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1508-1513
The Milan of Charles d'Amboise
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The nature of water
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In the context of landscape painting as well as
scientific and technical research, water was for
Leonardo the supreme natural element, a theme to which
he returned repeatedly. In the Codice Atlantico he
stated his intention to write a treatise on water, and
he drew up a descriptive vocabulary on the subject. The
codices list various principles of hydrostatics and
hydrodynamics as they relate to communicating basins,
the capacity of rivers, and the wave movements of the
sea. Some of these exercises were directed towards the
solution of specific problems such as the projects for
draining marshes - Piombino, Vigevano, Lomellina,
Pontine -and to improvements in the Novara region. Other
studies were related to the Lombard network of basins
and canals, and the hydrographic systems of the Val di
Chiana and central Tuscany. Moreover, Leonardo
speculated on the alluvial origins of the Paduan Plain
and the Valdarno.
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Leonardo da Vinci, Machine for Draining Canals,
1513,
Manuscript E, Institut de France, Paris.
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Leonardo da Vinci,
View of the Adda between Vaprio and Canonica with a Ferry and Water
Intake of the Vailate Artificial Canal,
Royal Library, Windsor.
Leonardo travelled to Vaprio d'Adda as a guest at the Villa Melzi. |
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Leonardo da Vinci, Old Man Seated and Swirling Water, 1513,
Royal Library, Windsor.
Watercourses are compared with the veins of the body and
their swirling to the circulation of the blood.
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Leonardo da Vinci
Studies of water
1509-11
Royal Library, Windsor
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Leonardo da Vinci, View of the Shipping of
the Martesana at Concesa,
Royal Library, Windsor.
Leonardo tried improve upon the location of Milan,
"a city in the midst of land", by working out a plan
for a new harbor-city adjacent to a river -probably
identifiable as the River Ticino.
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Leonardo da Vinci,
Canal for Navigation between the Lake of Lecco
and the Lambro, Codice Atlantico, Biblioteca
Ambrosiana, Milan.
The plans for widening the Adda canal were
traced out around 1513.
The topographical surveys conducted by Leonardo
in the course of his studies of civil and
military engineering were of immense importance.
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Leonardo da Vinci
Storm over a landscape
c. 1500
Red chalk on
paper
Royal Library, Windsor
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Leonardo da Vinci
Landscape near Pisa
1502-03
Red chalk on paper
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
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