Painting Kindles Love as No Poem Can
Perspective underpins even astronomy; a lover's tale of a sacred image bought and kissed
Leonardo argues that painting does not clothe itself in the other sciences; rather they clothe themselves in painting, as mathematical astronomy does nothing without perspective, its principal member (he sets aside the fallacious judicial astrology). Answering the poet's claim to kindle love, he holds the painter does it more powerfully by setting the very effigy of the beloved before the lover, and recalls a painting of his own of a divine subject whose buyer wished to strip away the deity so he might kiss it without scruple, until conscience forced him to remove it from his house. He challenges the poet to describe a beauty without a living image, and insists that even hell or paradise the painter renders more movingly than words. The whole page is continuous prose in Melzi's fair-copy hand with no drawings.
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The other sciences clothe themselves in painting
Painting does not borrow from the other sciences; rather they borrow from it, as astronomy does nothing without perspective, which is its principal member. Leonardo means here mathematical astronomy, not the fallacious judicial astrology practiced upon fools. The painter, describing one thing that stands for another full of maxims, is in this a poet too.
A lover enamoured of a painted sacred image
Painting kindles love more than verse, for it sets the very effigy of the beloved before the lover, who kisses and speaks to it. Leonardo recalls making a painting of a divine subject whose buyer wished to remove the sacred figure so he might kiss it without scruple, until conscience overcame lust and forced him to take it from his house. He then challenges the poet to move men so with words alone.