List of books left locked in the chest
Two columns of titles — Livy, Pliny, Euclid, Alberti, Ovid, Aesop and more
Folio 2v opens Leonardo's inventory of his library with the heading 'Note of the books I leave locked in the chest.' Two columns list dozens of titles, ranging across the Decades of Livy, Pliny, Augustine's City of God, Euclid on geometry, Alberti on architecture, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Aesop's fables and a run of grammatical and devotional works. A faint sketch is just visible in the centre of the leaf beneath the writing, not transcribed here.
On this page
Heading: books left locked in the chest
The list is headed as a memorandum of the books Leonardo is leaving locked away in his chest.
Right-hand column of titles
Titles include Giorgio Valla, the Fasciculus medicinae, the first, third and fourth Decades of Livy, Augustine's City of God, Pliny, Euclid on geometry, Alberti on architecture and De re militari.
Left-hand column of titles
Further titles include Lucan, Aesop in verse, Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Prospettiva comune, Albert of Saxony, the Fior di virtù, the sonnets of Burchiello and a book of medicines for horses.
A first-person record of his own library
The inventory is a personal memorandum of Leonardo's own possessions, itemising the books he keeps locked in a chest.