Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/229

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Only of late years have the manuscripts of Leo- nardo da Vinci seen the light and the many difficulties been overcome which long proved an obstacle to their publication. The labour of editing, deciphering and translating his many scattered and fragmentary codices was beyond the efforts of any single man. The gratitude of the cultivated world is therefore due to those who, like J. P. Richter, C. Ravaisson-Mollien, Luca Beltrami, Piumati, Sabachnikoif, and, last but not least, the scholars of the Academia dei Lincei, have so faithfully devoted themselves to this task, which alone has made possible the pre- sent little work.

It was unavoidable that the form in which these manuscripts have been published should practi- cally restrict their possession to the great libraries. But an excellent volume of selections from the writings of Leonardo, which are found in so hap- hazard a manner scattered through his codices and intermingled with his drawings and dia- grams, has been published in Italy (Leonardo da Vinci: Frammenti Letterari e Storici. Florence, 1900). By kind permission of its editor, Dr. Solmi, this has served as a basis for the text of the pre- sent translation. The references, however, have

193

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.