CHAPTER XX — Critical Commentary & Notes¶
On Columns Placed Above Other Columns in Multi-Story Buildings (Vitruvius Book V), the 1498 Disputation in the Castello Sforzesco with Count Onofrio Paganini of Brescia, and Colophon of the 1509 Venice Edition.
Historical & Mathematical Commentary¶
:person:`*Leonardo da Vinci’s * <leonardo>`Sala delle Asse (Camera dei Moroni) in the Castello Sforzesco (1498)**: Look closely at what Pacioli reveals on Folio 0081 (
f. 33r): in 1498, in the Camera dei Moroni (“Chamber of the Mulberry Trees”—Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Sala delle Asse in the northeast tower of the Castello Sforzesco, painted by Leonardo in 1498 with sixteen giant tree trunks rising up the walls and intertwining their branches across the vault!), Duke :person:`*Ludovico Maria Sforza <ludovico-sforza>`*, Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, :person:`*Galeazzo Sanseverino <galeazzo-sanseverino>`*, Count Onofrio Paganini of Brescia (kinsman of the printer Paganino de’ Paganini!), and :person:`*Fra Luca Pacioli <pacioli>`* gathered to hear a formal exposition of Vitruvius V.1.3 on how architecture imitates the tapering trunks and branches of living trees! This firsthand eyewitness testimony directly connects Vitruvius V.1.3 and Plato’s :cite:`Timaeus <plato:timaeus:53c-56c>` 53d to the iconographic program of Leonardo’s Sala delle Asse in 1498.The 1509 Venetian Colophon: Folio 0082 (
f. 33v) concludes the text of Part II with the official colophon of Paganino de’ Paganini of Brescia, recording the 15-year copyright privilege granted by the Venetian Senate under Doge Leonardo Loredan (r. 1501–1521) and Pope Julius II (Year VI, June 1, 1509).
Philological and Folio Apparatus¶
1509 Paganini Witness Folios: 0081, 0082 (f. 33r–f. 33v)
Winterberg 1889 Italian Source:
winterberg/02_architectura_italian/020_cap_XX.txtWinterberg 1889 German Source:
winterberg/04_architectura_german/020_cap_XX.txtMarginal Woodcut Diagrams: 0 figure(s) extracted from the 1509 Venice witness.