Chapter 121
1360.
Tell me how the things happened.
1361.
j lorezo 2 inbiadali 3 inferri de 4in lorezo 5[inno abuil] 6 in acocatu 7 per la sella 8colte di lor 9v cavallott I0el uiagg IIal I2a lurez 13in biada 14inferri 15abuss 16in viagg 17alorz [Footnote: This seems to be the beginning of a letter, but only the first words of the lines have been preserved, the leaf being torn down the middle. No translation is possible.]
1362.
And so may it please our great Author that I may demonstrate the nature of man and his customs, in the way I describe his figure.
[Footnote: A preparatory note for the pa.s.sage given as No. 798, 11. 41-42.]
1363.
This writing distinctly about the kite seems to be my destiny, because among the first recollections of my infancy, it seemed to me that, as I was in my cradle, a kite came to me and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips.
[Footnote: This note probably refers to the text No. 1221.]
1364.
[When I did well, as a boy you used to put me in prison. Now if I do it being grown up, you will do worse to me.]
1365.
Tell me if anything was ever done.
1366.
Tell me if ever I did a thing which me....
1367.
Do not reveal, if liberty is precious to you; my face is the prison of love.
[Footnote: This note seems to be a quotation.]
1368.
Maestro Leonardo of Florence.
[Footnote: So Leonardo writes his name on a sheet with sundry short notes, evidently to try a pen. Compare the signature with those in Nos. 1341, 1348 and 1374 (see also No. 1346, l. 33). The form "Lionardo" does not occur in the autographs. The Portrait of the Master in the Royal Library at Turin, which is reproduced-slightly diminished-on Pl. I, has in the original two lines of writing underneath; one in red chalk of two or three words is partly effaced: lionardo it... lm (or lai?); the second written in pencil is as follows: fatto da lui stesso a.s.sai vecchio. In both of these the writing is very like the Master's, but is certainly only an imitation.]
Notes bearing Dates (1369-1378).
1369.
The day of Santa Maria della Neve [of the Snows] August the 2nd 1473. [Footnote: W. An. I. 1368. 1369. This date is on a drawing of a rocky landscape. See Chronique des Arts 1881 no. 23: Leonard de Vinci a-t-il ete au Righi le 5 aout 1473? letter by H. de Geymuller. The next following date in the MSS. is 1478 (see No. 663).
1370.
On the 2nd of April 1489, book ent.i.tled 'Of the human figure'. [Footnote: While the letters in the MS. notes of 1473 and 1478 are very ornate, this note and the texts on anatomy on the same sheet (for instance No. 805) are in the same simple hand as we see on
The text No. 720 belongs to the year 1490; No. 1510 to the year 1492; No. 1459, No. 1384 and No. 1460 to the year 1493; No. 1463, No. 1517, No. 1024, 1025 and 1461 to the year 1494; Nos. 1523 and 1524 to the year 1497.
1371.
On the 1st of August 1499, I wrote here of motion and of weight.
[Footnote:1371. Scrissi qui. Leonardo does not say where; still we may a.s.sume that it was not in Milan. Amoretti writes, Memorie Storiche, chap. XIX: Sembra pertanto che non nel 1499 ma nel 1500, dopo il ritorno e la prigionia del duca, sia da qui part.i.to Lionardo per andare a Firenze; ed e quindi probabile, che i mesi di governo nuovo e incerto abbia pa.s.sati coll' amico suo Francesco Melzi a Vaprio, ove meglio che altrove studiar potea la natura, e soprattutta le acque, e l'Adda specialmente, che gia era stato l'ogetto delle sue idrostatiche ricerche. At that time Melzi was only six years of age. The next date is 1502; to this year belong No. 1034, 1040, 1042, 1048 and 1053. The note No. 1525 belongs to the year 1503.]
1372.
On the 9th of July 1504, Wednesday, at seven o'clock, died Ser Piero da Vinci, notary at the Palazzo del Podesta, my father, -at seven o'clock, being eighty years old, leaving behind ten sons and two daughters.
[Footnote: This statement of Ser Piero's age contradicts that of the Ria.s.sunto della portata di Antonio da Vinci (Leonardo's grandfather), who speaks of Ser Piero as being thirty years old in 1457; and that of the Ria.s.sunto della portata di Ser Piero e Francesco, sons of Antonia da Vinci, where Ser Piero is mentioned as being forty in 1469. These doc.u.ments were published by G. UZIELLI, Ricerche intorno a L. da Vinci, Firenze, 1872, pp. 144 and 146. Leonardo was, as is well known, a natural son. His mother 'La Catarina' was married in 1457 to Acchattabriga di Piero del Vaccha da Vinci. She died in 1519. Leonardo never mentions her in the Ma.n.u.scripts. In the year of Leonardo's birth Ser Piero married Albiera di Giovanni Amadoci, and after her death at the age of thirty eight he again married, Francesca, daughter of Ser Giovanni Lanfredi, then only fifteen. Their children were Leonardo's halfbrothers, Antonio (b. 1476), Ser Giuliano (b. 1479), Lorenzo (b. 1484), a girl, Violante (b. 1485), and another boy Domenico (b. 1486); Domenico's descendants still exist as a family. Ser Piero married for the third time Lucrezia di Guglielmo Cortigiani by whom he had six children: Margherita (b. 1491), Benedetto (b. 1492), Pandolfo (b. 1494), Guglielmo (b. 1496), Bartolommeo (b. 1497), and Giovanni) date of birth unknown). Pierino da Vinci the sculptor (about 1520-1554) was the son of Bartolommeo, the fifth of these children. The dates of their deaths are not known, but we may infer from the above pa.s.sage that they were all still living in 1505.]
1373.
On Wednesday at seven o'clock died Ser Piero da Vinci on the 9th of July 1504.
[Footnote: This and the previous text it may be remarked are the only mention made by Leonardo of his father; Nos. 1526, 1527 and No. 1463 are of the year 1504.]
1374.
Begun by me, Leonardo da Vinci, on the l2th of July 1505.
[Footnote: Thus he writes on the first page of the MS. The t.i.tle is on the foregoing coversheet as follows: Libro t.i.tolato disstrafformatione coe (cioe) d'un corpo nvn (in un) altro sanza diminuitione e acresscemento di materia.]
1375.
Begun at Milan on the l2th of September 1508.
[Footnote: No. 1528 and No. 1529 belong to the same year. The text Vol. I, No. 4 belongs to the following year 1509 (1508 old style); so also does No. 1009.- Nos. 1022, 1057 and 1464 belong to 1511.]
1376.
On the 9th of January 1513.
[Footnote: No. 1465 belongs to the same year. No. 1065 has the next date 1514.]
1377.
The Magnifico Giuliano de' Medici left Rome on the 9th of January 1515, just at daybreak, to take a wife in Savoy; and on the same day fell the death of the king of France.
[Footnote: Giuliano de Medici, brother to Pope Leo X.; see note to Nos. 1351-1353. In February, 1515, he was married to Filiberta, daughter of Filippo, Duke of Savoy, and aunt to Francis I, Louis XII's successor on the throne of France. Louis XII died on Jan. 1st, and not on Jan. 9th as is here stated.- This addition is written in paler ink and evidently at a later date.]
1378.
On the 24th of June, St John's day, 1518 at Amboise, in the palace of...