The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


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evidently the name of a person; for amor a: a Roma, for ilopan  
a: a Napoli. Leonardo has done the same in two passages treating  
on some secrets of his art Nos. 641 and 729, the only other places  
in which we find this cipher employed; we may therefore conclude  
that it was for the sake of secrecy that he used it.  
There can be no doubt, from the tenor of this passage, that Leonardo  
projected a secret excursion to Naples. Nothing has hitherto been  
known of this journey, but the significance of the passage will be  
easily understood by a reference to the following notes, from which  
we may infer that Leonardo really had at the time plans for  
travelling further than Naples. From lines 3, 4 and 7 it is evident  
that he purposed, after selling every thing that was not easily  
portable, to leave a chest in the care of his relations at Vinci.  
His luggage was to be packed into two trunks especially adapted for  
transport by mules. The exact meaning of many sentences in the  
following notes must necessarily remain obscure. These brief remarks  
on small and irrelevant affairs and so forth are however of no  
historical value. The notes referring to the preparations for his  
journey are more intelligible.]  
salt, and how to make tinted paper; sheets of paper folded up; and  
his box of colours; learn to work flesh colours in tempera, learn to  
dissolve gum lac, linseed ... white, of the garlic of Piacenza; take  
'
de Ponderibus'; take the works of Leonardo of Cremona. Remove the  
small furnace ... seed of lilies and of... Sell the boards of the  
127  
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