Thoughts on Art and Life

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Leonardo da Vinci. Thoughts on Art and Life

INTRODUCTION

I. THOUGHTS ON LIFE

II. THOUGHTS ON ART

III. THOUGHTS ON SCIENCE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE AND TABLE OF REFERENCES

Отрывок из книги

Of the Works of Leonardo

Begun at Florence in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli, on the 22d day of March, 1508; and this is to be a collection without order, taken from many papers which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later, each in its place, according to the various subjects treated. And I think that before I shall have finished this work, it will be necessary for me to repeat the same thing many times over; so, O reader, blame me not, because the subjects are many, and memory cannot retain them and say: This I will not write because I have already written it; and if I did not wish to fall into this error it would be necessary, every time that I wished to copy something, in order not to repeat myself, to read over all the preceding matter, all the more so since the intervals are long between one time of writing and another.

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Insoluble Questions

Consider, O reader, how far we can lend credence to the ancients who strove to define the soul and life, – things which cannot be proved; while those things which can be clearly known and proved by experience remained during so many centuries ignored and misrepresented! The eye, which so clearly demonstrates its functions, has been up to my time defined in one manner by countless authorities; I by experience have discovered another definition.

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