but rather, rejoice that our author has fixed the intellect on such an excellent instrument."[330] In Manuscript E (1513-1514) he refers again to painters: "remind yourself, o painter, that the shades of shadow are as varied..."[331] and on the next folio: "O anatomical painter".[332] In a late passage in Manuscript G (1515-1516) Leonardo notes: "O observer of things do not praise yourself for knowing things which nature ordinarily conducts on its own, but take delight in knowing the cause of those things which are drawn in your mind."[333]
There is a larger context which makes these references to specific readers more important, namely, the hundreds of passages written in the second person. As we have noted, a few of these are Leonardo's reminders to himself. But many unequivocally assume a reader, as for instance a passage in the Codex Atlanticus where Leonardo writes: "I stated in the 7th conclusion how percussion....Now you for yourself experiment how the stick..."[334] Sometimes it is in the form of a question: "I ask you."[335] As we have seen above, this is part of his method. Many times instructions are intended to help readers repeat his experiments. Other passages confirm that he specifically planned to publish his work. In the Windsor Corpus, for instance, he makes a plea:
But through this very concise way of drawing it [i.e. the human body] in its various aspects one will give a complete and true knowledge and in order that this benefit reaches men, I teach the ways to print it methodically and I pray ye, o successors, that avarice not constrain you from printing it.[336]
Leonardo designed his own printing presses[337] and in the Madrid Codex there is a fascinating passage where he describes his method:
Of casting this work in print.
Coat the iron plate with white lead and eggs and then write on it lefthanded, scratching the ground. This done you shall cover everything with a coat of varnish, that is, a varnish containing giallolino or minium. Once dry, leave the plate to soak, and the ground of the letters, written on the white lead and eggs, will be removed together with the minium. As the minium is frangible, it will break away leaving the letters adhering to the copper plate. After this, hollow out the ground in your own way and the letters will stay in relief on a low ground. You may also blend minium with hard resin and apply it warm, as mentioned before, and it will be frangible.In order to see the letters more clearly, stain the plate with fumes of sulphur which will incorporate itself with the copper.[338]
This method would have given right way round printing and raises a fascinating possibility. Leonardo's notebooks contain a number of particularly clear drawings combined with a very careful handwriting. Were these drafts for the method described above? If so the very mirror script that is usually cited to prove that Leonardo was secretive and obtuse, may be evidence to the contrary.
Leonardo continued trying to get his work published and these attempts continued after his death as we learn from Vasari:
N.N., a painter of Milan, also possesses some writings of Leonardo, written in the same way, which treat of painting and of the methods of design and colour. Not long ago he came to Florence to see me, wishing to have the work printed. He afterwards went to Rome to put it in hand, but I do not know with what result.[339]
If this was the Treatise of painting, then we know in retrospect that it was not until a century later, namely, 1651, that the text was published.[340]