Secondo me

Una mano più:

A drawing of my left hand. Well, I drew this one yesterday with my right hand initially, then finished it with my left.

Leonardo’s theory on skin pigmentation, which is actually quite brilliant:

« Dei paesi caldi e freddi »

Gli uomini nati in paesi caldi amano la notte, perché li rinfresca, e odiano la luce, perché li riscalda. E quindi sono del colore della notte, ciò è neri. Ed in paesi freddi, ogni cosa è al contrario.

“On Hot and Cold Countries”

Men born in hot countries love the night, because it refreshes them, and they fear the light, because it burns them. Therefore, they are the color of night, that is, black. And in cold countries, it is the opposite.

Notes:

The adoption of the palatal lateral approximant, “gl” in the definite article before “s+[consonant]”-initial and vowel-initial masculine nouns is not articulated orthographically, although it probably was in spoken language. Hence, Leonardo uses “li omini”, instead of the modern “gli uomini”.

From the above, we see that diphthongization has not occurred yet on “uomo, uomini”.

I have suspicions that the periphrastic construction used in Italian to denote the simple past was not independently developed alongside Spanish. That, the clitic (e.g. <sorpresame, Sp.>, <sorpresami, It.>, “Surprise me”), and the use of the “gerundive” (really a misnomer, because the gerundive here doesn’t work as a nominative, but rather an adverbial or active participle) to form continuous actions in the present using the form of “to stand” (e.g. <estoy hablando, Sp.> vs. <sto parlando, It.>, “I am speaking”) are far too similar, I think, to be accidental.

I’m curious as to when this contact could have taken place, and under what context.

Changes I made:

<ano in odio> for <hanno l’odio> → <odiano>

<ne’ paesi freddi> → <in paesi freddi>

<per l’opposito> → <al contrario>

<li omini> → <gli uomini>

<rifresca> → <rinfresca>

Some work into a masonry dome

My foot and hand

A study of the Madonna, one of several I’ve made. I love drawing babies.

« Dell’imitazione »

L’imitazione delle cose antiche è più lodevole che quella delle moderne.

“On Imitation”

The [practice] of imitation of ancient things is more praiseworthy than the imitation of that which is modern.

Translation Notes:

-If Leonardo’s literacy is evident of that which was most commonly accepted in late 15^th century Tuscan, spelling conventions have not yet adopted of the letter [z] instead of the final [t] used in descendents of Latin 3^rd declension <-tio, -tionis> nouns. Hence, in the original, his spelling of <imitazione> is rendered <imitatione> (the Latin original being <imitatio, imitationis>).

-He uses, for the adjective “praiseworthy”, the Latin form of the word (in its neuter form in the nominative and the accusative, which is the form that Italian later appropriated for ALL 3^rd declension adjectives): <laudabile>.

The modern equivalent is <lodevole>, indicating a phonological shift from the Latin /au/ to the Italian /o/, and the shift from the bilabial plosive [b] to the labiodental fricative [v].

In the Latin <laudabile>, the stress is on the antepult syllable (the [da]), and perhaps there’s some phonological rule that accounts for the shift from the short /i/ (also written [ĭ]) in the Latin to the /o/ in the Italian when this is the case. I’m not sure, although the other phonological shifts seem quite widespread.

Personal Notes:

As a proponent of Classicism, I agree strongly with Leonardo’s views here. So did Michelangelo, who, in his young adulthood, passed off sculptures of his own as those of Antiquity. Apparently, he was present at the unveiling of the famous Laocoön of Athenodorus, Polydorus, and Hagesander of Rhodes on the site of Nero’s Domus Aurea, and all indications are that he saw this sculpture as the greatest ever created. The influence of this sculpture is incredibly strong in many of his later works, particularly in the slaves originally intended for Pope Julius II’s tomb.

Helpful Links for Readers:

On the IPA

The Laocoön, a background of its sculptors and its history

The slaves of the tomb of Pope Julius II can be seen lower on the page here

Leonardo scrisse il seguito riguardo alla fisiologia del corpo umano…

da Vinci wrote the following about what he perceived as the beautiful physiology of the human body:

Benché l’ingegnosità umana faccia le invenzioni varie, rispondedo coi vari strumenti a un medesimo fine, mai esso troverà l’inventione più bella, né più facile, né più breve della Natura…

Although human ingenuity may make various inventions (by means of various machines responding towards a common goal), it will never find an invention more beautiful, simpler, or more to the point than that which is made by Nature…

Translation Notes:

Leonardo apparently makes the following contractions in the original passage:

-Coi → co

-Un → u

He also makes the following vowel insertion (a process known as diphthongization and reminiscent of Spanish, where it is commonly found):

-Breve → brieve