The yellow of Leonardo’s notes in a 15th century code

The illustration of this process of ‘falsification’ is illustrated in the volume “The bottle of Leonardo. The posts at the Architecture Treaty by Francesco Di Giorgio Martini (ms. Ashb. 361): Leonardo da Vinci, Guglielmo Books and their interpreters” (Editions of History and Literature). The authors of the investigation are Marco Biffi, professor of Italian linguistics at the University of Florence, academic of the Crusca (where he is also responsible for the web and of the computer center) and academic of honor of the arts of drawing, and Antonio Becci, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin), corresponding member of the International Academy of the History of Science.

The history of MS. Ashb. 361 is reconsidered by Biffi and Becchi on the basis of a different reading of the cards and, in particular, of some documents that in the past have been the subject of erroneous attributions and dating. The two authors propose a reconstruction full of twists and turns, which questioned certainties taken for granted. According to the conclusions of Becchi and Biffi, everything leads to believing that, in reality, it is faced with an nineteenth -century ’embellishment’ of the manuscript with the Pseudo Leonardian pseudoes aimed at finally making a code that had remained invented for years. If the name of Francesco Di Giorgio was not attractive enough, it was a question of giving him new appeal by adding that, enormously better known, of Leonardo. Once again, the false Guglielmo Libri is looming as the only operator with the right knowledge to set up such a delicate operation.