The Codex on the Flight of Birds in the Royal Library at Turin. Edited by Augusto Marinoni. Foreword by Carlo Pedretti.
New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, , [1982]. The acsimile edition is based on the Italian edition (Il codice sul volo degli uccelli nella Biblioteca reale di Torino, Florence: Giunti Barbera 1976), also edited by Augusto Marinoni; the text has been newly transliterated for the present work, so that the reading of earlier transcribers and the punctuation proposed by them have been modified. In this English edition, a translation of the critical transcription appears on the left, with asterisks marking sections that Leonardo crossed through with a vertical or slanting line. Corrections of Leonardo’s misspellings of course cannot be indicated in the English translation. Text printed in two columns (English on the left and a transcription of Da Vinci’s Italian text on the right). The main volume houses a facsimile edition of the manuscript, enclosed in a cloth-lined recess at the end of the volume. The facsimile is 8.25” x 6." 36 pp. The facsimile is illustrated with numerous drawings, including birds, diagrams, and flight mechanisms. It is in paper wrappers, in a sewn binding. Fine condition. Full brown leather, gilt-lettered spine in five compartments, raised bands. Quarto text volume, 89, [1, blank], [1] pp. Item #17982
Marinoni notes that previous editions were published when the folios were incorrectly ordered. The introduction states, “The Codex…was first published in 1893…and…it was the first Leonardo manuscript to be reproduced in a facsimile that simulates the original – a reproduction method adopted in the present edition. At the time of its first appearance, however, four of its sheets were missing. These were found in later years, so that we now have a facsimile that can be considered definitive.”.
“Of all his scientific writings, Leonardo’s studies of the flight of birds are probably those which come closest to his views as a painter, in that they deal with wind currents, animal motion and, as we have seen, even anatomy…the Codex…belongs to a most significant period of Leonardo’s career as a painter, and as such it reflects the fullness and maturity of his artistic conceptions” (Carlo Pedretti’s “Foreword,” p. 9).
Price: $950.00