"The manuscripts are a map of Leonardo's mind. They contain everything from the briefest half-sentence or squiggled calculation to fully worked-out scientific treatises and literary exercises. Their subject matter ranges from anatomy to zoology... The great lesson of the manuscripts is that everything is to be questioned, investigated, peered into, worried away at, brought back to first principles." (Nicholl, 7)
The First Notebooks
The earliest- intact- notebooks from Leonardo date back to the mid 1480’s. Scribblings and writings of his are known to exist from before this time- but it was at this point that he began habitually keeping his collected thoughts in books. The oldest known notebook is most likely Paris MS B in which the subject matter is imaginative and diverse- a trademark of Leonardo’s various pursuits and interests (Nicholl 209). Architecture, maps, personal notes (like funding information and mailing addresses of models) and futuristic military technology are organized and scribbled on each page.
MS B has the first detailed designs for Leonardo’s flying machine- the ornithopter. It is essentially an
aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designed specifically to imitate the flight of birds, it differs from the helicopter that initiates flight by a helix movement. He explores the ideas of the helicopter in a later entry. “The screw will find its female in the air and will climb upward.” he writes (Nicholl 212).
The ornithopter- Flying-machine. Designs from paris MS B Showing horizontal and Vertical version.
I am unsure as to if any of these blue prints ever made it off of paper- but it is interesting to think of how these ideas may have been received at this time. The words extraterrestrial and sci-fi were used by Nicholl to describe such inventions. I feel like so much of his pursuits were a little forward for the masses to accept.
Leonardo’s notebooks also include a large amount of puns and word games collectively called rebuses (this particular example anyway). The purpose of the rebus was to avoid the use of words, by using pictures (a visual code), linguistic interpretations, and double meanings (Nicholl 218).
An example of a Rebus- in which sometimes a single picture or a collection of pictures represented a word- it was a means of mapping out ideas. Each rebus had a solution and a key to help guide to the correct answer (Nicholl 218).
. Nicholl sees these drawings- along with poems, other puns and recorded jokes as a means to color Leonardo’s personality. That these jests were means to entertain himself, and less so in the conventional means of entertaining others, or making them laugh.
If I were to interject with my own opinion- from what I know- I would agree that Leonardo may have internalized a lot of his thoughts and conversations. The more I read, the more I feel as though his notebooks became someone to talk to. A place to write his thoughts- and maybe by putting them down, they talked back to him.
The Moor’s Mistress
Cecelia, became Ludovico’s courtesan sometime around 1487. As Nicholl eloquently puts it, “…it was not until 1490 that we have incontrovertible evidence of the liaison in the time-honored form of pregnancy.” While pregnant with Ludovico’s child, he marries the Daughter of the Duke of Ferra, Beatrice- for political reasons. According to Nicholl, it is rumored through other sources that Beatrice refused to consummate the marriage while Ludovico continued to pursue Cecilia (Nicholl, 228).
The Painting was “painted on the backdrop of sex, gossip and poetry,”- for the appreciation of her lover (Nicholl, 229). Nicholl uses this as a foundation to compare Lady with an Ermine to Ginevra de’ Benci- both aesthetically and in meaning. The attentiveness of the subject, the ¾ view, and the gaze outside of frame parallel to each other physically. Subject wise, the idea that resonates in both of the paintings overall was to capture a “kind of love object.”
Nicholls interpretation of the Ermine was particularly interesting to me, “The ermine, because of its temperance… will rather let itself be taken by hunters than take refuge in a muddy den, in order not to stain its purity.” (Nicholl, 229). Leonardo was very clever to take the character of an animal, and to place it in the portrait of Cecilia in place of her paramour- who in context- wouldn’t muddy his shoes to marry his real lover from a lower social standing. I wonder if he ever caught onto the fact that the artist paralleled him to such a creature- a natural predator (as Nicholl puts it). Sometimes I feel we can over think paintings- especially in an art setting where everyone aims to dissect and interpret. I don’t think it is possible for us to overanalyze Leonardo’s paintings, drawings, poems. I am just getting this sense of a man whose mind never quit working. Someone who could find meaning and natural pattern in everything, and that if he wasn’t- he wasn’t seeing it right.
The Anatomist
Thanks to Leonardo’s notebooks, we have a written record of his first interests in anatomy- during the late 1480’s. He made such profound achievements in this area that it is debated as to whether this was his greatest- most significant achievement. In 1489 at the age of 36, He began mapping and documenting the human body more in depth and ever before.
“The orthodox felt that anatomy was a curiosity too far: man was made in God’s image, and should not be stripped down like a piece of machinery… There is a certain dogged courage in these investigations, which were beset by taboos and doctrinal doubts, and which depended on the stressful and repulsive procedures of post-modem examination in pre-refrigeration circumstances…” (Nicholl, 240).
Part of his in depth study of the human figure, in addition to an in-depth study of the scull, body systems, the paths of arteries and veins, muscle groups, the controls of motion and the most famous of all these studies- the proportions of man. The Virtruvian Man is a drawing that tabulates the proportions of the human body- in relation to other parts and measured in palms and fingers (Nicholl, 247).
The real big questions posed about the Virtruvian man is as to whether of not it is actually a self portrait of Leonardo. An ideal muscular figure- possibly better aged than 36 with perfectly symmetrical features and stern expression suggests to some that it is more than a picture of someone. Could it actually be one of the few portraits of the man we rip apart the words of his notebooks to so eagerly learn about.
The Virtruvian Man
This is an example of an excellent blog on a reading. Your interest in what you are learning comes across, and your personal approach adds interest for your readers. I note that the quotation about the ermine that you attribute to Nicholl is from a medieval bestiary (it doesn't sound like modern science). I got to see the original Vitruvian Man in a special exhibition in Venice; I agree that it is probably a self-portrait.
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