drawn, and betray the grossest ignorance of the effect which light and shadow were intended to produce, yet some of the subjects which the volume contains may be ascertained by them; and among them is also a fac simile of a page of the original manuscript, which proves this, like the other volumes, to be in Italian, and written backwards. The latter is a very beautiful work, and is calculated to give an accurate idea of Leonardo’s talents as a draughtsman[1]. From these two publications it appears, that this volume also is of a very miscellaneous nature, and that it consists of manuscript entries, interspersed with finished drawings of heads and figures, and slight sketches of mechanical engines and anatomical subjects, some of which are intermixed with the writing itself.
It has been already seen, that these volumes were originally given by the will of Leonardo to Francisco Melzi; and their subsequent history we are enabled to state on the authority of John Ambrose Mazenta, through whose hands they passed. Du Fresne, in the life prefixed to the edition which he published in Italian, of Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting, has, in a
- ↑ Fac similes of some of the pages of the original work, are also to be found in this publication.
