1054

Notes on places in Central Italy, visited in 1502.

OF PAINTING.

On the tops and sides of hills foreshorten the shape of the ground and its divisions, but give its proper shape to what is turned towards you. [Footnote: This passage evidently refers to the making of maps, such as Pl. CXII, CXIII, and CXIV. There is no mention of such works, it is true, excepting in this one passage of MS. L. But this can scarcely be taken as evidence against my view that Leonardo busied himself very extensively at that time in the construction of maps; and all the less since the foregoing chapters clearly prove that at a time so full of events Leonardo would only now and then commit his observations to paper, in the MS. L.

By the side of this text we find, in the original, a very indistinct sketch, perhaps a plan of a position. Instead of this drawing I have here inserted a much clearer sketch of a position from the same MS., L. 82b and 83a. They are the only drawings of landscape, it may be noted, which occur at all in that MS.]

Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.

Notebooks of Leonoardo da Vinci
XVII: Topographical Notes.
. . .
Notes on places in Central Italy, visited in 1502.
1034,
1035,
1036,
1037,
1038,
1039,
1040,
1041,
1042,
1043,
1044,
1045,
1046,
1047,
1048,
1049,
1050,
1051,
1052,
1053,
1054
Alessandria in Piedmont.
1055,
1056
The Alps.
1057,
1058,
1059,
1060,
1061,
1062
The Appenins.
1063,
1064,
1065,
1066,
1067,
1068,
1069,
1070,
1071,
1072,
1073,
1074
. . .