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out the practical precepts as to the representation of trees and
landscape from the close connection in which they were originally
placed--unlike the rest of the practical precepts--with the theory
of this branch of the subject. They must therefore be sought under
the section entitled Botany for Painters.
As a supplement to the Libro di Pittura I have here added those
texts which treat of the Painter's materials,--as chalk, drawing
paper, colours and their preparation, of the management of oils and
varnishes; in the appendix are some notes on chemical substances.
Possibly some of these, if not all, may have stood in connection
with the preparation of colours. It is in the very nature of things
that Leonardo's incidental indications as to colours and the like
should be now-a-days extremely obscure and could only be explained
by professional experts--by them even in but few instances. It might
therefore have seemed advisable to reproduce exactly the original
text without offering any translation. The rendering here given is
merely an attempt to suggest what Leonardo's meaning may have been.
LOMAZZO tells us in his Trattato dell'arte della Pittura, Scultura
ed Architettura (Milano 1584, libro II, Cap. XIV): "Va discorrendo
ed argomentando Leonardo Vinci in un suo libro letto da me (?)
questi anni passati, ch'egli scrisse di mano stanca ai prieghi di
LUDOVICO SFORZA duca di Milano, in determinazione di questa
questione, se e piu nobile la pittura o la scultura; dicendo che
quanto piu un'arte porta seco fatica di corpo, e sudore, tanto piu e
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