The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete


google search for The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete

Return to Master Book Index.

Page
425 426 427 428 429

Quick Jump
1 306 613 919 1225

6
02.  
and with the opposite limbs thrust forward; that is where a man puts  
forward the right foot the left arm must be advanced. And if you  
make any one fallen, you must show the place where he has slipped  
and been dragged along the dust into blood stained mire; and in the  
half-liquid earth arround show the print of the tramping of men and  
horses who have passed that way. Make also a horse dragging the dead  
body of his master, and leaving behind him, in the dust and mud, the  
track where the body was dragged along. You must make the conquered  
and beaten pale, their brows raised and knit, and the skin above  
their brows furrowed with pain, the sides of the nose with wrinkles  
going in an arch from the nostrils to the eyes, and make the  
nostrils drawn up--which is the cause of the lines of which I  
speak--, and the lips arched upwards and discovering the upper  
teeth; and the teeth apart as with crying out and lamentation. And  
make some one shielding his terrified eyes with one hand, the palm  
towards the enemy, while the other rests on the ground to support  
his half raised body. Others represent shouting with their mouths  
open, and running away. You must scatter arms of all sorts among the  
feet of the combatants, as broken shields, lances, broken swords and  
other such objects. And you must make the dead partly or entirely  
covered with dust, which is changed into crimson mire where it has  
mingled with the flowing blood whose colour shows it issuing in a  
sinuous stream from the corpse. Others must be represented in the  
agonies of death grinding their teeth, rolling their eyes, with  
427  


Page
425 426 427 428 429

Quick Jump
1 306 613 919 1225