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THE ELMER BELT LIBRARY OF VINCIANA
A gift to the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from Elmer Belt, M.D., 1961
A
TREATISE
ON
PAINTING,
BY
LEONARDO DA VINCI:
FAITHFULLY TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL ITALIAN,
AND DIGESTED UNDER PROPER HEADS,
By JOHN FRANCIS RIGAUD, Esq.
ACADEMICIAN OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF PAINTING AT LONDON, AND ALSO OK THE ACADEMIA CLEMENTINA AT BOLOGNA,
AND THE ROYAL ACADEMY AT STOCKHOLM.
ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY-THREE COPPER-PLATES, AND OTHER FIGURES.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED Λ LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
WITH A CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF HIS WORKS,
By JOHN WILLIAM BROWN, Esq.
LONDON:
J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET.
SOLD ALSO BY
W. PICKERING, CHANCERY LANE ; J. WEALE, HIGH HOLBORN ;
AND J. WILLIAMS, CHARLES STREET, SOHO.
1835.
Ars est habitus quidam faciendi vera cum ratione.
Aristot. Ethic. Lib. 6.
PREFACE.
Since the former edition of this work was published, the able Translator has paid the debt of nature.*
Mr. Rigaud being himself a painter, and highly appreciating the merits of Leonardo da Vinci, felt that he should derive pleasure from exhibiting his well-known Treatise on Painting to the British public with superior advantage. He, therefore, not only gave a new translation, but formed a better arrangement of the materials. The merits of Mr. Rigaud’s Translation having been duly appreciated by the public, and the work having been long out of print, another edition, in a neater and more condensed form, is now produced, which, the Publishers presume, may prove a desirable acquisition to students and amateurs.
The principal novelty, however, of this edition is the new Life of the Author, by the late J. W. Brown, Esq., which was first published, in a separate volume, in 1828. A long residence in Italy, an intimate acquaintance with its language and literature, together with a constant opportunity of studying the most finished specimens of Art, induced that gentleman to undertake the biography of Leonardo da Vinci, who so largely contributed to form a new æra in the History of the Fine Arts. This distinguished Italian is not so well known in England as he deserves.
Among the various biographical sketches of this celebrated character, that written by Giorgio Vasari is perhaps the most authentic, as he had the advantage of contemporaneous information. But this also is rather an account of his works than of himself, containing little more than what is generally known, and forming only one article in Vasari’s Lives of celebrated Painters.
To most of the editions which have been published of Da Vinci’s writings a short biographical notice is prefixed, but they are chiefly copied verbatim from Vasari.
The Signor Carlo Ammoretti, librarian of the Ambrosian Library at Milan, has prefixed the best and most ample account of Leonardo da Vinci to the edition of his “Trattato della Pittura,” published at Milan in 1804 ; which he has entitled “Memorie storiche su la Vita, gli Studj, e le Opere di Leonardo da Vinci.”
In addition to many sources of information, Mr. Brown had the privilege of constant admittance not only to the private library of his Imperial and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, but also to his most rare and valuable collection of Manuscripts in the Palazzo Pitti, where he was permitted to copy from the original documents and correspondence whatever he conceived useful to his subject.
In selecting from the mass of documents relative to the subject of the present work, Mr. Brown rejected whatever appeared unsupported by sufficient proof ; and he has given such historical anecdotes of that period as were necessary to the subject, from their having materially influenced the private fortunes of Da Vinci.
Sept. 5, 1835.
Note
* See a memoir of Mr. Rigaud, p. c.
PREFACE
TO
Mr. RI GAUD’S TRANSLATION.
The excellence of the following Treatise is so well known to all in any tolerable degree conversant with the Art of Painting, that it would be almost superfluous to say any thing respecting it, were it not that it here appears under the form of a new translation, of which some account may be expected.
Of the original Work, which is in reality a selection from the voluminous manuscript collections of the Author, both in folio and in quarto, of all such passages as related to Painting, no edition appeared in print till 1651, though its Author died so long before as the year 1519; and it is owing to the circumstance of a manuscript copy of these extracts in the original Italian, having fallen into the hands of Raphael du Fresne, that in the former of these years it was published at Paris in a thin folio volume in that language, accompanied with a set of cuts from the drawings of Nicolo Poussin and Alberti ; the former having designed the human figures, the latter the geometrical and other representations. This precaution was probably necessary, the sketches in the Author’s own collections being so very slight as not to be fit for publication without further assistance. Poussin’s drawings were mere outlines, and the shadows and back-grounds behind the figures were added by Errard, after the drawings had been made, and, as Poussin himself says, without his knowledge.
In the same year, and size, and printed at the same place, a translation of the original work into French was given to the world by Monsieur de Chambray (well known, under his family name of Freart, as the author of an excellent Parallel of ancient and modern Architecture, in French, which Mr. Evelyn translated into English). The style of this translation by Mons. de Chambray, being thought, some years after, too antiquated, some one was employed to revise and modernise it ; and in 1716 a new edition of it, thus polished, came out, of which it may be truly said, as is in general the case on such occasions, that whatever the supposed advantage obtained in purity and refinement of language might be, it was more than counterbalanced by the want of the more valuable qualities of accuracy, and fidelity to the original, from which, by these variations, it became further removed.
The first translation of this Treatise into English, appeared in the year 1721. It does not declare by whom it was made ; but though it professes to have been done from the original Italian, it is evident, upon a comparison, that more use was made of the revised edition of the French translation. Indifferent, however, as it is, it had become so scarce, and had risen to a price so extravagant, that, to supply the demand, it was found necessary, in the year 1796, to reprint it as it stood, with all its errors on its head, no opportunity then offering of procuring a fresh translation.
This last impression, however, being also disposed of, and a new one again called for, the present Translator was induced to step forward, and undertake the office of fresh translating it, on finding, by comparing the former versions both in French and English with the original, many passages which he thought might at once be more concisely and more faithfully rendered. His object, therefore, has been to attain these ends, and as rules and precepts like the present allow but little room for the decorations of style, he has been more solicitous for fidelity, perspicuity, and precision, than