Editing Leonardo da Vinci (section)

== Journals and notes ==
{{See also|List of works by Leonardo da Vinci#Manuscripts}}
[[Renaissance humanism]] recognised no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are sometimes considered as impressive and innovative as his artistic work.{{sfn|Arasse|1998}} These studies were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and [[natural philosophy]] (the forerunner of modern science). They were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him.{{sfn|Arasse|1998}} Leonardo's notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirlpools, war machines, flying machines and architecture.{{sfn|Arasse|1998}}
[[File:Leonardo da Vinci - Studies of the foetus in the womb.jpg|thumb|left|upright|A page showing [[Studies of the Fetus in the Womb|Leonardo's study of a foetus in the womb]] ({{circa|1510|lk=no}}), Royal Library, [[Windsor Castle]]]]

These notebooks – originally loose papers of different types and sizes – were largely entrusted to Leonardo's pupil and heir Francesco Melzi after the master's death.{{sfn|Wallace|1972|p=169}} These were to be published, a task of overwhelming difficulty because of its scope and Leonardo's idiosyncratic writing.<ref name=KDK>{{cite journal |author=Keele Kenneth D |year=1964 |title=Leonardo da Vinci's Influence on Renaissance Anatomy |journal=Med Hist |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=360–370 |pmc=1033412 |pmid=14230140 |doi=10.1017/s0025727300029835 |issn = 0025-7273}}</ref> Some of Leonardo's drawings were copied by an anonymous Milanese artist for a planned treatise on art (''[[Codex Huygens]],'' {{circa|1570}}).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bean |first1=Jacob |last2=Stampfle |first2=Felice |title=Drawings from New York Collections I: The Italian Renaissance |date=1965 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |location=Greenwich, CT |pages=81–82}}</ref> After Melzi's death in 1570, the collection passed to his son, the lawyer Orazio, who initially took little interest in the journals.{{sfn|Wallace|1972|p=169}} In 1587, a Melzi household tutor named Lelio Gavardi took 13 of the manuscripts to Pisa; there, the architect [[Giovanni Magenta]] reproached Gavardi for having taken the manuscripts illicitly and returned them to Orazio. Having many more such works in his possession, Orazio gifted the volumes to Magenta. News spread of these lost works of Leonardo's, and Orazio retrieved seven of the 13 manuscripts, which he then gave to [[Pompeo Leoni]] for publication in two volumes; one of these was the ''[[Codex Atlanticus]].'' The other six works had been distributed to a few others.<ref>{{cite book |last=Major |first=Richard Henry |author-link=Richard Henry Major |title=Archaeologia: Or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, Volume 40, Part 1 |date=1866 |publisher=The Society |location=London |pages=15–16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HlBIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15 |access-date=1 October 2019 |archive-date=23 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240323103326/https://books.google.com/books?id=HlBIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref> After Orazio's death, his heirs sold the rest of Leonardo's possessions, and thus began their dispersal.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calder |first=Ritchie |url=https://archive.org/details/leonardoageofeye0000cald |title=Leonardo & the Age of the Eye |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=1970 |location=New York |pages=275 |isbn=978-0-671-20713-7}}</ref>

Some works have found their way into major collections such as the Royal Library at [[Windsor Castle]], the Louvre, the {{lang|es|[[Biblioteca Nacional de España]]|italic=no}}, the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], the [[Biblioteca Ambrosiana]] in Milan, which holds the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus, and the [[British Library]] in London, which has put a selection from the [[Codex Arundel]] (BL Arundel MS 263) online.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sketches by Leonardo |website=Turning the Pages |publisher=[[British Library]] |url=http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html | access-date =27 September 2007 | archive-date =24 June 2010 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20100624031653/http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html | url-status =dead}}</ref> Works have also been at [[Holkham Hall]], the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], and in the private hands of [[John Nicholas Brown&nbsp;I]] and [[Robert Lehman]].{{sfn|Wallace|1972|p=169}} The [[Codex Leicester]] is the only privately owned major scientific work of Leonardo; it is owned by [[Bill Gates]] and displayed once a year in different cities around the world.

Most of Leonardo's writings are in [[Mirror writing|mirror-image]] cursive.<ref name="Polidoro" /><ref name="Taylor">{{cite book |last=Da Vinci |first=Leonardo |url=https://archive.org/details/notebooks00leon/page/n11/mode/2up |title=The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci |publisher=[[New American Library]] |year=1960|editor-last=Taylor|editor-first=Pamela |location=New York |page=x |isbn=978-0-486-22572-2|editor2-last=Taylor|editor2-first=Francis Henry|editor-link2=Francis Henry Taylor}}</ref> Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it was probably easier for him to write from right to left.<ref>{{cite book |last=Livio |first=Mario|author-link=Mario Livio |title=The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bUARfgWRH14C|orig-date=2002 |edition=First trade paperback |year=2003 |publisher=[[Random House|Broadway Books]] |location=New York City |isbn=0-7679-0816-3 |page=136|access-date=22 December 2018|archive-date=13 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230313121951/https://books.google.com/books?id=bUARfgWRH14C|url-status=live}}</ref>{{efn|He also drew with his left hand, his [[Hatching|hatch]] strokes "slanting down from left to right{{snd}} the natural stroke of a left-handed artist".{{sfn|Wallace|1972|p=31}} He also sometimes wrote conventionally with his right hand.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.foxnews.com/science/da-vinci-was-ambidextrous-new-handwriting-analysis-shows.amp |title=Da Vinci was ambidextrous, new handwriting analysis shows |last=Ciaccia |first=Chris |website=Fox News |date=15 April 2019|access-date=15 April 2019|archive-date=13 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200213082907/https://www.foxnews.com/science/da-vinci-was-ambidextrous-new-handwriting-analysis-shows.amp|url-status=live}}</ref>}} Leonardo used a variety of shorthand and symbols, and states in his notes that he intended to prepare them for publication.<ref name=Taylor /> In many cases a single topic is covered in detail in both words and pictures on a single sheet, together conveying information that would not be lost if the pages were published out of order.<ref>Windsor Castle, Royal Library, sheets RL 19073v–74v and RL 19102.</ref> Why they were not published during Leonardo's lifetime is unknown.{{sfn|Arasse|1998}}{{clear left}}