2017-01-24

Leonardo da Vinci

At his death in 1519, Leonardo da Vinci is said to have left 18 notebooks containing his analyses on painting and other topics. Ten of the notebooks have vanished, and we must rely on transcripts from them which Leonardo's literary executor, Francesco Melzi, compiled some time before 1542.

This compilation, the Trattato della pittura, must have existed and circulated in multiple copies, but only a single one, which once belonged to the artist-monk Matteo Zaccolini (1574–1630), survives.

This unique document is now held by the Vatican Apostolic Library as Urb.lat.1270. This week a digital version of the black-and-white microfilm of the manuscript arrived online, holding the place in the digital library for the color scan which will be made some time in the future.

Leonardo wrote on how to draw a vast range of subjects including even the ramifications of trees (fol. 245r):


His words read: Quando la pianta maestra si dividerà in uno o piú rami principali ad una medesima altezza, allora i margini delle giunture di tali rami si faranno piú alti a riscontro l'uno dell'altro che inverso il centro dell'albero, inverso il quale rimarranno gran concavità. (Section 819 in the Italian edition of 1947).


Here is the full list of 106 Urb.lat. digitizations on January 24:
  1. Urb.lat.172
  2. Urb.lat.195
  3. Urb.lat.221
  4. Urb.lat.227
  5. Urb.lat.234, Haly Abbas, medical text, HT to Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) who points out a good color photo of folio 1r at the MacKinney Collection
  6. Urb.lat.244
  7. Urb.lat.247
  8. Urb.lat.274
  9. Urb.lat.283
  10. Urb.lat.308, the Grammatica by Diomedes, the Ars Grammatica of Alcuin and other works. Written in Ferrara, Italy in about 1475-1480 (see Grafton's Rome Reborn description).
  11. Urb.lat.353
  12. Urb.lat.359
  13. Urb.lat.376
  14. Urb.lat.411
  15. Urb.lat.413
  16. Urb.lat.458
  17. Urb.lat.487
  18. Urb.lat.497
  19. Urb.lat.498.pt.1
  20. Urb.lat.498.pt.2
  21. Urb.lat.546
  22. Urb.lat.638
  23. Urb.lat.750
  24. Urb.lat.799
  25. Urb.lat.818.pt.2
  26. Urb.lat.819.pt.1
  27. Urb.lat.819.pt.2
  28. Urb.lat.844
  29. Urb.lat.852.pt.1
  30. Urb.lat.852.pt.2
  31. Urb.lat.856.pt.1
  32. Urb.lat.898
  33. Urb.lat.959
  34. Urb.lat.1012
  35. Urb.lat.1016
  36. Urb.lat.1043
  37. Urb.lat.1044
  38. Urb.lat.1046
  39. Urb.lat.1051
  40. Urb.lat.1054
  41. Urb.lat.1055
  42. Urb.lat.1067
  43. Urb.lat.1068
  44. Urb.lat.1069
  45. Urb.lat.1070
  46. Urb.lat.1077
  47. Urb.lat.1082
  48. Urb.lat.1086
  49. Urb.lat.1093
  50. Urb.lat.1100
  51. Urb.lat.1105
  52. Urb.lat.1109
  53. Urb.lat.1110
  54. Urb.lat.1111
  55. Urb.lat.1112
  56. Urb.lat.1113
  57. Urb.lat.1125
  58. Urb.lat.1203
  59. Urb.lat.1206
  60. Urb.lat.1231
  61. Urb.lat.1251
  62. Urb.lat.1252
  63. Urb.lat.1270, Trattato della pittura of Leonardo da Vinci (above). See Wikipedia.
  64. Urb.lat.1272
  65. Urb.lat.1280
  66. Urb.lat.1308
  67. Urb.lat.1319
  68. Urb.lat.1329, a book of scientific works including the Optics by Euclid in Latin translation (see Grafton's Rome Reborn description) and a translation of Muḥammad ibn Mūsá Khuwārizmī's Jabr wa-al-muqābalah by Gerard of Cremona, given the Latin title "Liber algebre et almuchabala." SLUL record. Here is a perspective drawing of a street from folio 1r:
  69. Urb.lat.1357
  70. Urb.lat.1370
  71. Urb.lat.1377
  72. Urb.lat.1383
  73. Urb.lat.1384
  74. Urb.lat.1385
  75. Urb.lat.1390
  76. Urb.lat.1393
  77. Urb.lat.1396
  78. Urb.lat.1397
  79. Urb.lat.1401
  80. Urb.lat.1414
  81. Urb.lat.1439
  82. Urb.lat.1449
  83. Urb.lat.1468
  84. Urb.lat.1492
  85. Urb.lat.1516-1520
  86. Urb.lat.1568
  87. Urb.lat.1572
  88. Urb.lat.1585
  89. Urb.lat.1624
  90. Urb.lat.1626
  91. Urb.lat.1629.pt.1
  92. Urb.lat.1629.pt.2
  93. Urb.lat.1643
  94. Urb.lat.1650
  95. Urb.lat.1681
  96. Urb.lat.1690
  97. Urb.lat.1697
  98. Urb.lat.1699
  99. Urb.lat.1703
  100. Urb.lat.1704
  101. Urb.lat.1719
  102. Urb.lat.1728
  103. Urb.lat.1739
  104. Urb.lat.1757
  105. Urb.lat.1761
  106. Urb.lat.1763
This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 90. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

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