Notebooks (42 page)

Authors: Leonardo da Vinci,Irma Anne Richter,Thereza Wells

Tags: #History, #Fiction, #General, #European, #Art, #Renaissance, #Leonardo;, #Leonardo, #da Vinci;, #1452-1519, #Individual artists, #Art Monographs, #Drawing By Individual Artists, #Notebooks; sketchbooks; etc, #Individual Artist, #History - Renaissance, #Renaissance art, #Individual Painters - Renaissance, #Drawing & drawings, #Drawing, #Techniques - Drawing, #Individual Artists - General, #Individual artists; art monographs, #Art & Art Instruction, #Techniques

BOOK: Notebooks

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The water fallen from the clouds will so change its nature as to remain a long time upon the slopes of the mountains without making any movement. And this will happen in many and diverse lands:

The snow falling in flakes which is water.
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Many there will be who will wax great in their destruction:

The ball of snow rolling over the snow.

A great part of the sea will fly towards the sky and for a long time it will not return:

That is in the clouds.

The great rocks of the mountains will dart forth fire, such as will burn up the timber of many vast forests and many beasts both wild and tame:

The flint of the tinder-box, which makes a fire that consumes the loads of faggots cleared from the forests, and with this fire the flesh of beasts is cooked.
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Of tinder

With stone and iron things will be rendered visible which were not previously seen.
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Of metals

These shall come forth out of dark and gloomy caves; that which will put the whole human race in great anxiety, peril, and death. To many that follow it, after many sorrows it will give delight, but whosoever does not side with it will die in want and misfortune. It shall lead to the commission of an endless number of crimes; it shall increase the number of bad men and encourage them to assassinations, robberies, and enslavement; it shall hold its own followers in suspicion; it shall deprive free cities of their happy condition; it shall take away the life of many; it shall make men torment each other with many frauds, deceits, and treacheries. O monster! How much better were it for men that thou shouldst return to your cave! By this the vast forests shall be stripped of their trees, by this an infinite number of animals shall lose their lives.

Of fire

One shall arise from small beginnings that will rapidly become great; it shall have respect for no created thing; but by its power it shall transform almost everything from its natural condition into another.
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The fear of poverty

A malignant and terrifying thing will spread so much fear among men that, in their panic desire to flee from it, they will hasten to increase its boundless powers.
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The struggle for property and the greed for money are shown to be a basic social evil.

Of money and gold

Out of cavernous pits a thing shall come forth which will make all the nations of the world toil and sweat with the greatest torments, anxiety and labour, that they may gain its aid.
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Of great guns, which come out of the pit and the mould

There shall come forth from beneath the ground that which with its terrific noise will stun all who are near and with its breath will kill men and destroy cities and castles.
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Of swords and spears which of themselves never
do any harm to anyone

That which of itself is gentle and void of all offence will become terrible and fierce by reason of evil companionship, and will take the lives of many people with the utmost cruelty, and it would slay many more if it were not that these are protected by bodies which are themselves without life, and have come forth out of pits—that is by cuirasses of iron.
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The dead will come from underground and their fierce movements will send numberless human beings out of the world:

Iron, which comes from underground, is dead, but the weapons are made of it which kill so many men.
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Oh, how many great buildings will be ruined by reason of Fire: The fire of great guns.
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The bones of the dead shall be seen by their rapid movement to govern the fortunes of their mover: By dice.

Feathers shall raise men towards heaven, even as they do birds: That is by the letters written with their quills.
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The dead shall be seen carrying the living in various places: In carts and ships.
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Of dreaming

Men shall walk and not stir, they shall speak with those who are not present, they shall hear those who do not speak.
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It shall seem to men that they see destructions in the sky, and flames descending therefrom shall seem to fly away in terror; they shall hear creatures of every kind speaking human language; they shall run in a moment to diverse parts of the world without movement; they shall see the most radiant splendours amidst darkness.

O marvel of mankind! What frenzy has thus impelled you! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you in human speech. You shall behold yourselves falling from great heights without suffering any injury; torrents will accompany you, and will mingle in their rapid course.
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Of paper being formed out of rags

That shall be revered and honoured and its precepts shall be listened to with reverence and love, which was at first despised and mangled and tortured with many different blows.
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Of the cruelty of men

Creatures shall be seen on the earth who will always be fighting one with another, with the greatest losses and frequent deaths on either side. There will be no bounds to their malice; by their strong limbs a great portion of the trees in the vast forests of the world shall be laid low; and when they are filled with food the gratification of their desire shall be to deal out death, affliction, labour, terror, and banishment to every living thing; and from their boundless pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but the excessive weight of their limbs will hold them down. Nothing shall remain on the earth, or under the earth, or in the waters that shall not be pursued, disturbed, or spoiled, and that which is in one country removed into another. And their bodies shall be made the tomb and the means of transit of all the living bodies which they have slain.

O Earth, why dost thou not open and hurl them into the deep fissures of thy vast abysses and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven so cruel and horrible a monster.
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Of the desire for wealth

Men out of fear shall pursue the thing they most fear: That is they will be miserable lest they should fall into misery.
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IV. JESTS

A jest

A priest going the round of his parish on Saturday before Easter, sprinkling holy water in the houses as was his custom, came to a painter’s room and there sprinkled the water upon some of his pictures. The painter, turning round somewhat annoyed, asked him why this sprinkling had been bestowed on his pictures; then the priest said that it was the custom and that it was his duty to do so, that he was doing good, and that whoever did a good deed might expect a return as good and better; for so God had promised that every good deed that was done on earth shall be rewarded a hundredfold from on high. Then the painter, having waited until the priest had walked out, stepped to the window above, and threw a large bucket of water on to his back, saying: Here is the reward a hundredfold from on high as you said would come from the good you did me with your holy water with which you have damaged half my pictures.
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The Franciscan friars are wont to keep certain periods of fasting when they do not eat meat in their monasteries, but on journeys as they are living on charity they have licence to eat whatever is set before them. Now a couple of these friars travelling under these conditions stopped at an inn in company of a certain merchant, and sat down with him at the same table, where on account of the poverty of the inn nothing was served except a small roasted cockerel. At this the merchant, as he saw that this would be little for himself, turned to the friars and said: ‘If I remember rightly you do not eat any kind of meat in your monasteries at this season.’ At these words the friars were constrained by their rule to admit without further cavil that this was the case; so the merchant had his desire and ate the chicken, and the friars fared as best they could.

Now after having dined thus, the table-companions departed all three together, and after travelling some distance they came to a river of considerable width and depth, and as they were all three on foot—the friars by reason of their poverty, and the other from avarice—it was necessary, according to the custom of company, that one of the friars, being barefoot, should carry the merchant on his shoulders; and so the friar, having given him his clogs to hold, took up the man. But as it so happened the friar, when he found himself in the middle of the river, remembered another of his rules, and stopping short like St Christopher raised his head towards him who was weighing upon him and said: ‘Just tell me, have you any money about you?’ ‘You know quite well that I have,’ answered the other. ‘How do you suppose a merchant like me could go about otherwise?’ ‘Alas,’ said the friar, ‘our rule forbids us to carry any money on our persons’, and forthwith he dropped him into the water. As the merchant perceived that this was done as a jest and in revenge for the injury he had done them, he with a smiling face, and blushing somewhat from shame endured the revenge peaceably.
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A man wishing to prove on the authority of Pythagoras that he had been in the world on a former occasion, and another not allowing him to conclude his argument, the first said to the second: ‘This is a token that I was formerly here, I remember that you were a miller.’ The other feeling stung by these words agreed that it was true for he remembered as a token that the speaker had been the ass which had carried the flour for him.
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A man gave up associating with one of his friends because the latter had a habit of talking maliciously against his other friends. This neglected friend, one day reproached him and with many complaints besought him to tell him the reason why he had forgotten so great a friendship as theirs; to which he replied: I do not wish to be seen in your company any more because I like you, and if you talk to others maliciously of me, your friend, you may cause them to form a bad impression of you, as I did when you talked maliciously of them to me. If we have no more to do with each other it will seem as though we had become enemies, and the fact that you talk maliciously of me, as is your habit, will not be blamed so much as if we were constantly in each other’s company.
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V. SYMBOLISM