32: Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci • Part 1: The Inner Life of Genius

When you hear the name… Leonardo da Vinci—what comes to mind?

The Mona Lisa. The Vitruvian Man perhaps. How about The Last Supper? I’ve heard it said that ‘no Italian home is complete without a picture of Da Vinci’s Last Supper.’

Here was a man, who in his 67 years, left such a mark on human culture that he is still revered for his genius today–500 years later.

This reverence has reached such mythic proportions that even the slightest scribbles from the master’s hand on discarded pieces of paper garner the attention of millionaires and start bidding wars.

For example, in July 2021, Christie’s auction house sold a tiny sketch by Leonardo for 12.2 Million dollars. This is a silverpoint ink sketch of the head of a bear, on a 3-by-3 inch paper square. It’s the size of a Post-It Note. 12.2 Million Dollars.

It’s not especially detailed, it probably took him–five minutes. And the only reason you would assume it’s by Leonardo is because it has his signature. But even outside of the excesses of the art industry, in modern culture, there is this aura of mystery and reverence about Leonardo da Vinci. And it’s an element of his reputation which started very early on, even a few decades after his death.

The art historian, Georgio Vasari, who was also an artist in the 1500’s, begins his biography of Leonardo with this passage:

“THE GREATEST GIFTS are often seen, in the course of nature, rained down by celestial influences on human creatures; and sometimes, in supernatural fashion, beauty, grace, and talent are united beyond measure in one single person, in a manner that to whatever task such a person turns his attention–his every action is so divine, that, surpassing all other men, it makes itself clearly known as a thing bestowed by God (as it is), and not acquired by human art.

This was seen by all mankind in Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, besides a beauty of body never sufficiently admired, there was an infinite grace in all his actions; and so great was his genius, and such its growth, that whatever he turned his mind to he made himself master of with ease.

In him was great bodily strength, joined to dexterity, with a spirit and courage ever royal and magnanimous; and the fame of his name so increased, that not only in his lifetime was he held in esteem, but his reputation became even greater among posterity after his death.”

Was he really so brilliant? Or is it all just myth making? Resulting from the exaggerations of patriotic Italian historians. How can we know for sure? Is there some evidence we can point to? Something that upon study reveals without a shadow of a doubt: here…lies genius.

It turns out there is.

But much like his mirror-script–our story, starts in reverse. Not with Leonardo’s birth… but with his death…

Welcome to Creative Codex. I am your host, MJDorian. This is episode 32: Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci • The Inner Life of Genius

Let’s begin…

 

Chapter 1: Death & Rebirth

On May 2nd, 1519, Leonardo da Vinci is lying on his deathbed.

Not in the fabled city of Florence, but in his chambers at the royal court of France. With King Francis the 1st sitting by his bedside.

This most celebrated Italian Renaissance man did not spend his final three years in Florence, Milan, or Rome, but as the revered court artist and friend of the King of France. Leonardo was even given his own manor next to King Francis’ castle in the village of Amboise.

It’s here that he spends his final moments. Lying in his ornate four post bed, with embroidered carmine curtains. In the room, he is accompanied by his assistant, Francesco Melzi, the royal servants, and the King himself.

When Leonardo was invited to Amboise, three years ago by King Francis, he was bestowed the distinguished title of “First Painter, Engineer, and Architect to the King.” And unlike many of the patrons Leonardo had throughout his 67 years, King Francis idolizes him to no end. Their relationship is one of mutual admiration and respect, and he is given full creative license with all his duties. A fitting final act for such a rare individual as Leonardo.

In the book, Leonardo da Vinci, the author, Walter Isaacson, states:

“Francis proved to be the perfect patron for Leonardo. He would admire Leonardo unconditionally, never pester him about finishing paintings, indulge his love of engineering and architecture, encourage him to stage pageants and fantasias, give him a comfortable home, and pay him a regular stipend.

Leonardo was given the title ‘First Painter, Engineer, and Architect to the King,’ but his value to Francis was his intellect and not his output. Francis had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experiential knowledge.

He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works, to why the moon shines. In turn, Leonardo could learn from the erudite, and graceful young King. As Leonardo once wrote in his notebooks, referring to Alexander the Great and his tutor, ‘Alexander and Aristotle were teachers of one another.’

Francis became ‘completely enamored’ with Leonardo, according to the sculptor Cellini. Who wrote ‘He took such pleasure in hearing him discourse that there were few days in the year when he was parted from him, which was one of the reasons why Leonardo did not manage to pursue to the end his miraculous studies.’ Cellini later quoted Francis declaring that he ‘could never believe there was another man born in this world who knew as much as Leonardo, and not only of sculpture, painting and architecture, for beyond that he was a profound philosopher.”

We learn further about Leonardo’s final moments in Amboise from one of his contemporaries, the writer and artist, Georgio Vasari. Vasari is known as the first Italian art historian, and his writing about the Renaissance was pivotal in inspiring artists for centuries to come.

Vasari’s claim to fame is a book called The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, first published in 1550. And it is here that the tale of Leonardo da Vinci is first told to the world. It is here that his legacy is first cemented in writing as one of the leading figures of the Renaissance.

Vasari did a great service to culture by documenting the story of Leonardo for all future generations, but he also plays a key role in crafting the myth of Leonardo–as we shall see.

In Vasari’s book, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, there is a chapter about Leonardo which ends with a description of this fateful scene at Amboise:

“When Leonardo finally became old, he lay ill for many months; and seeing himself near death, he wished to be carefully informed about the Catholic faith and about the path of goodness and the holy Christian religion, and then, with much lamenting, having confessed and repented, he devoutly desired to take the most Holy Sacrament out of bed, even though he could not stand upon his feet and had to be supported by his friends and servants.

The King, who was in the habit of paying him frequent and affectionate visits, arrived, and, out of respect, Leonardo sat up in bed to tell him about his illness and its symptoms, declaring, all the same, how much he had offended God and the men of the world by not having worked at his art as he should have.

He was then seized by a paroxysm, the harbinger of death.

Because of this, the king arose and held his head to help him

and to show him favor, so as to ease his pain,

and Leonardo’s most divine spirit, aware that he could receive no greater honor, expired in the arms of that king at the age of seventy-five.”

Vasari paints a compelling scene for us. And there is no doubt some of it must be true, as he likely consulted with Leonardo’s assistant and heir, Francesco Melzi, who was present in Amboise.

But there are already two glaring inaccuracies: Leonardo was not 75 at the time of his death, he was 67.

That inaccuracy could simply be due to poor record keeping, or the impression that Leonardo was older due to his penchant for keeping a long beard. Perhaps there may have also been some benefit for Leonardo to claim he was older, at some point in his life, it may have garnered him more respect or compensation. This mistake in calculation is forgivable.

But the second inaccuracy is much more egregious. It concerns Leonardo’s apparent deathbed conversion to Catholicism.

Vasari writes: “seeing himself near death, he wished to be carefully informed about the Catholic faith and about the path of goodness and the holy Christian religion, and then, with much lamenting, having confessed and repented, he devoutly desired to take the most Holy Sacrament out of bed, even though he could not stand upon his feet and had to be supported by his friends and servants.”

For anyone that knew him, this display would have been something grossly out of character for Leonardo. He was not a man concerned with religious formalities, and although many of his works depict figures of the Christian myths, there is no indication he aligned himself with Catholicism, and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary–that he held beliefs that challenged it.

For example, among his varied interests were geology and archaeology. In one period of his life, Leonardo gathered all the evidence he could, some through his own investigations, to prove that the Biblical Great Flood would have been impossible–the archaeological record simply did not support it.

Likewise, he was a man of science–his most valuable knowledge came from observing and measuring nature, and it was something he took great pride in. As we will see in his notebooks, it is a defining feature of his beautiful mind. All the more remarkable considering he lived over one hundred years before Isaac Newton.

And the final piece of evidence that contradicts Vasari…comes from Vasari himself.

In a rare first edition of his famous book, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Vasari doesn’t paint Leonardo as a repentant Christian. Instead, he gives us a glimpse of some deeper truth about his character. He writes:

“Leonardo formed in his mind a doctrine so heretical that he depended no more on any religion, perhaps placing scientific knowledge higher than Christian faith.”

This original description of Leonardo is very telling. All the more-so because Vasari cuts it out from the second edition of the book, and replaces it with a more palatable version of the master. In all the available versions of the book which you now read, this telling sentence is missing… ‘Leonardo formed in his mind a doctrine so heretical that he depended no more on any religion, perhaps placing scientific knowledge higher than Christian faith.’

The motivation to remove it may have been to avoid potential controversy with the Catholic church. An institution which, during the 1500’s, held great influence in Italian politics and society. To allow Leonardo to be associated with the heretical traditions that ran largely opposed to Christianity, such as Science, Alchemy and Hermeticism, would risk the suppression or marginalization of Leonardo’s story and accomplishments.

Over a hundred years after Leonardo’s death, the Catholic church still held power to prosecute scientists and prominent thinkers who thought ‘outside the box.’ For example, in 1633, Galileo was put on trial by the Roman Catholic Inquisition for promoting the heliocentric theory of Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus. Galileo was declared a heretic.

It’s events like these which made the founders of the United States of America so adamant about the separation of church and state.

So perhaps it is a blessing in disguise that Vasari altered Leonardo’s story in this way. It protected him from marginalization.

In the centuries that followed, Leonardo’s legend only grew. Artists would be so enamored by his legend that some would even paint romantic depictions of his final moments in Amboise.

One famous painting from 1818 is called: The Death of Leonardo, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, it was inspired by Vasari’s written account. It shows King Francis embracing Leonardo, cradling his head, their faces only an inch apart, in great affection, as if to seize any final breath of wisdom that the master might convey.

Side note: You can view this painting and many examples of the works we discuss in this episode on my site at: www.mjdorian.com/notebooks

There I’ve put together a companion gallery for this episode and everything we discuss. That’s www.mjdorian.com/notebooks

The link is also in the episode details.

It’s known that Leonardo rarely spoke or wrote about religion. Of all of his diverse interests, he seemed to consciously avoid it, once writing he would ‘not endeavor to write or give information of those things of which the human mind is incapable and which cannot be proved by an instance of nature.’

Such matters in Leonardo’s opinion were left ‘to the minds of friars and fathers of the people, who by inspiration possess the secrets.” [unquote]

In those final moments on his bed in Amboise, it’s unknown to what realms Leonardo’s thoughts may have wandered. But there is something which likely provided him solace. Thirty years earlier, he wrote this in his notebook:

“As a well-spent day brings a happy sleep, so a well-employed life brings a happy death.”

Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2nd, 1519. A service was held at the nearby church of Saint Florentin. Following the requests of his Last Will and Testament it included a procession of sixty poor men, carrying sixty candles, who were all compensated for their service.

His estate, pension, clothes, paintings, tools, and his notebooks were bequeathed to his assistant and heir: Francesco Melzi.

The Master was gone.

But paradoxically, the story of Leonardo and his lasting legacy, was just beginning…

Chapter 2: The Inner Life of Genius

For the last 500 years, Leonardo da Vinci has been celebrated as a Renaissance Master. An artist who elevated the craft of oil painting to heights never before seen and since then, rarely attained.

And although his paintings are remarkably beautiful–existing in a kind of eternal gallery of human achievement…it is not the paintings which truly distinguish Leonardo da Vinci as a timeless genius. It is his mind.

In his paintings we can see the height of his technical mastery and his creative will on full display. But it is somewhere else where we view the inner workings of Leonardo’s mind:

His notebooks.

Right now, scattered around the world, in the most secure and airtight vaults of the most illustrious museums, there exist the countless pages of Leonardo’s notebooks. From museums in Milan to Paris to London, Madrid, the United States and even the Vatican.

There are few things an art curator prizes more than a page from Leonardo’s journals.

There are over 7,200 pages to be exact. Filled from edge to edge with sketches, notes, illustrations, and diagrams. Each page serving as a window into the workings of this rare mind from 500 years ago.

Part of what makes these pages so extraordinary is that in them we can observe the flowing nature of Leonardo’s thoughts. Oftentimes, on one page, you can find a flawless anatomical drawing of an exposed muscle, next to it a math equation for the vertices of a triangle, next to that a perfectly rendered flower, some spiraling curls, and above that a written entry, in Leonardo’s signature mirror-writing of a personal theorem, anecdote, or a ‘to-do list.’

Here are some of my favorite entries from Leonardo’s infamous To Do lists:

[Calculate] the measurement of Milan and its suburbs.

Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle.

Ask Benedetto Potinari, a Florentine merchant, by what means they go on ice in Flanders

Draw Milan.

Ask Maestro Antonio how mortars are positioned on bastions by day or night.

Examine the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto

Find a master of hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill in the Lombard manner.

Ask about the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese.

See how birds are nourished in their eggs.

Inflate the lungs of a pig, and observe whether they increase in width and length, or increase in width while diminishing in length.

Make trial of the actual flying machine over the water so that if you fall you do not do yourself any harm.

Christofano da Castiglione, who lives at the Pieta, has a fine head.

Which tendon causes the eye to move so that one eye moves the other?

What is sneezing? What is yawning?

My favorites of these is ‘Christofano da Castiglione, who lives at the Pieta, has a fine head.’ What did Leonardo mean by this?

It makes me imagine that he was just walking around judging everyone’s proportions all the time. I imagine that he was making a personal note for later. It’s known that Leonardo was a fervent believer in always drawing or painting from nature, and he this is likely why he mentions where this ‘fine headed’ Christofano lives–at the Pieta.

Maybe Leonardo returned a few days later and sketched that fine head of his, then included it as one of the apostles in The Last Supper. Somehow it wouldn’t surprise me.

These little notes, also convey to us this sense that Leonardo is living in an culturally rich environment. There really is no place better for a man like him, with his insatiable curiosity to have been born than right near Florence during the Renaissance.

When he wants to learn about water irrigation he seeks out a master of hydraulics, when he wants to learn about how people walk on ice in Flanders he speaks to a traveling merchant, when he wishes to learn how to square a triangle he seeks out a local master of arithmetic. In this regard, Leonardo is truly a man of his time.

He may have helped influence the Renaissance through his creative works, but likewise, the Renaissance created him.

There is a lesson here… it is this:

Great work may be created in solitude, but it is always in relationship to the creator’s lived environment. A work is only great if it’s somehow uncommon or exceptional in the environment in which it is created.

For example, if you live in solitude, on an island, and through an excruciating process of insight, development, and ingenuity, you alone invent a flip phone. Complete with its tiny pixelated screen, compact foldable style, and even somehow manage to enable calls with it through a satellite.

Well, at any point in human history, this would be an absolute miracle, if you were in the Renaissance, there would be countless books dedicated to your unparalleled genius. Wireless communication. On a compact and portable little device.

At any point in human history, this flip phone would be a marvel of engineering.

Except from the year 2007. When the iPhone came out. And flip phones became obsolete–an inside joke of early smartphone technology.

You see what I mean? It isn’t about the challenge of a discovery or invention which makes it great. It’s about the context it’s created in. Invent a flip phone in 2007 and you’re a nobody. Invent a flip phone in 1987 and you’re a genius.

Context is everything.

Great work may be created in solitude, but it is always in relationship to the creator’s lived environment. A work is only great if it’s somehow uncommon or exceptional in the environment in which it is created.

Now, back to Leonardo’s notebooks.

Some of these ‘to-do’ lists we find in Leonardo’s notebooks are practical, things for day-to-day life, like when he writes a reminder to acquire specific ingredients for making paint, other times they are linked with research for certain projects, such as when he reminds himself to inquire from a master of hydraulics about the manner of repairing a mill. Leonardo at that point was experimenting with ways to reroute a river.

And some of these entries are psychological in nature… Such as this one, which is one of my favorites:

“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?”

These pages where we find these notes are also filled from edge to edge with sketches, illustrations, and diagrams.

Historians call them: leaves. A fun archaic word for full sheets of paper or parchment.

In its traditional usage, a leaf is a single sheet of vellum or parchment that is then bound into a book.

So a book is made of leaves.

A page is a single side of a leaf. In its traditional usage, the top page of a leaf is the recto and the back page of a leaf is the verso.

It’s likely where the phrase ‘to leaf through’ a book comes from. And it’s where the term ‘loose-leaf pages’ also comes from.

On exploring Leonardo’s leaves, you get the impression that these weren’t works of art to him–although they are to us. Instead, his notebook was a type of imaginative journal for him.

It was more than just the recording of his thoughts.

It was the act of thinking itself.

Scholars of Emily Dickinson often say she thought through poetry. And likewise, I would say Leonardo da Vinci thought through journaling.

After Leonardo’s death, his assistant, Franceso Melzi, takes on the task of sorting through Leonardo’s notes.

Over the centuries that followed, these 7,200 pages were grouped together, into certain notebooks, whose leaves are often united by a common theme. Some notebooks were only anatomical studies, others were scientific writings and inventions, still others were Leonardo’s lessons about painting.

Historians call these notebooks: codices, or codex for a single book.

There are currently 12 known codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the world. Altogether amounting to over 7,200 pages.

Let’s explore some of these codices to see what secrets they contain…

The Codex Forster

Location: The Victoria and Albert Museum in London

(Length: 354 pages)

The Codex Forster contains 354 pages all covering topics of Leonardo’s scientific investigations. It includes his writings on geometry, hydraulic engineering, and theories of weight and motion.

And as with all of Leonardo’s notebooks, it also includes beautiful sketches and illustrations, such as costumes for a ball, studies of horse’s legs, and anatomical drawings of human heads.

If you’d like to view a perfectly scanned copy of the Codex Forster, there is one available through the Victoria and Albert Museum. I have included a link to it in my companion gallery for this episode, at mjdorian.com/notebooks

Mixed in amongst Leonardo’s beautiful drawings, the Codex Forster is filled with Leonardo’s notes, often appearing on the same page.

It’s here that I was surprised to find notes about one of Leonardo’s most celebrated paintings: The Last Supper.

In one passage, Leonardo is describing the varied poses of the 13 figures in the painting. He seems to be visualizing the arrangement of the bodies of the apostles. He writes:

“One who was drinking and left the cup in its place and turned his head towards the speaker. Another twists the fingers of his hands together and turns with stern brows to his companion.

Another with hands opened showing their palms raises his shoulders towards his ears and gapes in astonishment. Another speaks in the ear of his neighbor, and he who listens turns towards him and gives him his ear, holding a knife in one hand and in the other the bread half divided by this knife.

Another as he turns holding a knife in his hand overturns with this hand a glass over the table. Another rests his hands upon the table and stares. Another breathes heavily with open mouth.

Another leans forward to look at the speaker and shades his eyes with his hand. Another draws himself back behind the one who is leaning forward and watches the speaker between the wall and the one who is leaning.”

Anyone who has ever worked on an ambitious creative project recognizes this writing… It is the voice of creativity… in its explorative early stages. This isn’t Leonardo describing what he has painted, it is Leonardo describing what he will paint.

In this note, we are observing Leonardo’s creative process at work. The painting is not yet sketched out. No pigment has been applied to the work. This is a mental sketch. He is visualizing elements which he feels will be important to the whole.

And anyone who has endeavored to work on an ambitious creative project will recognize themselves in this writing. It is the voice of creativity at work.

You may offer some skepticism at this point. You may say: “How do you know that it is before the work was completed and not after?”

Good point. There are two clues. Take a look at The Last Supper.

The truth is in the hands…

The moment that Leonardo has chosen to depict in this scene is the moment that Jesus says ‘one of you will betray me.’ The animated positions of the apostles represent their reactions to this statement. Those reactions betray their emotional state.

Leonardo once famously wrote: ‘Every action is prompted by a motive.’

In laying out the composition of a scene, Leonardo considers the symbolic meaning of every person’s face, body position, limbs, and hands.

In The Last Supper, Judas, the one who betrays Jesus, is seated second from the center, on the left. He is leaning back in an exaggerated way, with his face in shadow, and clutching a coin purse in his right hand. It’s symbolic of Judas betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

The truth is in the hands.

In Leonardo’s note from Codex Forster he mentions:

“Another speaks in the ear of his neighbor, and he who listen turns towards him and gives him his ear, holding a knife in one hand and in the other the bread half divided by this knife.”

The fourth figure from the left, representing Peter, is the only figure holding a knife. So that checks out. But his other hand is not holding bread, instead he is leaning over and resting his hand on the shoulder of John, to whisper in his ear.

There is no figure in the painting that is holding a knife in one hand while the other holds a half divided loaf of bread.

Then the second clue, the note says:

“Another as he turns holding a knife in his hand overturns with this hand a glass over the table.”

Scan the length of the table… look at every cup…

Are there any turned over? From which wine spills out?

None…

These notes… are not descriptions of what is seen. They are visualizations of what Leonardo is seeing… in his mind’s eye.

Leonardo’s notes are more than just the recordings of his thoughts.

They exteriorize the act of thinking itself.

Let’s turn our attention to another codex.

(Another possible Forster insight: p. 1003, Of Perspective, concerning the anatomy of the eye and light affecting the pupil.)

Codex Leicester

Location: Private Collection, United States of America.

(Length: 72 pages)

The Codex Leicester contains 72 pages of Leonardo’s scientific writings, and it includes investigations that show Leonardo was centuries ahead of his time. Another element of his legend as an inspirational figure.

This was likely the motivation for the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, to purchase the Leicester Codex, in 1994, for the whopping sum of $30,802,500.

But you know what, if I had 30 million to throw around, I would probably buy it too. Adjusting for inflation, this sum of $30 million in 1994 is equivalent to $53,000,000 in 2019.

It’s in the Leicester Codex that we find Leonardo presenting his theory regarding fossils and oceanography. The problem regards the existence of fossils of sea creatures on mountaintops, high above sea level. The commonly accepted explanation, during the 1400’s was the Biblical one: the Great Flood.

But Leonardo argued that was impossible. Instead theorizing that mountains were not always mountains.

The curator of the history of science at the British Library, Katrina Dean, writes this:

“Leonardo was similarly skeptical of accounts of the Biblical deluge as the origin of fossils found atop mountains. Leonardo found fossils to be buried in ordered layers and explained the process of sedimentation that led to their formation (Codex Leicester, folio 8v), designing experiments in glass tanks to demonstrate these processes (Codex Leicester folio 9v).

Yet the Deluge theory of the origin of fossils and the history of the earth was dominant until the work of Charles Lyell, in Principles of Geology, and others in the 19th century.”

It’s one of the many instances where Leonardo was making observations and deductions that were centuries ahead of their time.

In another investigation found in the Leicester Codex, Leonardo investigates the luminosity of the moon. Illustrating his theories with beautiful diagrams. On this subject, Katrina Dean writes:

“This combination of innovation and tradition in the work of Leonardo sometimes resulted in correct observations explained by wrong theories. For example, while Leonardo’s idea that the moon is covered with water was wrong, he correctly explained the secondary light of the new moon, lumen cinereum, as light reflected from the seas of the earth (Leicester, folio 7r).”

Leonardo was speculating on the faint illumination of the new moon as it travels across the night sky above. He theorized that the faint glow was a ‘light reflection,’ something which as an artist he was keenly aware of. It is one of the markers of a Renaissance master: the next time you take a look at a painting by Leonardo, take a careful look at the nuances of his shadows, especially the shadows on human forms and drapery.

They seem to… glow or radiate.

You will find ‘light reflections’ on everything from jaw lines, fabric folds, fingertips and even nostrils. These represent a very real phenomena, when in the physical world, an area of shadow is subtly illuminated by a reflection of light bouncing off of a neighboring surface, such as someone’s shoulder. It’s these nuances, which often escape our conscious awareness, which give such a presence and realness to Leonardo’s paintings.

Look at Leonardo’s painting: Virgin of the Rocks, the National Gallery of London version. And notice the jawlines of both the Virgin Mary and the Angel. There you will see the most exquisite light reflections on their jaw and cheeks. One can play a game with Leonardo’s light reflections: try to find the origin of the source of light bouncing into the shadow, what is the source of that soft illumination?

Returning to the Leicester Codex, Leonardo posited that the faint glow on the face of a new moon, which is otherwise covered in complete darkness, results from the rays of the sun reflecting off of the Earth’s oceans.

This was confirmed 100 years later by the German astronomer, Johannes Kepler, and it’s a phenomenon we know today as: planetshine.

The remarkable thing you realize when spending time with Leonardo’s journals is that he is equally an artist and a scientist.

It’s in Leonardo’s notebooks that we see art existing side by side with science.

The line between the two is blurred, or virtually nonexistent.

It’s in Leonardo that we find the fusion of science and art.

Oddly enough, this may have been thanks to his informal education.

Because he was an illegitimate son, he was not required to follow in his father’s footsteps, to become an attorney, and likewise, he was not given a formal education. Instead, Leonardo was largely self taught. Devouring every book he could get his hands on.

This gave him a chip on his shoulder. Leonardo da Vinci was the ultimate underdog of the Italian Renaissance–he was an outlier in an exceptional time. A left handed, illegitimate son, who, records show, was likely gay, during a time that was illegal, with no formal education, writing backwards, nonchalantly painting masterpieces, dissecting corpses in his free time, and oh did I mention he was a vegetarian?

In some entries of his notebooks, this self awareness comes across.

Generally, when met with inevitable critics who voiced their distrust of him based on his lack of education he would respond like a true scientist: saying that he has learned far more from experience and observation than anyone could learn from books alone.

Here are excerpts from Leonardo’s notebooks which elaborate this feeling:

“If indeed I have no power to quote from authors as they have, it is a far bigger and more worthy thing to read by the light of experience, which is the instructress of their masters. They strut about puffed up and pompous, decked out and adorned not with their own labors but by those of others, and they will not even allow me my own.

And if they despise me, who am an inventor, how much more should blame be given to themselves, who are not inventors but trumpeters and reciters of the words of others?

Many will believe that they can with reason censure me, alleging that my proofs are contrary to the authority of certain men who are held in great reverence by their inexperienced judgments, not taking into account that my conclusions were arrived at as a result of simple and plain experience, which is the true mistress.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

I know that many will call this a useless work, and they will be those of whom Demetrius said that he took no more account of the wind that produced the words in their mouths than of the wind that came out of their hinder parts: men whose only desire is for material riches and luxury and who are entirely destitute of the desire of wisdom, the sustenance and the only true riches of the soul. For as the soul is more worthy than the body so much are the soul’s riches more worthy than those of the body. And often when I see one of these men take this work in hand I wonder whether he will not put it to his nose like the ape, and ask me whether it is something to eat.”

Codex Atlanticus

Location: The Biblioteca Ambrosiana, in Milan, Italy

The Codex Atlanticus is the largest single collection of Leonardo’s notes, it contains 2,238 pages. It is believed that the leaves contained in this codex were written by Leonardo from as early as 1478, when Leonardo is working in Florence, to his death in 1519, in the royal court of Francis the 1st.

The size and scope of the Codex Atlanticus led renowned Leonardo da Vinci scholar, Carlo Pedretti, to claim it was the most important of Leonardo’s 12 codices.

The topics covered in this Codex range from sketches for paintings, studies of mechanics, inventions, hydraulics, astronomy, mathematics, fables, and philosophical ruminations.

It includes diagrams of enormous crossbows, waterwheels, parachutes, flying machines, horses, and weaponry.

It has a strange and controversial history, stretching back to the first time the Codex was put together by the sculptor, Pompeo Leoni. In Leoni’s attempt to organize Leonardo’s seemingly chaotic mess of notes into an orderly book, he had the audacity to cut Leonardo’s original leaves.

Clipping out anatomical studies into what would eventually be called the Windsor Codex. And arranging the mechanical and scientific studies into the vast Codex Atlanticus.

But it’s colorful provenance doesn’t end there…

In 1796, Napoleon conquered Milan and he ordered all great artworks to be confiscated and brought to the museums of France. The Codex Atlanticus was among them, and it was brought to its new home at the Louvre.

Napoleon stated: “all men of genius … are French, whatever the country which has given them birth.” Not the most convincing argument.

It stayed there for 17 years, until in 1815, when the Congress of Vienna declared that all works of art stolen by Napoleon be returned.

It was also, at one point, briefly mislabeled by a Vatican emissary as being a collection of Chinese documents. The emissary didn’t recognize that Leonardo’s notes were simply Italian script written in reverse. Conclusively proving that if the mirror writing was Leonardo’s ploy to avoid scrutiny by the Catholic church–it actually worked.

Aside from the countless examples of Leonardo’s exceptional inventor’s mind in the Codex Atlanticus, there are also instances of poetic lucidity.

I stumbled on this passage which beautifully illustrates the manner in which Leonardo viewed the reality around him. It concerns the strange nature of light, and how every thing in reality is reflected onto every other thing. Like the earlier example of the reflection of light from a shoulder illuminating the jawline of a face. Or the subtle glow on the face of the new moon being planet-shine, caused by the reflection of sunlight on the Earth’s waters.

For a brief moment, in this passage from the Codex Atlanticus… we can see the world the way Leonardo sees it.

“The air is full of an infinite number of images of the things which are distributed through it, and all of these are represented in all.

All in one, and all in each.

Consequently it so happens that if two mirrors be placed so as to be exactly facing each other, the first will be reflected in the second and the second in the first.

Now the first being reflected in the second, carries to it its own image together with all the images which are represented in it, among these being the image of the second mirror; and so they continue from image to image on to infinity, in such a way that each mirror has an infinite number of mirrors within it…

Each smaller than the last, and one inside another.

By this example, therefore, it is clearly proved that each thing transmits the image of [itself] to all those places where the thing itself is visible, and so conversely this object is able to receive into itself all the images of the things which are in front of it.

Consequently the eye transmits its own image through the air to all the objects which are in front of it, and receives them into itself, that is on its surface, whence the understanding takes them and considers them, and such as it finds pleasing, these it commits to the memory.

So I hold that the invisible powers of the images in the eyes may project themselves forth to the object as do the images of the object to the eye.

An instance of how the images of all things are spread through the air may be seen in a number of mirrors placed in a circle, and they will then reflect each other for an infinite number of times, for as the image of one reaches another it rebounds back to its source, and then becoming less rebounds yet again to the object, and then returns, and so continues for an infinite number of times.

If at night you place a light between two flat mirrors which are a cubit’s space apart, you will see in each of these mirrors an infinite number of lights, one smaller than another, in succession.

If at night you place a light between the walls of a [room], every part of these walls will become tinged by the images of this light, and all those parts which are exposed to the light will likewise be directly lit by it; that is when there is no obstacle between them to interrupt the transmission of the images.

This same example is even more apparent in the transmission of solar rays, which all [pass] through all objects, and consequently into each minutest part of each object, and each ray of itself conveys to its object the image of its source.

That each body alone of itself fills the whole surrounding air with its images, and that this same air is [able] at the same time to receive into itself the images of the countless other bodies which are within it, is clearly shown by these instances; and each body is seen in its entirety throughout the whole of the said atmosphere, and each in each minutest part of the same, and all throughout the whole of it and all in each minutest part; each in all, and all in every part.”

In spending time reading and exploring Leonardo’s notebooks, we are able, for a brief time, to step into the workshop of his mind… And see the world the way he saw it.

In its infinite depth and splendor.

As William Blake once wrote:

To see the world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wildflower

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour

As we come away from that experience, of appreciating Leonardo’s way of seeing, we engage the world with his insatiably curious gaze… And we are also changed.

It is like he is seeing the world through us.

 

On the next Creative Codex…

We discover a page in Leonardo’s notebooks which contains the most famous illustration of all time: The Vitruvian Man. What is it? And what inspired Leonardo to create it?

We also explore the story behind the only published book attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, a book known as The Treatise On Painting.

Join me for all this and more on Episode 33: Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Part 2.

Conclusion:

Thank you for listening to Part One of this Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci series. It’s really been a joy to flip through thousands of pages of Leonardo’s sketches and thoughts which are contained in the various codices.

I’ve included information and links on my site where you can explore these legendary manuscripts on your own, you can find that at mjdorian.com/notebooks

A link to that page is also in the episode description.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or someone who you know loves Leonardo da Vinci. Maybe your Italian grandma…you should check her attic while you’re at it. Especially if she has a stack of papers with old scribbly writing no one seems able to read.

But seriously, sharing the show is really the main way that this little, independent, podcast grows.

Many of you may now have a Leonardo da Vinci shaped curiosity itch that is needing scratching. So I offer you this, check out Episode 2 of Creative Codex. It is called Leonardo da Vinci’s Secret. This one doesn’t focus as much on the notebooks, or intellectual stuff, but instead, takes a more personal approach, painting a picture of his early life and his years in Florence.

You can listen to that, simply by scrolling down in the podcast feed to episode 2: Leonardo da Vinci’s Secret. The show was a little different then, and I was a little different, as you might hear. But the spirit is the same.

If you’re listening to Creative Codex on Spotify, please visit our show page there and give us a healthy star rating. That will help get us in the good graces of the algorithm spiders.

And thank you in advance for that.

If you’d like to support the show, there is one of two ways. You can buy me a coffee or put some money in my expensive books fund on Venmo…

Just search @creativecodex on Venmo, under businesses. That’s one word: @creativecodex

Alternatively, you can head over to my Patreon, where you’ll be able to enjoy extra content, such as the Episode Exclusives, all the Creativity Tip minisodes, and the Limited Release series. Which is a series of full length episodes which will never appear in the main podcast feed. That’s where you can listen to my series about Kurt Cobain, each episode is over an hour long. I’m certain you’ll dig it.

You can find all of that at patreon.com/mjdorian