“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.”
Later this year I’ll travel to London to stay with my friend Laurie and her husband, Gethyn, and visit museums, libraries and other venues to view the paintings, drawings and notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. My trip will be a solid success if, on returning to New York, I’m more energized and equipped to write my book about the Renaissance artist and polymath.
A highlight of my trip is a scheduled visit to the Royal Collection Trust at Windsor Castle to view one of the richest collections of da Vinci’s drawings reflecting his wide-ranging interests. I’ll observe 25 of the 600 drafts of everything from anatomy and cartography to proportions and botany, as well as his preparatory sketches for paintings and sculptures.
The National Gallery features the second version of da Vinci’s painting The Virgin of the Rocks, which replaced his original altarpiece for Milan’s church of San Francesco Grande that now hangs in the Louvre in Paris. Scholars debate the extent to which da Vinci’s hand was involved versus his students in the latter version, which will be the eighth of his 20 surviving paintings that I’ve seen in person.
The British Museum features two dozen da Vinci drafts I’m scheduled to view on two days. Among them are a bust of a warrior, a tank-like and other military machines, and the Virgin and Christ Child with a cat.
A canvas copy of da Vinci’s Last Supper, painted by his disciple Giampietrino in 1520, hangs at the Royal Academy of Arts. I’m excited to see how this faithful oil replica brings to life some of the master’s much-deteriorated mural in Milan.
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If circumstances permit, I’ll travel to the Wilton House estate in Salisbury to view another copy of his paintings, Leda and the Swan, by his student Cesare da Sesto.
The Codex Forster, consisting of da Vinci’s five pocket notebooks bound in three volumes, is kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum and features studies on such subjects as hydraulic geometry, engineering, anatomy, weights and balances, and measurements of solid bodies. I’ll be able to see the two-volume Codex Forster I, which is on public display, but not the Codex Forster II (two notebooks) and Codex Forster III (one notebook), which rarely come out of storage. Thankfully, the library has fully digitized the five notebooks.
The British Library houses another manuscript, the Codex Arundel, which also mostly stays in storage. But the library publicly displays three pages from the notebook that da Vinci produced during his final years in France. They feature a spiral staircase and images representing “geometry in motion” and the science of weights.
Finally, although the handful of fragile da Vinci drawings at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge rarely go on public display, I was able to schedule a private viewing of a drawing of two horsemen and another entitled the ermine as a symbol of purity.
I’m traveling to London as an aspiring first-time author to cull what comes only with viewing firsthand a historical subject’s work.
Firstly, firsthand experiences can lend a certain authenticity and depth to the type of book I want to write. There’s something to be said about being able to say: “I saw that with my own eyes.” As da Vinci wrote in his notebook now called the Codex Atlanticus: “Experience has been the mistress of whoever has written well; and so as mistress I will cite her in all cases.” 2
Likewise, firsthand experiences raise the possibility of unexpected discoveries that other authors may have missed, deemphasized or otherwise dismissed. You never know what you may find. When I first visited the Uffizi Gallery in Florence in 2019, I unexpectedly came across a Rembrandt portrait that I posted a print of on my bedroom wall as a teenager. I was blown away by the richness in color and shading and the lifelike clarity of the original that no photographic print can ever fully capture. Some things must be seen in the flesh.
I also know the inspirational value of firsthand experiences. I traveled to Italy soon after I rediscovered da Vinci, a hero from my youth. In addition to his Last Supper mural, I was able to view four of his other paintings, as well as sheets from the Codex Atlanticus. Returning home, I was energized to read one book after another about da Vinci (at this point, I’ve completed about 30 volumes), which in turn inspired me to write my own book about him.
In addition to my da Vinci-related activities, Laurie, Gethyn and I will travel to Stonehenge and the English countryside. We’ll also attend a performance at Shakespeare’s Globe and perhaps a Baroque concert at St. Martin in the Fields.
I also expect that Laurie and I will discuss her favorite writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Cicero, and I’ll otherwise pick her fertile brain about the ancient world on which the Renaissance rests. And, I’m told, Gethyn will recite Welsh poetry.
I also look forward to all else London has to offer me, from taverns, parks and perhaps a boat ride along the River Thames, to streets full of history and architecture, much of which I’ll view in detail through the lens of my Sony camera.
Travel for me is about fresh adventures and firsthand experiences, discoveries and learning, as well as visiting old friends and meeting new people. The payoff will be an even richer book about da Vinci.
Endnotes
1. Martin Kemp and Thereza Wells, Leonardo da Vinci: Notebooks, (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 7.
2. Martin Kemp and Thereza Wells, Leonardo da Vinci: Notebooks, (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 4.