Elenco Bombard User Manual
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NOTEBOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI
Da Vinci’s notebooks are now more than 500 years old.
They are not bound the way a typical book would be
today, but rather comprised of loose sheets of paper
gathered into collections and wrapped with fabric.
Paper was scarce in Da Vinci’s time, so he used
every available space in a page for drawings,
observations, even recipes and shopping lists, making
them somewhat difficult to interpret. Adding to the
difficulty in deciphering his works was the fact that
Da Vinci’s scripted notes were written backwards, or in
a mirror image, and read from right to left. His reason for
this remains a mystery, but it is thought that Leonardo’s
theories sometimes went against church teachings and his secret writing could
have been a way to avoid scrutiny. Da Vinci also might have feared that someone
would steal his designs and publish them under
their own name. Ironically, Da Vinci addressed
an imaginary readership in the margins of his
notebooks urging the reader to make sure his work
was printed into a proper book. It is presumed that
he meant for the notebooks
to be published after
his death.