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.