LEONARDO DA VINCI: EXPERIENCE, EXPERIMENT, DESIGN
Leonardo da Vinci Reading List
‘This is an edited version of the annotated list that appeared in my Leonardo in 2004. This selection from the vast literature on Leonardo is designed to guide the reader towards some of the more accessible, recent and authoritative sources, and to open a door into the primary sources and documentation for Leonardo’s works and life.’
Martin Kemp
Exhibition Catalogue
M. Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design, V&A Publications, 2006. This fascinating new book offers an unparalleled insight into the working of Leonardo da Vinci's visual mind. Martin Kemp opens up Leonardo's thought processes while 200 illustrations from his notebooks bring his extraordinary ideas to life.
General monographs, etc.
K. Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, ed. M. Kemp, London, 1993 (and Folio Society 2005), remains the most eloquent introduction to Leonardo as an artist.
M. Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci. The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man, rev. edn Oxford, 2006, covers the full range of Leonardo’s work and thought chronologically, while Leonardo, Oxford, 2004, treats his ideas thematically in a more compact form.
P. Marani has published a series of valuable monographs and catalogues of Leonardo and his followers, most recently Leonardo da Vinci, New York, 2003, including a useful appendix of documents by E. Villata.
The most comprehensive and fully illustrated recent catalogue is by F. Zöllner, with J. Nathan, Leonardo da Vinci, Cologne, 2003.
A penetrating account of Leonardo’s artistic origins is given by D.A. Brown, Leonardo Da Vinci: Origins of a Genius, New Haven, 1998.
A valuable collection of writings on Leonardo, from early accounts to modern scholarship, has been edited by C. Farrago, Leonardo’s Writings and Theory of Art, 5 vols, London, 1999.
The regular journal, the Raccolta Vinciana, ed. P Marani in Milan, publishes bibliographical updates, as did Achademia Lionardi Vinci, ed. C. Pedretti.
Leonardo’s posthumous reputation is discussed by A.R. Turner, Inventing Leonardo, New York, 1993.
The afterlife of the Mona Lisa is discussed in A. Chastel, L’illustre incomprise – Mona Lisa, Paris, 1988.
Sources, facsimiles, etc.
The documentation of Leonardo’s life is edited by E. Villata, I Documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee, Ente Raccolta Vinciana, Milan, 1999.
Facsimiles of Leonardo’s Manuscripts were earlier published under the auspices of the Reale Commissione Vinciana, and new facsimiles are being published by Giunti as the Edizione Nazionale dei Manoscritti e dei Disegni di Leonardo da Vinci from 1964 onwards.
The Forster Codices have been published as a facsimile on two occasions. The first appeared in the 1930s. It is still useful, since it prints the modern Italian text next to the diagrams drawn by Leonardo. For further details, search the catalogue of the National Art Library at the V&A: I manoscritti e I disegni di Leonardo da Vinci, published by the Reale Commissione Vinciana under the auspices of the Ministerio dell’educazione nazionale, serie minore, vols I-V, I codici Forster (Rome, 1934-1936)
In the 1990s, an exact replica of the Codex Forster, with a transcript of the text in Leonardo’s Italian and modern Italian, was published by Giunti for the Commissione nazionale vinciana, in three volumes:
Il codice Forster I, trascrizione diplomatica e critica di Augusto Marinoni (Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1992)
Il codice Forster II, trascrizione diplomatica e critica di Augusto Marinoni (Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1992)
Il codice Forster III, trascrizione diplomatica e critica di Augusto Marinoni (Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1992).
A compact, three-volume version of the huge Codice atlantico in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, was published by Giunti in 2000, ed. C. Pedretti, with transcriptions by A. Marinoni.
Recent Italian transcriptions, generally accompanying the facsimiles, are by the major scholars of Leonardo’s manuscript legacy, C. Pedretti and A. Marinoni.
Translations into English of extracts from all of Leonardo’s notebooks have been published thematically in Jean Paul Richter, The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci, 2nd edition enlarged and revised by Jean Paul Richter and Irma A. Richter, 2 vols (Oxford University Press, 1939). This work should be read in conjunction with Carlo Pedretti, The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci, compiled and edited from the original manuscripts by Jean Paul Richter, commentary by Carlo Pedretti, 2 vols (Oxford: Phaidon, 1977)
A series of translations by J. Venerella of the Manuscripts held by the Institut de France are being published by the Raccolta Vinciana in Milan, from 1999 onwards.
The standard edition of the Treatise on Painting is by C. Pedretti, Berkeley, 1964, and London, 1965.
For the Paragone (comparison of the arts), which opens the Vatican manuscript of the Treatise, see C. Farago, Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone: A critical interpretation, New York, 1991.
An anthology of Leonardo’s writings on art is provided by Leonardo on Painting, ed. M. Kemp, trs. M. Kemp and M. Walker, New Haven and London, 1989.
Drawings
The best compact general collection remains A.E. Popham, The Drawings of Leonardo, London, 1947 and 1994 (with intro. by M. Kemp).
The important collection of drawings at Windsor is catalogued by K. Clark and C. Pedretti, The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, 3 vols, London, 1968; and more recently in the series of facsimiles by Giunti, and the Johnson Reprint Corporation, mainly edited by C. Pedretti.
A series of exhibitions of the Windsor drawings at the Queen’s Gallery have been accompanied by catalogues by Lady J. Roberts and M. Clayton.
C. Bambach’s catalogue of the exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci Master Draftsman, New York, Metropolitan Museum, 2003, contains important scholarship by Bambach herself and essays by various authors, as does F. Viatte, Leonard de Vinci Dessins et Manuscrits, Paris, Louvre, 2003.
Architecture and engineering
The most complete review of Leonardo as an architect is C. Pedretti, Leonardo Architect, London, 1986.
P. Galluzzi, The Renaissance Engineers, Florence, 1996, sets Leonardo’s engineering in context.
Useful material and essays are gathered in Leonardo. Engineer and Architect, ed. P. Galluzzi, Montreal, 1987.
For military architecture, see P. Marani, L’Architettura fortificata negli studi di Leonardo da Vinci, Florence, 1984.
For the water clock, see Mark Rosheim, Leonardo’s Lost Robots, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 2006.
Aspects of science, etc.
K. Keele, Leonardo da Vinci. Elements of the Science of Man, London, 1983, sets Leonardo’s anatomical researches into the context of his thought.
A comprehensive treatment of Leonardo’s optics is provided by K. Veltman, Linear Perspective and the Visual Dimensions of Science and Art, Munich, 1986.
The best treatment of Leonardo’s mathematics is A. Marinoni, La Matemica di Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, 1982.
Comprehensive analysis of the water drawings and notes is provided in a series of volumes by E. Macagno, Leonardian Fluid Mechanics, Iowa, 1986 onwards.
C. Starnazzi, Leonardo Cartografo, Florence, 2003, has explored Leonardo’s geological interests.
A good introduction to Leonardo’s thought is provided by R. Zwijnenberg, The Writings and Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci: Order and Chaos in Early Modern Thought, New York, 1999.
For the physiognomics, see M. Kwakkelstein, Leonardo as a Physiognomist, Leiden, 1994.