Francesco di Giorgio Martini's sketchbook

[MarcoP]

Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501) was a central figure of the Italian Renaissance; he could be the most important You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of the fifteenth century. He was among the first to effectively confront the challenges posed by the widespread use of artillery. One of his most remarkable buildings is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

   

Like Mariano di Jacopo aka Taccola, Francesco was from Siena. Scholars (e.g. see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) believe that Taccola’s autograph manuscript of books I and II of De Ingeneis (Munich CLM 197) contains a few drawings and annotations by Francesco’s hand. Born 58 years after Taccola (1439 vs. 1381), he likely added these notes in the 1460s, after Taccola’s death.
In his turn, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Firenze Ashb. 361 “Trattato di architettura civile e militare”. Image of a note by Leonardo in Ashb.361 from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. featuring Anna Rita Fantoni (former director of the Laurenziana Library).
   

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. discusses the relationship between Francesco’s work and Taccola. This passage is interesting (the last sentence in particular):

Taccola’s profusely illustrated books, which merged antiquarian knowledge with technical acumen, provided a model for the codification of mechanical ideas, technological lore, design speculations and craft information, which until that point were largely maintained in an oral tradition. Within the context of the Studio of Siena, where Taccola was a chamberlain for nearly a decade, we might imagine that his manuscripts came to join those of the sources he employed – including Pliny, Vegetius, Frontinus, Marcus Graecus and Philo of Byzantium – providing inspiration and references for a community of artists and design practitioners. Even beyond the city, there was a demand for copies of Taccola’s manuscripts, and more broadly, the canon of material he had amassed. By the final decades of the 15th century, machine model drawings of Sienese origin were dispersed in Italy. The drawing books that index this culture follow a uniform pattern: in their subject matter, rigorously confined to machine drawing, and also in their material composition, which is irregular. Exemplars of the type include the Ms. Palatino 767 (Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale); Ms. Additional 34113 (London, The British Library); Ms. Ob. 13 (Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek); and Ms. S.IV.5 (Siena, Biblioteca degli Intronati) (Figs 6, 7). These model books are compilations, not preconceived works. Most probably, they originated as unbound stacks of folios, and for a significant period of time remained open to reference and annotation among a community of practitioners.