The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
Leonardo, although he was painting independently as early as in 1472
is still spoken of as working in Verrocchio's studio in 1477. Two
years later the Venetian senate decided on erecting an equestrian
statue to Colleoni; and as Verrocchio, to whom the work was
entrusted, did not at once move from Florence to Venice--where he
died in 1488 before the casting was completed--but on the contrary
remained in Florence for some years, perhaps even till 1485,
Leonardo probably had the opportunity of seeing all his designs for
the equestrian statue at Venice and the red chalk drawing on Pl.
LXXIV may be a reminiscence of it.
The pen and ink drawing on Pl. LXXII, No. 3, reminds us of
Donatello's statue of Gattamelata at Padua. However it does not
appear that Leonardo was ever at Padua before 1499, but we may
conclude that he took a special interest in this early bronze statue
and the reports he could procure of it, form an incidental remark
which is to be found in C. A. 145a; 432a, and which will be given in
Vol. II under Ricordi or Memoranda. Among the studies--in the widest
sense of the word--made in preparation statue we may include the
Anatomy of the Horse which Lomazzo and Vas mention; the most
important parts of this work still exist in the Queen's Li Windsor.
It was beyond a doubt compiled by Leonardo when at Milan; only
interesting records to be found among these designs are reproduced
in Nos. 716a but it must be pointed out that out of 40 sheets of
studies of the movements of the belonging to that treatise, a horse
in full gallop occurs but once.
If we may trust the account given by Paulus Jovius--about l527--
Leonardo's horse was represented as "vehementer incitatus et
anhelatus". Jovius had probably seen the model exhibited at Milan;
but, need we, in fact, infer from this description that the horse
was galloping? Compare Vasari's description of the Gattamelata
monument at Padua: "Egli [Donatello] vi ando ben volentieri, e fece
il cavallo di bronzo, che e in sulla piazza di Sant Antonio, nel
quale si dimostra lo sbuffamento ed il fremito del cavallo, ed il
grande animo e la fierezza vivacissimamente espressa dall'arte nella
figura che lo cavalca".
These descriptions, it seems to me, would only serve to mark the
difference between the work of the middle ages and that of the
renaissance.
We learn from a statement of Sabba da Castiglione that, when Milan
was taken by the French in 1499, the model sustained some injury;
and this informant, who, however is not invariably trustworthy, adds
that Leonardo had devoted fully sixteen years to this work (la forma
del cavallo, intorno a cui Leonardo avea sedici anni continui
consumati). This often-quoted passage has given ground for an
assumption, which has no other evidence to support it, that Leonardo
had lived in Milan ever since 1483. But I believe it is nearer the
truth to suppose that this author's statement alludes to the fact
that about sixteen years must have past since the competition in
which Leonardo had taken part.
I must in these remarks confine myself strictly to the task in hand
and give no more of the history of the Sforza monument than is
needed to explain the texts and drawings I have been able to
reproduce. In the first place, with regard to the drawings, I may
observe that they are all, with the following two exceptions, in the
Queen's Library at Windsor Castle; the red chalk drawing on Pl.
LXXVI No. 1 is in the MS. C. A. (see No. 7l2) and the fragmentary
pen and ink drawing on page 4 is in the Ambrosian Library. The
drawings from Windsor on Pl. LXVI have undergone a trifling
reduction from the size of the originals.
There can no longer be the slightest doubt that the well-known
engraving of several horsemen (Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, Vol.
V, p. 181, No. 3) is only a copy after original drawings by
Leonardo, executed by some unknown engraver; we have only to compare
the engraving with the facsimiles of drawings on Pl. LXV, No. 2, Pl.
LXVII, LXVIII and LXIX which, it is quite evident, have served as
models for the engraver.
On Pl. LXV No. 1, in the larger sketch to the right hand, only the
base is distinctly visible, the figure of the horseman is effaced.
Leonardo evidently found it unsatisfactory and therefore rubbed it
out.
The base of the monument--the pedestal for the equestrian statue--is
repeatedly sketched on a magnificent plan. In the sketch just
mentioned it has the character of a shrine or aedicula to contain a
sarcophagus. Captives in chains are here represented on the
entablature with their backs turned to that portion of the monument
which more
strictly constitutes the pedestal of the horse. The lower portion of
the aedicula is surrounded by columns. In the pen and ink drawing
Pl. LXVI--the lower drawing on the right hand side--the sarcophagus
is shown between the columns, and above the entablature is a plinth
on which the horse stands. But this arrangement perhaps seemed to
Leonardo to lack solidity, and in the little sketch on the left
hand, below, the sarcophagus is shown as lying under an arched
canopy. In this the trophies and the captive warriors are detached
from the angles. In the first of these two sketches the place for
the trophies is merely indicated by a few strokes; in the third
sketch on the left the base is altogether broader, buttresses and
pinnacles having been added so as to form three niches. The black
chalk drawing on Pl. LXVIII shows a base in which the angles are
formed by niches with pilasters. In the little sketch to the extreme
left on Pl. LXV, No. 1, the equestrian statue serves to crown a
circular temple somewhat resembling Bramante's tempietto of San
Pietro in Montario at Rome, while the sketch above to the right
displays an arrangement faintly reminding us of the tomb of the
Scaligers in Verona. The base is thus constructed of two platforms
or slabs, the upper one considerably smaller than the lower one
which is supported on flying buttresses with pinnacles.
On looking over the numerous studies in which the horse is not
galloping but merely walking forward, we find only one drawing for
the pedestal, and this, to accord with the altered character of the
statue, is quieter and simpler in style (Pl. LXXIV). It rises almost
vertically from the ground and is exactly as long as the pacing
horse. The whole base is here arranged either as an independent
baldaquin or else as a projecting canopy over a recess in which the
figure of the deceased Duke is seen lying on his sarcophagus; in the
latter case it was probably intended as a tomb inside a church.
Here, too, it was intended to fill the angles with trophies or
captive warriors. Probably only No. 724 in the text refers to the
work for the base of the monument.
If we compare the last mentioned sketch with the description of a
plan for an equestrian monument to Gian Giacomo Trivulzio (No. 725)
it seems by no means impossible that this drawing is a preparatory
study for the very monument concerning which the manuscript gives us
detailed information. We have no historical record regarding this
sketch nor do the archives in the Trivulzio Palace give us any
information. The simple monument to the great general in San Nazaro
Maggiore in Milan consists merely of a sarcophagus placed in recess
high on the wall of an octagonal chapel. The figure of the warrior
is lying on the sarcophagus, on which his name is inscribed; a piece
of sculpture which is certainly not Leonardo's work. Gian Giacomo
Trivulzio died at Chartres in 1518, only five months before
Leonardo, and it seems to me highly improbable that this should have
been the date of this sketch; under these circumstances it would
have been done under the auspices of Francis I, but the Italian
general was certainly not in favour with the French monarch at the
time. Gian Giacomo Trivulzio was a sworn foe to Ludovico il Moro,
whom he strove for years to overthrow. On the 6th September 1499 he
marched victorious into Milan at the head of a French army. In a
short time, however, he was forced to quit Milan again when Ludovico
il Moro bore down upon the city with a force of Swiss troops. On the
15th of April following, after defeating Lodovico at Novara,
Trivulzio once more entered Milan as a Conqueror, but his hopes of
becoming _Governatore_ of the place were soon wrecked by intrigue.
This victory and triumph, historians tell us, were signalised by
acts of vengeance against the dethroned Sforza, and it might have
been particularly flattering to him that the casting and
construction of the Sforza monument were suspended for the time.
It must have been at this moment--as it seems to me--that he
commissioned the artist to prepare designs for his own monument,
which he probably intended should find a place in the Cathedral or
in some other church. He, the husband of Margherita di Nicolino
Colleoni, would have thought that he had a claim to the same
distinction and public homage as his less illustrious connection had
received at the hands of the Venetian republic. It was at this very
time that Trivulzio had a medal struck with a bust portrait of
himself and the following remarkable inscription on the reverse:_
DEO FAVENTE--1499--DICTVS--10--IA--EXPVLIT--LVDOVICV--SF--
(Sfortiam) DVC-- (ducem) MLI (Mediolani)--NOIE
(nomine)--REGIS--FRANCORVM--EODEM--ANN --(anno) RED'T (redit)--LVS
(Ludovicus)--SVPERATVS ET CAPTVS--EST--AB--EO. _In the Library of
the Palazzo Trivulzio there is a MS. of Callimachus Siculus written
at the end of the XVth or beginning of the XVIth century. At the
beginning of this MS. there is an exquisite illuminated miniature of
an equestrian statue with the name of the general on the base; it is
however very doubtful whether this has any connection with
Leonardo's design.
Nos. 731-740, which treat of casting bronze, have probably a very
indirect bearing on the arrangements made for casting the equestrian
statue of Francesco Sforza. Some portions evidently relate to the
casting of cannon. Still, in our researches about Leonardo's work on
the monument, we may refer to them as giving us some clue to the
process of bronze casting at that period.
Some practical hints (706-709).
7O6.
OF A STATUE.
If you wish to make a figure in marble, first make one of clay, and
when you have finished it, let it dry and place it in a case which
should be large enough, after the figure is taken out of it, to
receive also the marble, from which you intend to reveal the figure
in imitation of the one in clay. After you have put the clay figure
into this said case, have little rods which will exactly slip in to
the holes in it, and thrust them so far in at each hole that each
white rod may touch the figure in different parts of it. And colour
the portion of the rod that remains outside black, and mark each rod
and each hole with a countersign so that each may fit into its
place. Then take the clay figure out of this case and put in your
piece of marble, taking off so much of the marble that all your rods
may be hidden in the holes as far as their marks; and to be the
better able to do this, make the case so that it can be lifted up;
but the bottom of it will always remain under the marble and in this
way it can be lifted with tools with great ease.
707.
Some have erred in teaching sculptors to measure the limbs of their
figures with threads as if they thought that these limbs were
equally round in every part where these threads were wound about
them.
708.
MEASUREMENT AND DIVISION OF A STATUE.
Divide the head into 12 degrees, and each degree divide into 12
points, and each point into 12 minutes, and the minutes into minims
and the minims into semi minims.
Degree--point--minute--minim.
709.
Sculptured figures which appear in motion, will, in their standing