The Book of Painting: Title Page and Opening Chapter
The treatise's calligraphic opening leaf, bearing the Vatican Library stamp and the shelfmark '1270 Urb.'.
This is the manuscript's opening leaf, headed in display capitals as 'The Book of Painting by Messer Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine painter and sculptor,' and beginning Part One with the chapter on whether painting is a science. The transcribed text - defining science from its first principles, tracing geometry from the surface to the line to the point, and closing on the zero of arithmetic - is identical to that of the companion imaging of folio 1r. The page carries the oval ownership stamp of the Vatican Library and, at its foot, the shelfmark '1270 Urb.'. Brief marginal notes appear in the outer margin; these lie outside the transcription supplied here.
On this page
Painting defended as a science
The leaf opens the treatise by asking whether painting is a science, defining science (scienzia) as mental discourse originating in its ultimate principles. Geometry is set up as the exemplary true science against which painting's claim is to be tested.
From surface to line to the point
Geometry begins from the surface of bodies, has its origin in the line that bounds it, and the line ends in the point - the first principle of geometry, than which nothing can be smaller. The point has no material substance, so that not even all the points of the universe, if joined, would compose part of a surface.
The zero invoked as proof
To argue that a part can equal its whole, the text turns to the zero, the tenth figure of arithmetic, which is nothing in itself. The sentence breaks off at the foot of the leaf, above the shelfmark inscription.
Ownership marks and marginalia
The leaf bears the oval ownership stamp of the Vatican Library within the display heading and the shelfmark inscription at the foot of the page. Brief annotations stand in the outer margin; they are not part of the transcription supplied here and are noted as further untranscribed text.