Words
Words
Leonardo wrote a lot - about a lot of different subjects. While he planned to compile his writings and even publish some of them - he never did. Instead he left behind a chaotic mess of genius proportions. This is no surprise since he ran into the same problem that we do - how do we organize them? It may seem the simple solution is to sort them by subject - such as "anatomy" or "architecture" - but most of the time Leonardo wrote about multiple subjects on the same page. For him it would have taken a lifetime to go over all of his pages - sort them - and then make copies and cut and paste the various subjects (and images) into a cohesive form. Thankfully with modern technology and hundreds of years of previous attempts - I intend to do just that. To take all of his notebooks and sort them - translate them and make them searchable.
The most significant problem is both a blessing and a curse. The people who have already attempted to compile, translate, and organize all of Leonardo's works 'ruined' any kind of order they could have had but they also did translate and extract a lot of the writing. They didn't have access to modern technology and would have run into the same problems Leonardo did - how to duplicate and sort paper. Thankfully Leonardo's works have been digitized and can now be sorted much more easily. Enabling us to extract each subject from each page - include them in their proper place - but also to leave the page intact as a whole.
Leonardo's Words
Jean Paul:
Jean was one of the top Leonardo researchers and translated much of Leonardo's' written works and sorted them into different subjects. They are the best place to start.
I currently have his translations on a single page and will be separating them into their own pages for each subject soon.
These are some of Leonardo's written works translated and sorted into three different categories by Maurice Baring. They contain the same passages as Jean Paul's but are organized differently - you'll also notice how some are translated slightly differently.
Others words about Leonardo
This section will also include books written about him which can be found in our online Store.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO.
“The Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper — both masterpieces. We can all agree on that. But Leonardo — the man, the anatomist, the designer, the architect, the scientist — is the real masterpiece. He is his ultimate creation. So live well. Be curious and hungry and always in awe of the world.”
LIANA BORTOLON - (1967)
"Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge ... Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe."
BERNARD BERENSON - 1896
"Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line and for light and shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values."