Variety in Narrative Scenes: Faces, Ages, and Decorum
Abundance and diversity, the dignity of the prince, and not repeating one's own likeness
A text leaf of the Treatise on Painting gathering five short precepts on composing narrative scenes, several keyed to cross-references in another book. Leonardo urges abundance and variety, avoiding any repeated part, and mixing men of diverse features, ages and dress with women, children, dogs, horses, buildings, fields and hills. Further sections demand that the dignity of the prince or wise man be kept apart from the tumult of the crowd, that the weeping not be mingled with the merry, and that the painter avoid the common Italian defect of letting his own face reappear in the figures he paints.
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Abundance and variety draw the eye
The painter delights in the abundance and variety of narrative compositions and flees repeating any part already made, so that novelty and abundance attract and delight the beholder's eye. In their proper places the scene requires men of diverse features, ages and dress, mingled with women, children, dogs, horses, buildings, fields and hills.
The dignity of the prince set apart from the crowd
Observe in the narrative the dignity and decorum of the prince or wise man who is set forth in it, keeping him separated and wholly private from the tumult of the common crowd. Nor should the melancholy, tearful and weeping be mixed with the merry and laughing, since nature separates their laughter and their weeping.
Diversify the faces; do not repeat your own likeness
It is a common defect among Italian painters that the maker's own air and figure is recognized in the many faces he paints. To flee this error, never make or repeat, whole or in part, a figure such that one face is seen again in another within the same scene.