[PDF] The Tim Burton Encyclopedia by Samuel J. Umland in Arts-Photography

Description

A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of Leonardo da Vincis works. Two of the three most important were never completed; obstacles having arisen during his life-time; which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari; while the thirdmdash;the picture of the Last Supper at Milanmdash;has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless; no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description.Vasari says; and rightly; in his Life of Leonardo; "that he laboured much more by his word than in fact or by deed"; and the biographer evidently had in his mind the numerous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day. To us; now; it seems almost inexplicable that these valuable and interesting original texts should have remained so long unpublished; and indeed forgotten. It is certain that during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries their exceptional value was highly appreciated. This is proved not merely by the prices which they commanded; but also by the exceptional interest which has been attached to the change of ownership of merely a few pages of Manuscript.That; notwithstanding this eagerness to possess the Manuscripts; their contents remained a mystery; can only be accounted for by the many and great difficulties attending the task of deciphering them. The handwriting is so peculiar that it requires considerable practice to read even a few detached phrases; much more to solve with any certainty the numerous difficulties of alternative readings; and to master the sense as a connected whole. Vasari observes with reference to Leonardos writing: "he wrote backwards; in rude characters; and with the left hand; so that any one who is not practised in reading them; cannot understand them".