Discussion #2: Pgs: 410-453 Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind

Discussion #2: Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind

Charles Nicholl pages: 410-453 (Part Seven, Return to Milan: 1506-1513)

“good day, master francesco…”

Brothers at Ward

Dissections

Back in the Studio

The World and Its Waters

Fetes Milanaises

La Cremona

The ‘Medical Schools’

Chez Melzi

Portrait of the Artist at Sixty

The series of pages I read from Charles Nicholl’s “Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind” reconstructs Leonardo da Vinci’s life from 1506 to 1513. Leonardo was born in 1452 and died in 1519, so the age of Leonardo in this period is 54 to 61.

Nicholl’s writing evokes deep reverence for Leonardo and passioned research into Leonardo da Vinci’s life. The quotes he finds of Leonardo’s are sometimes funny and quirky, which made me feel like I was really in the mindset of this genius of the Renaissance. This particular passage about Leonardo writing his assistant, Francesco Melzi, a letter from Florence in 1508 absolutely made me smile:

“Good day, Master Francesco,

Why in god’s name have you not answered a single one of all the letters I’ve sent you. You just wait till I get there and by God I’ll make you write so much you’ll be sorry.” (411)

Throughout reading, I couldn’t help but place myself into Leonardo’s life, I think it is just the literary style of Nicholl’s. This book was packed full of interesting facts and stories I never imagined could have survived history.

Nicholl’s begins “Part Seven, Return to Milan” with the introduction of a pupil of Leonardo’s, the aristocrat Francesco Melzi who was probably fourteen years old when he joined Leonardo’s in the early part of 1507. Melzi was a primary scribe to Leonardo. Nicholl’s tells us “it is Melzi we must thank for the survival of so many of Leonardo’s manuscripts” (410). From here Nicholl’s remarks on how Vasari insinuates a homosexual relationship between the two, although there really is no evidence.

Later in 1507, Leonardo must travel from Milan to go to Florence (unbeknownst to him, his last visit to the city before his death) because of a lawsuit with his brothers over his beloved Uncle Francesco’s last will and testament (413). The lawsuit was filed because Leonardo was technically illegitimate (413). The issue was not documented as resolved.

I noticed throughout the section I read that Leonardo gets victimized frequently on the money he is owed, whether it’s his own family or the patrons of his art. Perhaps this was common for every artist in the 1500’s. For example there might have been a third version painted of London’s ‘Madonna of the Rocks’. This is because the Confraternity who commissioned the painting refused to pay in full. They suggested Leonardo and his assistants copy the painting to sell in order to make the rest of their money. There is no evidence that this third version was ever created however.

Throughout the text, Leonardo’s notebooks are frequently referred to. Even the fact that Bill Gates owns the Codex of Leicester which is “the most unified of Leonardo’s notebooks” (416). The Codex of Leicester is primarily about geophysics and cosmology but according to Nicholl’s was “not really groundbreaking material” (417). In other notebooks he talks of water and surface tension and “how the flight of a bird through air must be like swimming underwater” at the ‘falls’ which are still there today in Weir Florence (418).

I really loved hearing Leonardo da Vinci’s inner dialogue through the quotes of his notebooks. I also found it fascinating how prolific he was with these journals. Such as “Of the World and its Waters” which was written from the 12th of September 1508 through October 1508 with 192 full pages (431). Apparently Leonardo always imagined compiling these notes into one grand and organized manuscript, but as Nicholl’s pointed out earlier in the book Leonardo abandoned things “as easily as he abandoned pictures” so this complete manuscript never came to fruition.

The chapter on dissections was the most fascinating for me. In a dissection of a two year old versus an old man Leonardo finds “everything to be the opposite of that of the old man” (419). These revelations on how the human body works might have been the first discoveries of their kind, no matter how simple. He wrote notes to go along with all his anatomical drawings, usually comparing human parts to plants and other various analogies. He drew a study of the female genitalia and of the anal-sphincter in 1508-9 and said this:

“ the wrinkles or ridges in the folds of the vulva have indicated to us the location of the gatekeeper of the castle” (421)

Leonardo da Vinci, Female Genitalia and Studies of the Anal-Sphincter 1508-9

This now humorous analogy and crude drawing, is the musing of Leonardo discovering and investigating something completely unstudied in the past due to using cadavers. Leonardo describes the challenges, indeed horrors, of the task (dissection with no refrigeration!) “you-the reader, the would-be anatomist- ‘will perhaps be deterred by the rising of your stomach” (422).

Most of this licensed dissection was probably done at the Santa Maria Nuova hospital (422). But he probably dissected at his studio/home too. Dissection was still controversial and considered by some to be black arts and medieval magic (422). Leonardo bluntly scribbles in a notebook his opinion on people who believe or study in such magic “...most idiotic of all, necromancers and sorcerers” (423). Leonardo reveres understanding the body, and the dissections method increases his knowledge of how the body really works. He wrote:

“True knowledge of the shape of any body is arrived at by seeing it from different aspects. Thus to express the true shape of any limb of a man… I will observe the aforesaid rule, making 4 demonstrations for the 4 sides of each limb. And for the bones I will make 5, cutting them in half and showing the hollow of each of them, of which one is full of marrow, and the other spongy or empty or solid” (445).

This quote proves Leonardo’s ferocity in studying anatomy and the drawings are the “service of truth rather than of some ideal beauty”(445). As a true humanist, Leonardo was always a lifelong learner. He estimated that he had done over twenty dissections, but still he wanted to know more. However, later in Rome he was in conflict with the church over these dissections and was “hindered in anatomy” (423). Leonardo writes “the imperative of investigation is always stronger than that of personal comfort or doctrinal safety” which suggests he may not have heeded the warning (423).

At this point in the reading there was more conjecture on Leonardo’s sex life. Researches flip flop between his sexual orientation. Romances are speculated between his male pupil Salai and Melzi and perhaps a courtesan or prostitute named Maria Cremonese “la cremona” who also might have been a model for his lost painting ‘Leda’ (440). Although these findings are interesting, I couldn’t help but think of this history as gossip, or something you would find on the cover of a celebrity magazine like People.

Much more intriguing was finding out that Nicholl’s considers Leonardo's self-portrait done is red chalk from 1512 to be misleading. Nicholl’s states “he is too old [for it] to be an accurate depiction of Leonardo at sixty or sixty-one, it’s more of a self-caricature, than a self-portrait”(451). The most accurate depiction of Leonardo da Vinci is of that by his pupil Melzi ‘Leonardo in Late Middle Age’ 1510-1512 done in profile with sanguine drawing material.

  

 Leonardo da Vinci, Self Portrait 1512

Francesco Melzi, Leonardo in Late Middle Age 1510-1512

Overall I found the selected passage I read to be enthralling. Perhaps this is only because Leonardo da Vinci was an abnormally fascinating man. Nicholl’s exhaustive research was believable so much so that he allows himself to speculate on aspects of Leonardo’s life. For example Nicholl’s summarizes Leonardo’s “fondness for hats” (453). It is this type of candor mixed with factual knowledge that makes me want to read “Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind”  in it’s entirety.

Other random quotes I enjoyed:

“Leonardo enjoyed the imagination’s power to construct meanings out of randomness -- He wrote of seeing the stains on a wall as beautiful landscapes.” (451)
“Among these big theme there is also that quality of momentariness which is such a pungent aspect of the notebooks. Here are some of the phrases scribbled down on the cover:

    inflate the lungs of a pig

    Avicenna on fluids

    map of Elefan of India which Antonello Merciaio has

    enquire at the stationers’ for Vitruvius

    ask Maestro Mafeo why the Adige rises for seven years and falls for seven years

    go every Saturday to the hot baths and you will see naked men.” (433)


P.S. if you haven't seen Futurama's "The Duh-Vinci Code" I highly recommend it. Here is a clip