A Treatise on Painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci

to their subjects, or attention to method, might rather in that state be considered as a chaos of intelligence, than a well-digested treatise. It has now, therefore, for the first time, been attempted to place each chapter under the proper head or branch of the art to which it belongs and by so doing, to bring together those which (though related and nearly connected in substance) stood, according to the original arrangement, at such a distance from each other as to make it troublesome to find them even by the assistance of an index ; and difficult, when found, to compare them together.

      The consequence of this plan, it must be confessed, has been, that in a few instances the same precept has been found in substance repeated ; but this is so far from being an objection, that it evidently proves the precepts were not the hasty opinions of the moment, but settled and fixed principles in the mind of the Author, and that he was consistent in the expression of his sentiments. But if this mode of arrangement has in the present case disclosed what might have escaped observation, it has also been productive of more material advantages ; for, besides facilitating the finding of any particular passage (an object in itself of no small importance), it clearly shows the work to be a much more complete system than those best acquainted with it had before any idea of, and that many of the references in it, apparently to other writings of the same Author, relate in fact only to the present, the chapters referred to having been found in it. These are now pointed out in the notes, and where any obscurity has occurred in the text, the reader will find some assistance at least attempted by the insertion of a note to solve the difficulty.

      No pains or expense have been spared in preparing the present work for the press. The cuts have been re-engraved with more attention to correctness in the drawing, than those which accompanied the two editions of the former English translation possessed (even though they had been fresh engraven for the impression of 1796); and the diagrams are now inserted in their proper places in the text, instead of being, as before, collected all together in two plates at the end.

      J. F. Rigaud,

      1802.