In addition to this memoir, Venturi notices[i90], that Howard Earl of Arundel made ineffectual efforts to obtain this large volume, and offered for it as far as 60,000 francs, in the name of the King of England. Arconati would never part with it; he bought eleven other books of Da Vinci, which came also, according to appearance, from Leoni; in 1637 he made a gift of them all to the Ambrosian library[i91], which already was in possession of the volume E, from Mazenta, and received afterwards the volume K from Horatio Archinto, in 1674[i92].
Venturi says, this is the history of all the manuscripts of Vinci that are come into France; they are in number fourteen, because the volume B contains an appendix of eighteen leaves, which may be separated, and considered as the fourteenth volume[i93].
In the printed catalogue of the library of Turin, one does not see noticed the manuscript which Mazenta gave to the Duke of Savoy: it has then disappeared. Might it not be that which an Englishman got copied by Francis Ducci, library-keeper at Florence, and a copy of which is still remaining in the same city [i94]?
The Trivulce family at Milan, according to Venturi[i95], possess also a manuscript of Vinci, which is in great part only a vocabulary.
Of the volume in the possession of his Britannic Majesty, the following account is given in the life of Leonardo, prefixed to that number already published from it by Mr. Chamberlaine: “It was one of the three volumes which became the property of Pompeo Leoni, that is now in his Majesty’s cabinet. It is rather probable than certain, that this great curiosity was acquired for King Charles I. by the Earl of Arundel, when he went Ambassador to the Emperor Ferdinand II. in 1636, as may indeed be inferred from an instructive inscription over the place where the volumes are kept, which sets forth, that James King of England offered three thousand pistoles for one of the volumes of Leonardo’s works. And some documents in the Ambrosian library give colour to this conjecture. This volume was happily preserved during the civil wars of the last century among other specimens of the fine arts, which the munificence of Charles I. had amassed with a diligence equal to his taste. And it was discovered soon after his present Majesty’s accession in the same cabinet where Queen Caroline found the fine portraits of the court of Henry VIII. by Hans Holbein, which the King’s liberality permitted me lately to lay before the public. On the cover of this volume is written, in gold letters, what ascertains its descent; Disegni di Leonardo da Vinci, restaurati da Pompeo Leoni.”
Although no part of the collections of Leonardo was arranged and prepared by himself, or others under his direction, for publication, some extracts have been made from his writings, and given to the world as separate tracts. The best known, and indeed the principal of these, is the following Treatise on Painting, of which there will be occasion to say more presently; but besides this, Edward Cooper, a London bookseller, about the year 1720, published a fragment of a Treatise by Leonardo da Vinci, on the Motions of the Human Body, and the Manner of drawing Figures, according to geometrical Rules. It contains but ten plates in folio, including the title-page, and was evidently extracted from some of the volumes of his collections, as it consists of slight sketches and verbal descriptions both in Italian and English, to explain such of them as needed it.
Mr. Dalton, as has been before noticed, several years since published some engravings from the volume in our King’s collection, but they are so badly done as to be of no value. Mr. Chamberlaine therefore, in 1796, took up the intention afresh, and in that year his first number came out, which is all that has yet appeared.
Of the Treatise on Painting, Venturi[i96] gives the following particulars: “The Treatise on Painting which we have of Vinci is only a compilation of different fragments extracted from his manuscripts. It was in the Barberini library at Rome, in 1630[i97]: the Cav. del Pozzo obtained a copy from it, and Poussin designed the figures of it in 1640[i98]. This copy, and another derived from the same source, in the possession of Thevenot, served as the basis for the edition published in 1651, by Raphael du Frêne. The manuscript of Pozzo, with the figures of Poussin, is actually at Paris, in the valuable collection of books of Chardin [i99]. It is from this that I have taken the relation of Mazenta; it is at the end of the manuscript under this title: “Some Notices of the Works of Leonardo da Vinci at Milan, and of his Books, by J. Ambrose Mazenta of Milan, of the Congregation of the Priests Regular of St. Paul, called the Barnabites.” Mazenta does not announce himself as the author of the compilation; he may however be so; it may also happen, that the compilation was made by the heir himself of Vinci, Francisco Melzo. Vasari, about 1567, says [i100], that a painter of Milan had the manuscripts of Vinci, which were written backwards; that this painter came to him, and afterwards went to Rome, with intention to get them printed, but that he did not know what was the result. However it may be, Du Frêne confesses that this compilation is imperfect in many respects, and ill arranged. It is so, because the compiler has not seized the methodical spirit of Vinci, and that there are mixed with it some pieces which belong to other tracts; besides, one has not seen where many other chapters have been neglected which ought to make part of it. For example, the comparison of painting with sculpture, which has been announced as a separate treatise of the same author, is nothing more than a chapter belonging to the Treatise on Painting, A. 105. All this will be complete, and put in order, in the Treatise on Optics[i101]. In the mean time, however, the following are the different editions of this compilation, such as it is at present:
“Trattato della Pittura di Leonardo da Vinci, nuovamente dato in Luce, con la Vita dell’ Autore da Raphaele du Frêne, Parigi 1651, in fol.; reprinted at Naples in 1733, in folio; at Bologna, in 1786, in folio; at Florence, in 1792, in 4to. This last edition has been given from a copy in the hand-writing of Stephano della Bella.
“——Translated into French by Roland Freart de Chambray, Paris 1651, fol. reprinted ibid. 1716, in 12mo, and 1796, in 8vo.