Letters
Personal Correspondence and Fantasy Epistles
Most Illustrious Lord, having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim themselves skilled contrivers of instruments of war…
— Leonardo da Vinci, Letter to Ludovico Sforza
Overview
Leonardo's letters reveal the man behind the legend — a son writing to his father, an artist managing difficult workshop assistants, and a restless imagination spinning elaborate fantasy narratives in letter form. These documents are among the most personal writings in the notebooks.
The most famous is his letter of application to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, in which Leonardo lists his military engineering skills before mentioning — almost as an afterthought — that he is also a painter and sculptor. But beyond this well-known document, there are intimate family letters and astonishing fictional epistles.
Letter to His Father
A dutiful son's careful words
Most loved father, — On the last day of last month I received the letter which you wrote to me, which in a brief space of time gave me pleasure and also sadness; pleasure in that I learned from it that you are in good health, for which I thank God, and displeasure on hearing of your troubles.
C.A. 62 v. a
We know almost nothing about Leonardo's relationship with his father, Ser Piero da Vinci. This fragment — careful, formal, dutiful — tells us more by its tone than its content. The illegitimate son addressing the successful notary with elaborate courtesy. There's distance here, even in the affection. -D
Workshop Troubles in Rome
c. 1513–1516 — Dealing with a difficult assistant
I, finding myself to be nearly all of my time in the hands of this man, do not know how to provide against this; for I cannot do less than employ another, since the work is such as to require two persons.
C.A. 92 r. b
Leonardo spent his final years in Rome under the patronage of Giuliano de' Medici, and this fragment reveals the frustrations of that period — workshop politics, unreliable assistants, the indignity of a great artist having to manage petty disputes. He was in his sixties by then. -D
The Taurus Mountains
A fantasy letter to the "Devatdar of Syria"
To the Devatdar of Syria, Lieutenant of the Sacred Sultan of Babylon. — The recent disaster in our parts, which I am about to relate to you, has been such that I am sure it will not only affect you but the whole universe; and it was in this wise. I found myself in these parts of Armenia, in order to faithfully fulfil the office with which you honoured me; and in the parts most suited to our purpose I began by those regions which come into the province of Calindra, at the frontier of the Taurus Mountains.
C.A. 145 r. a
These mountains have at their base a very rich and ample shore, and towards the west it is full of a beautiful group of islands, all bathed and washed by a most delightful sea. From the north it is bounded by a part of Asia Minor, about 800 miles off; from the south by the Taurus ridge, 400 miles away; and on the east by Armenia Major, 800 miles distant.
This is Leonardo writing fiction — and it's brilliant. The letter is addressed to a fictional Syrian official and describes a catastrophic earthquake in the Taurus Mountains with the precision of a war correspondent and the imagination of a novelist. There's a real question whether Leonardo was working on a literary project here, or simply couldn't stop his imagination from turning everything into a story. Either way, it's proof that his genius wasn't confined to science and art. -D
The letters give you Leonardo without the filter of his scientific persona. He's worried about money. He's annoyed with an assistant who steals from him. He's writing fiction that reads like a movie pitch. These are the most human documents in the entire collection. -D