Note 50 — Chapter V · DAWN OF THE GOLDEN AGE: BOTTICELLI AND LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo da Vinci. The standard life is by W. von Seidlitz, Leonardo da Vinci, Berlin, 1909. The early work of Leonardo and his relations with Verrocchio have been thoroughly and lucidly analyzed by Jens Thys, Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1913. Amid the confusingly rich bibliography, the student may do well to stick to Vasari’s admirable Life in any of the translations, to Dr. O. Sirén’s scholarly and cautious book Leonardo da Vinci, New Haven, and London, 1916 and to the late Dr. J. P. Richter’s incomparable work “The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci,” London, 1883, obtainable only in libraries. Giovanni Poggi, Leonardo da Vinci, Firenze, 1919, has thoroughly edited Vasari’s Life, and should be consulted for latest views and for illustrations. My own view on the early development of Leonardo, a most disputed matter, is set forth more fully in Art and Archæology, Vol. IV. pp. 111–122.

For literary side-lights Walter Pater’s essay, in The Renaissance; for an iconoclastic view Berenson in Study and Criticism of Italian Art, Fourth Series, New York, 1920. Edward McCurdy’s selected translations from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, New York, 1906, are valuable for those to whom Richter is inaccessible. Leonardo’s drawings, which are no less important than his paintings, may best be approached through Mr. Berenson’s monumental work, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, New York and London, 1903, while the drawings before 1480 are clearly and ably discussed by Dr. Thys.