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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34300-0.txt b/34300-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..278b79e --- /dev/null +++ b/34300-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2869 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leonardo da Vinci, by Sigmund Freud + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leonardo da Vinci + A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence + +Author: Sigmund Freud + +Translator: A. A. Brill + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEONARDO DA VINCI *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI] + + + + +Leonardo da Vinci + +A PSYCHOSEXUAL STUDY OF AN +INFANTILE REMINISCENCE + +BY +PROFESSOR DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. +(UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA) + +TRANSLATED BY + +A. A. BRILL, PH.B., M.D. + +Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal +Psychology, New York University + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY +1916 + +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY + +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Leonardo Da Vinci _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + +Mona Lisa 78 + +Saint Anne 86 + +John the Baptist 94 + + + + +LEONARDO DA VINCI + + + + +I + + +When psychoanalytic investigation, which usually contents itself with +frail human material, approaches the great personages of humanity, it is +not impelled to it by motives which are often attributed to it by +laymen. It does not strive "to blacken the radiant and to drag the +sublime into the mire"; it finds no satisfaction in diminishing the +distance between the perfection of the great and the inadequacy of the +ordinary objects. But it cannot help finding that everything is worthy +of understanding that can be perceived through those prototypes, and it +also believes that none is so big as to be ashamed of being subject to +the laws which control the normal and morbid actions with the same +strictness. + +Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was admired even by his contemporaries as +one of the greatest men of the Italian Renaissance, still even then he +appeared as mysterious to them as he now appears to us. An all-sided +genius, "whose form can only be divined but never deeply fathomed,"[1] +he exerted the most decisive influence on his time as an artist; and it +remained to us to recognize his greatness as a naturalist which was +united in him with the artist. Although he left masterpieces of the art +of painting, while his scientific discoveries remained unpublished and +unused, the investigator in him has never quite left the artist, often +it has severely injured the artist and in the end it has perhaps +suppressed the artist altogether. According to Vasari, Leonardo +reproached himself during the last hour of his life for having insulted +God and men because he has not done his duty to his art.[2] And even if +Vasari's story lacks all probability and belongs to those legends which +began to be woven about the mystic master while he was still living, it +nevertheless retains indisputable value as a testimonial of the judgment +of those people and of those times. + +What was it that removed the personality of Leonardo from the +understanding of his contemporaries? Certainly not the many sidedness of +his capacities and knowledge, which allowed him to install himself as a +player of the lyre on an instrument invented by himself, in the court of +Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il Moro, the Duke of Milan, or which allowed +him to write to the same person that remarkable letter in which he +boasts of his abilities as a civil and military engineer. For the +combination of manifold talents in the same person was not unusual in +the times of the Renaissance; to be sure Leonardo himself furnished one +of the most splendid examples of such persons. Nor did he belong to that +type of genial persons who are outwardly poorly endowed by nature, and +who on their side place no value on the outer forms of life, and in the +painful gloominess of their feelings fly from human relations. On the +contrary he was tall and symmetrically built, of consummate beauty of +countenance and of unusual physical strength, he was charming in his +manner, a master of speech, and jovial and affectionate to everybody. He +loved beauty in the objects of his surroundings, he was fond of wearing +magnificent garments and appreciated every refinement of conduct. In his +treatise[3] on the art of painting he compares in a significant passage +the art of painting with its sister arts and thus discusses the +difficulties of the sculptor: "Now his face is entirely smeared and +powdered with marble dust, so that he looks like a baker, he is covered +with small marble splinters, so that it seems as if it snowed on his +back, and his house is full of stone splinters, and dust. The case of +the painter is quite different from that; for the painter is well +dressed and sits with great comfort before his work, he gently and very +lightly brushes in the beautiful colors. He wears as decorative clothes +as he likes, and his house is filled with beautiful paintings and is +spotlessly clean. He often enjoys company, music, or some one may read +for him various nice works, and all this can be listened to with great +pleasure, undisturbed by any pounding from the hammer and other noises." + +It is quite possible that the conception of a beaming jovial and happy +Leonardo was true only for the first and longer period of the master's +life. From now on, when the downfall of the rule of Lodovico Moro forced +him to leave Milan, his sphere of action and his assured position, to +lead an unsteady and unsuccessful life until his last asylum in France, +it is possible that the luster of his disposition became pale and some +odd features of his character became more prominent. The turning of his +interest from his art to science which increased with age must have also +been responsible for widening the gap between himself and his +contemporaries. All his efforts with which, according to their opinion, +he wasted his time instead of diligently filling orders and becoming +rich as perhaps his former classmate Perugino, seemed to his +contemporaries as capricious playing, or even caused them to suspect him +of being in the service of the "black art." We who know him from his +sketches understand him better. In a time in which the authority of the +church began to be substituted by that of antiquity and in which only +theoretical investigation existed, he the forerunner, or better the +worthy competitor of Bacon and Copernicus, was necessarily isolated. +When he dissected cadavers of horses and human beings, and built flying +apparatus, or when he studied the nourishment of plants and their +behavior towards poisons, he naturally deviated much from the +commentators of Aristotle and came nearer the despised alchemists, in +whose laboratories the experimental investigations found some refuge +during these unfavorable times. + +The effect that this had on his paintings was that he disliked to handle +the brush, he painted less and what was more often the case, the things +he began were mostly left unfinished; he cared less and less for the +future fate of his works. It was this mode of working that was held up +to him as a reproach from his contemporaries to whom his behavior to his +art remained a riddle. + +Many of Leonardo's later admirers have attempted to wipe off the stain +of unsteadiness from his character. They maintained that what is blamed +in Leonardo is a general characteristic of great artists. They said that +even the energetic Michelangelo who was absorbed in his work left many +incompleted works, which was as little due to his fault as to Leonardo's +in the same case. Besides some pictures were not as unfinished as he +claimed, and what the layman would call a masterpiece may still appear +to the creator of the work of art as an unsatisfied embodiment of his +intentions; he has a faint notion of a perfection which he despairs of +reproducing in likeness. Least of all should the artist be held +responsible for the fate which befalls his works. + +As plausible as some of these excuses may sound they nevertheless do not +explain the whole state of affairs which we find in Leonardo. The +painful struggle with the work, the final flight from it and the +indifference to its future fate may be seen in many other artists, but +this behavior is shown in Leonardo to highest degree. Edm. Solmi[4] +cites (p. 12) the expression of one of his pupils: "Pareva, che ad ogni +ora tremasse, quando si poneva a dipingere, e però no diede mai fine ad +alcuna cosa cominciata, considerando la grandezza dell'arte, tal che +egli scorgeva errori in quelle cose, che ad altri parevano miracoli." +His last pictures, Leda, the Madonna di Saint Onofrio, Bacchus and St. +John the Baptist, remained unfinished "come quasi intervenne di tutte le +cose sue." Lomazzo,[5] who finished a copy of The Holy Supper, refers in +a sonnet to the familiar inability of Leonardo to finish his works: + + "Protogen che il penel di sue pitture + Non levava, agguaglio il Vinci Divo, + Di cui opra non è finita pure." + +The slowness with which Leonardo worked was proverbial. After the most +thorough preliminary studies he painted The Holy Supper for three years +in the cloister of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. One of his +contemporaries, Matteo Bandelli, the writer of novels, who was then a +young monk in the cloister, relates that Leonardo often ascended the +scaffold very early in the morning and did not leave the brush out of +his hand until twilight, never thinking of eating or drinking. Then days +passed without putting his hand on it, sometimes he remained for hours +before the painting and derived satisfaction from studying it by +himself. At other times he came directly to the cloister from the palace +of the Milanese Castle where he formed the model of the equestrian +statue for Francesco Sforza, in order to add a few strokes with the +brush to one of the figures and then stopped immediately.[6] According +to Vasari he worked for years on the portrait of Monna Lisa, the wife of +the Florentine de Gioconda, without being able to bring it to +completion. This circumstance may also account for the fact that it was +never delivered to the one who ordered it but remained with Leonardo who +took it with him to France.[7] Having been procured by King Francis I, +it now forms one of the greatest treasures of the Louvre. + +When one compares these reports about Leonardo's way of working with the +evidence of the extraordinary amount of sketches and studies left by +him, one is bound altogether to reject the idea that traits of +flightiness and unsteadiness exerted the slightest influence on +Leonardo's relation to his art. On the contrary one notices a very +extraordinary absorption in work, a richness in possibilities in which a +decision could be reached only hestitatingly, claims which could hardly +be satisfied, and an inhibition in the execution which could not even be +explained by the inevitable backwardness of the artist behind his ideal +purpose. The slowness which was striking in Leonardo's works from the +very beginning proved to be a symptom of his inhibition, a forerunner of +his turning away from painting which manifested itself later.[8] It was +this slowness which decided the not undeserving fate of The Holy +Supper. Leonardo could not take kindly to the art of fresco painting +which demands quick work while the background is still moist, it was for +this reason that he chose oil colors, the drying of which permitted him +to complete the picture according to his mood and leisure. But these +colors separated themselves from the background upon which they were +painted and which isolated them from the brick wall; the blemishes of +this wall and the vicissitudes to which the room was subjected seemingly +contributed to the inevitable deterioration of the picture.[9] + +The picture of the cavalry battle of Anghiari, which in competition with +Michelangelo he began to paint later on a wall of the Sala de Consiglio +in Florence and which he also left in an unfinished state, seemed to +have perished through the failure of a similar technical process. It +seems here as if a peculiar interest, that of the experimenter, at first +reënforced the artistic, only later to damage the art production. + +The character of the man Leonardo evinces still some other unusual +traits and apparent contradictions. Thus a certain inactivity and +indifference seemed very evident in him. At a time when every individual +sought to gain the widest latitude for his activity, which could not +take place without the development of energetic aggression towards +others, he surprised every one through his quiet peacefulness, his +shunning of all competition and controversies. He was mild and kind to +all, he was said to have rejected a meat diet because he did not +consider it just to rob animals of their lives, and one of his special +pleasures was to buy caged birds in the market and set them free.[10] He +condemned war and bloodshed and designated man not so much as the king +of the animal world, but rather as the worst of the wild beasts.[11] But +this effeminate delicacy of feeling did not prevent him from +accompanying condemned criminals on their way to execution in order to +study and sketch in his notebook their features, distorted by fear, nor +did it prevent him from inventing the most cruel offensive weapons, and +from entering the service of Cesare Borgia as chief military engineer. +Often he seemed to be indifferent to good and evil, or he had to be +measured with a special standard. He held a high position in Cesare's +campaign which gained for this most inconsiderate and most faithless of +foes the possession of the Romagna. Not a single line of Leonardo's +sketches betrays any criticism or sympathy of the events of those days. +The comparison with Goethe during the French campaign cannot here be +altogether rejected. + +If a biographical effort really endeavors to penetrate the understanding +of the psychic life of its hero it must not, as happens in most +biographies through discretion or prudery, pass over in silence the +sexual activity or the sex peculiarity of the one examined. What we know +about it in Leonardo is very little but full of significance. In a +period where there was a constant struggle between riotous +licentiousness and gloomy asceticism, Leonardo presented an example of +cool sexual rejection which one would not expect in an artist and a +portrayer of feminine beauty. Solmi[12] cites the following sentence +from Leonardo showing his frigidity: "The act of procreation and +everything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human +beings would soon die out if it were not a traditional custom and if +there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions." His posthumous +works which not only treat of the greatest scientific problems but also +comprise the most guileless objects which to us do not seem worthy of so +great a mind (an allegorical natural history, animal fables, witticisms, +prophecies),[13] are chaste to a degree--one might say abstinent--that +in a work of _belle lettres_ would excite wonder even to-day. They evade +everything sexual so thoroughly, as if Eros alone who preserves +everything living was no worthy material for the scientific impulse of +the investigator.[14] It is known how frequently great artists found +pleasure in giving vent to their phantasies in erotic and even grossly +obscene representations; in contradistinction to this Leonardo left only +some anatomical drawings of the woman's internal genitals, the position +of the child in the womb, etc. + +It is doubtful whether Leonardo ever embraced a woman in love, nor is it +known that he ever entertained an intimate spiritual relation with a +woman as in the case of Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna. While he +still lived as an apprentice in the house of his master Verrocchio, he +with other young men were accused of forbidden homosexual relations +which ended in his acquittal. It seems that he came into this suspicion +because he employed as a model a boy of evil repute.[15] When he was a +master he surrounded himself with handsome boys and youths whom he took +as pupils. The last of these pupils Francesco Melzi, accompanied him to +France, remained with him until his death, and was named by him as his +heir. Without sharing the certainty of his modern biographers, who +naturally reject the possibility of a sexual relation between himself +and his pupils as a baseless insult to this great man, it may be thought +by far more probable that the affectionate relationships of Leonardo to +the young men did not result in sexual activity. Nor should one +attribute to him a high measure of sexual activity. + +The peculiarity of this emotional and sexual life viewed in connection +with Leonardo's double nature as an artist and investigator can be +grasped only in one way. Of the biographers to whom psychological +viewpoints are often very foreign, only one, Edm. Solmi, has to my +knowledge approached the solution of the riddle. But a writer, Dimitri +Sergewitsch Merejkowski, who selected Leonardo as the hero of a great +historical novel has based his delineation on such an understanding of +this unusual man, and if not in dry words he gave unmistakable +utterance in plastic expression in the manner of a poet.[16] Solmi +judges Leonardo as follows: "But the unrequited desire to understand +everything surrounding him, and with cold reflection to discover the +deepest secret of everything that is perfect, has condemned Leonardo's +works to remain forever unfinished."[17] In an essay of the Conferenze +Fiorentine the utterances of Leonardo are cited, which show his +confession of faith and furnish the key to his character. + + "_Nessuna cosa si può amare nè odiare, se_ + _prima no si ha cognition di quella._"[18] + +That is: One has no right to love or to hate anything if one has not +acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature. And the same is repeated by +Leonardo in a passage of the Treaties on the Art of Painting where he +seems to defend himself against the accusation of irreligiousness: + +"But such censurers might better remain silent. For that action is the +manner of showing the workmaster so many wonderful things, and this is +the way to love so great a discoverer. For, verily great love springs +from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it +you will be able to love it only little or not at all."[19] + +The value of these utterances of Leonardo cannot be found in that they +impart to us an important psychological fact, for what they maintain is +obviously false, and Leonardo must have known this as well as we do. It +is not true that people refrain from loving or hating until they have +studied and became familiar with the nature of the object to whom they +wish to give these affects, on the contrary they love impulsively and +are guided by emotional motives which have nothing to do with cognition +and whose affects are weakened, if anything, by thought and reflection. +Leonardo only could have implied that the love practiced by people is +not of the proper and unobjectionable kind, one should so love as to +hold back the affect and to subject it to mental elaboration, and only +after it has stood the test of the intellect should free play be given +to it. And we thereby understand that he wishes to tell us that this was +the case with himself and that it would be worth the effort of everybody +else to treat love and hatred as he himself does. + +And it seems that in his case it was really so. His affects were +controlled and subjected to the investigation impulse, he neither loved +nor hated, but questioned himself whence does that arise, which he was +to love or hate, and what does it signify, and thus he was at first +forced to appear indifferent to good and evil, to beauty and ugliness. +During this work of investigation love and hatred threw off their +designs and uniformly changed into intellectual interest. As a matter of +fact Leonardo was not dispassionate, he did not lack the divine spark +which is the mediate or immediate motive power--_il primo motore_--of +all human activity. He only transmuted his passion into +inquisitiveness. He then applied himself to study with that +persistence, steadiness, and profundity which comes from passion, and on +the height of the psychic work, after the cognition was won, he allowed +the long checked affect to break loose and to flow off freely like a +branch of a stream, after it has accomplished its work. At the height of +his cognition when he could examine a big part of the whole he was +seized with a feeling of pathos, and in ecstatic words he praised the +grandeur of that part of creation which he studied, or--in religious +cloak--the greatness of the creator. Solmi has correctly divined this +process of transformation in Leonardo. According to the quotation of +such a passage, in which Leonardo celebrated the higher impulse of +nature ("O mirabile necessita ... ") he said: "Tale trasfigurazione +della scienza della natura in emozione, quasi direi, religiosa, è uno +dei tratti caratteristici de manoscritti vinciani, e si trova cento e +cento volte espressa...."[20] + +Leonardo was called the Italian Faust on account of his insatiable and +indefatigable desire for investigation. But even if we disregard the +fact that it is the possible retransformation of the desire for +investigation into the joys of life which is presupposed in the Faust +tragedy, one might venture to remark that Leonardo's system recalls +Spinoza's mode of thinking. + +The transformation of psychic motive power into the different forms of +activity is perhaps as little convertible without loss, as in the case +of physical powers. Leonardo's example teaches how many other things one +must follow up in these processes. Not to love before one gains full +knowledge of the thing loved presupposes a delay which is harmful. When +one finally reaches cognition he neither loves nor hates properly; one +remains beyond love and hatred. One has investigated instead of having +loved. It is perhaps for this reason that Leonardo's life was so much +poorer in love than those of other great men and great artists. The +storming passions of the soul-stirring and consuming kind, in which +others experience the best part of their lives, seem to have missed +him. + +There are still other consequences when one follows Leonardo's dictum. +Instead of acting and producing one just investigates. He who begins to +divine the grandeur of the universe and its needs readily forgets his +own insignificant self. When one is struck with admiration and becomes +truly humble he easily forgets that he himself is a part of that living +force, and that according to the measure of his own personality he has +the right to make an effort to change that destined course of the world, +the world in which the insignificant is no less wonderful and important +than the great. + +Solmi thinks that Leonardo's investigations started with his art,[21] he +tried to investigate the attributes and laws of light, of color, of +shades and of perspective so as to be sure of becoming a master in the +imitation of nature and to be able to show the way to others. It is +probable that already at that time he overestimated the value of this +knowledge for the artist. Following the guide-rope of the painter's +need, he was then driven further and further to investigate the objects +of the art of painting, such as animals and plants, and the proportions +of the human body, and to follow the path from their exterior to their +interior structure and biological functions, which really also express +themselves in their appearance and should be depicted in art. And +finally he was pulled along by this overwhelming desire until the +connection was torn from the demands of his art, so that he discovered +the general laws of mechanics and divined the history of the +stratification and fossilization of the Arno-valley, until he could +enter in his book with capital letters the cognition: _Il sole non si +move_ (The sun does not move). His investigations were thus extended +over almost all realms of natural science, in every one of which he was +a discoverer or at least a prophet or forerunner.[22] However, his +curiosity continued to be directed to the outer world, something kept +him away from the investigation of the psychic life of men; there was +little room for psychology in the "Academia Vinciana," for which he drew +very artistic and very complicated emblems. + +When he later made the effort to return from his investigations to the +art from which he started he felt that he was disturbed by the new paths +of his interest and by the changed nature of his psychic work. In the +picture he was interested above all in a problem, and behind this one he +saw emerging numerous other problems just as he was accustomed in the +endless and indeterminable investigations of natural history. He was no +longer able to limit his demands, to isolate the work of art, and to +tear it out from that great connection of which he knew it formed part. +After the most exhausting efforts to bring to expression all that was in +him, all that was connected with it in his thoughts, he was forced to +leave it unfinished, or to declare it incomplete. + +The artist had once taken into his service the investigator to assist +him, now the servant was stronger and suppressed his master. + +When we find in the portrait of a person one single impulse very +forcibly developed, as curiosity in the case of Leonardo, we look for +the explanation in a special constitution, concerning its probable +organic determination hardly anything is known. Our psychoanalytic +studies of nervous people lead us to look for two other expectations +which we would like to find verified in every case. We consider it +probable that this very forcible impulse was already active in the +earliest childhood of the person, and that its supreme sway was fixed by +infantile impressions; and we further assume that originally it drew +upon sexual motive powers for its reënforcement so that it later can +take the place of a part of the sexual life. Such person would then, +e.g., investigate with that passionate devotion which another would give +to his love, and he could investigate instead of loving. We would +venture the conclusion of a sexual reënforcement not only in the impulse +to investigate, but also in most other cases of special intensity of an +impulse. + +Observation of daily life shows us that most persons have the capacity +to direct a very tangible part of their sexual motive powers to their +professional or business activities. The sexual impulse is particularly +suited to yield such contributions because it is endowed with the +capacity of sublimation, i.e., it has the power to exchange its nearest +aim for others of higher value which are not sexual. We consider this +process as proved, if the history of childhood or the psychic +developmental history of a person shows that in childhood this powerful +impulse was in the service of the sexual interest. We consider it a +further corroboration if this is substantiated by a striking stunting in +the sexual life of mature years, as if a part of the sexual activity had +now been replaced by the activity of the predominant impulse. + +The application of these assumptions to the case of the predominant +investigation-impulse seems to be subject to special difficulties, as +one is unwilling to admit that this serious impulse exists in children +or that children show any noteworthy sexual interest. However, these +difficulties are easily obviated. The untiring pleasure in questioning +as seen in little children demonstrates their curiosity, which is +puzzling to the grown-up, as long as he does not understand that all +these questions are only circumlocutions, and that they cannot come to +an end because they replace only one question which the child does not +put. When the child becomes older and gains more understanding this +manifestation of curiosity suddenly disappears. But psychoanalytic +investigation gives us a full explanation in that it teaches us that +many, perhaps most children, at least the most gifted ones, go through a +period beginning with the third year, which may be designated as the +period of _infantile sexual investigation_. As far as we know, the +curiosity is not awakened spontaneously in children of this age, but is +aroused through the impression of an important experience, through the +birth of a little brother or sister, or through fear of the same +endangered by some outward experience, wherein the child sees a danger +to his egotistic interests. The investigation directs itself to the +question whence children come, as if the child were looking for means +to guard against such undesired event. We were astonished to find that +the child refuses to give credence to the information imparted to it, +e.g., it energetically rejects the mythological and so ingenious +stork-fable, we were astonished to find that its psychic independence +dates from this act of disbelief, that it often feels itself at serious +variance with the grown-ups, and never forgives them for having been +deceived of the truth on this occasion. It investigates in its own way, +it divines that the child is in the mother's womb, and guided by the +feelings of its own sexuality, it formulates for itself theories about +the origin of children from food, about being born through the bowels, +about the rôle of the father which is difficult to fathom, and even at +that time it has a vague conception of the sexual act which appears to +the child as something hostile, as something violent. But as its own +sexual constitution is not yet equal to the task of producing children, +his investigation whence come children must also run aground and must be +left in the lurch as unfinished. The impression of this failure at the +first attempt of intellectual independence seems to be of a persevering +and profoundly depressing nature.[23] + +If the period of infantile sexual investigation comes to an end through +an impetus of energetic sexual repression, the early association with +sexual interest may result in three different possibilities for the +future fate of the investigation impulse. The investigation either +shares the fate of the sexuality, the curiosity henceforth remains +inhibited and the free activity of intelligence may become narrowed for +life; this is especially made possible by the powerful religious +inhibition of thought, which is brought about shortly hereafter through +education. This is the type of neurotic inhibition. We know well that +the so acquired mental weakness furnishes effective support for the +outbreak of a neurotic disease. In a second type the intellectual +development is sufficiently strong to withstand the sexual repression +pulling at it. Sometimes after the disappearance of the infantile sexual +investigation, it offers its support to the old association in order to +elude the sexual repression, and the suppressed sexual investigation +comes back from the unconscious as compulsive reasoning, it is naturally +distorted and not free, but forceful enough to sexualize even thought +itself and to accentuate the intellectual operations with the pleasure +and fear of the actual sexual processes. Here the investigation becomes +sexual activity and often exclusively so, the feeling of settling the +problem and of explaining things in the mind is put in place of sexual +gratification. But the indeterminate character of the infantile +investigation repeats itself also in the fact that this reasoning never +ends, and that the desired intellectual feeling of the solution +constantly recedes into the distance. By virtue of a special disposition +the third, which is the most rare and most perfect type, escapes the +inhibition of thought and the compulsive reasoning. Also here sexual +repression takes place, it is unable, however, to direct a partial +impulse of the sexual pleasure into the unconscious, but the libido +withdraws from the fate of the repression by being sublimated from the +beginning into curiosity, and by reënforcing the powerful investigation +impulse. Here, too, the investigation becomes more or less compulsive +and a substitute of the sexual activity, but owing to the absolute +difference of the psychic process behind it (sublimation in place of the +emergence from the unconscious) the character of the neurosis does not +manifest itself, the subjection to the original complexes of the +infantile sexual investigation disappears, and the impulse can freely +put itself in the service of the intellectual interest. It takes account +of the sexual repression which made it so strong in contributing to it +sublimated libido, by avoiding all occupation with sexual themes. + +In mentioning the concurrence in Leonardo of the powerful investigation +impulse with the stunting of his sexual life which was limited to the +so-called ideal homosexuality, we feel inclined to consider him as a +model example of our third type. The most essential point of his +character and the secret of it seems to lie in the fact, that after +utilizing the infantile activity of curiosity in the service of sexual +interest he was able to sublimate the greater part of his libido into +the impulse of investigation. But to be sure the proof of this +conception is not easy to produce. To do this we would have to have an +insight into the psychic development of his first childhood years, and +it seems foolish to hope for such material when the reports concerning +his life are so meager and so uncertain; and moreover, when we deal with +information which even persons of our own generation withdraw from the +attention of the observer. + +We know very little concerning Leonardo's youth. He was born in 1452 in +the little city of Vinci between Florence and Empoli; he was an +illegitimate child which was surely not considered a great popular stain +in that time. His father was Ser Piero da Vinci, a notary and descendant +of notaries and farmers, who took their name from the place Vinci; his +mother, a certain Caterina, probably a peasant girl, who later married +another native of Vinci. Nothing else about his mother appears in the +life history of Leonardo, only the writer Merejkowski believed to have +found some traces of her. The only definite information about Leonardo's +childhood is furnished by a legal document from the year 1457, a +register of assessment in which Vinci Leonardo is mentioned among the +members of the family as a five-year-old illegitimate child of Ser +Piero.[24] As the marriage of Ser Piero with Donna Albiera remained +childless the little Leonardo could be brought up in his father's house. +He did not leave this house until he entered as apprentice--it is not +known what year--in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1472 +Leonardo's name could already be found in the register of the members of +the "Compagnia dei Pittori." That is all. + + + + +II + + +As far as I know Leonardo only once interspersed in his scientific +descriptions a communication from his childhood. In a passage where he +speaks about the flight of the vulture, he suddenly interrupts himself +in order to follow up a memory from very early years which came to his +mind. + +"_It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself +so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early +memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he +opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail +against my lips._"[25] + +We have here an infantile memory and to be sure of the strangest sort. +It is strange on account of its content and account of the time of life +in which it was fixed. That a person could retain a memory of the +nursing period is perhaps not impossible, but it can in no way be taken +as certain. But what this memory of Leonardo states, namely, that a +vulture opened the child's mouth with its tail, sounds so improbable, so +fabulous, that another conception which puts an end to the two +difficulties with one stroke appeals much more to our judgment. The +scene of the vulture is not a memory of Leonardo, but a phantasy which +he formed later, and transferred into his childhood. The childhood +memories of persons often have no different origin, as a matter of fact, +they are not fixated from an experience like the conscious memories from +the time of maturity and then repeated, but they are not produced until +a later period when childhood is already past, they are then changed and +disguised and put in the service of later tendencies, so that in general +they cannot be strictly differentiated from phantasies. Their nature +will perhaps be best understood by recalling the manner in which history +writing originated among ancient nations. As long as the nation was +small and weak it gave no thought to the writing of its history, it +tilled the soil of its land, defended its existence against its +neighbors by seeking to wrest land from them and endeavored to become +rich. It was a heroic but unhistoric time. Then came another age, a +period of self-realization in which one felt rich and powerful, and it +was then that one experienced the need to discover whence one originated +and how one developed. The history-writing which then continues to +register the present events throws also its backward glance to the past, +it gathers traditions and legends, it interprets what survived from +olden times into customs and uses, and thus creates a history of past +ages. It is quite natural that this history of the past ages is more the +expressions of opinions and desires of the present than a faithful +picture of the past, for many a thing escaped the people's memory, other +things became distorted, some trace of the past was misunderstood and +interpreted in the sense of the present; and besides one does not write +history through motives of objective curiosity, but because one desires +to impress his contemporaries, to stimulate and extol them, or to hold +the mirror before them. The conscious memory of a person concerning the +experiences of his maturity may now be fully compared to that of history +writing, and his infantile memories, as far as their origin and +reliability are concerned will actually correspond to the history of the +primitive period of a people which was compiled later with purposive +intent. + +Now one may think that if Leonardo's story of the vulture which visited +him in his cradle is only a phantasy of later birth, it is hardly worth +while giving more time to it. One could easily explain it by his openly +avowed inclination to occupy himself with the problem of the flight of +the bird which would lend to this phantasy an air of predetermined fate. +But with this depreciation one commits as great an injustice as if one +would simply ignore the material of legends, traditions, and +interpretations in the primitive history of a people. Notwithstanding +all distortions and misunderstandings to the contrary they still +represent the reality of the past; they represent what the people formed +out of the experiences of its past age under the domination of once +powerful and to-day still effective motives, and if these distortions +could be unraveled through the knowledge of all effective forces, one +would surely discover the historic truth under this legendary material. +The same holds true for the infantile reminiscences or for the +phantasies of individuals. What a person thinks he recalls from his +childhood, is not of an indifferent nature. As a rule the memory +remnants, which he himself does not understand, conceal invaluable +evidences of the most important features of his psychic development. As +the psychoanalytic technique affords us excellent means for bringing to +light this concealed material, we shall venture the attempt to fill the +gaps in the history of Leonardo's life through the analysis of his +infantile phantasy. And if we should not attain a satisfactory degree of +certainty, we will have to console ourselves with the fact that so many +other investigations about this great and mysterious man have met no +better fate. + +When we examine Leonardo's vulture-phantasy with the eyes of a +psychoanalyst then it does not seem strange very long; we recall that we +have often found similar structures in dreams, so that we may venture +to translate this phantasy from its strange language into words that are +universally understood. The translation then follows an erotic +direction. Tail, "coda," is one of the most familiar symbols, as well as +a substitutive designation of the male member which is no less true in +Italian than in other languages. The situation contained in the +phantasy, that a vulture opened the mouth of the child and forcefully +belabored it with its tail, corresponds to the idea of fellatio, a +sexual act in which the member is placed into the mouth of the other +person. Strangely enough this phantasy is altogether of a passive +character; it resembles certain dreams and phantasies of women and of +passive homosexuals who play the feminine part in sexual relations. + +Let the reader be patient for a while and not flare up with indignation +and refuse to follow psychoanalysis because in its very first +applications it leads to an unpardonable slander of the memory of a +great and pure man. For it is quite certain that this indignation will +never solve for us the meaning of Leonardo's childhood phantasy; on the +other hand, Leonardo has unequivocally acknowledged this phantasy, and +we shall therefore not relinquish the expectation--or if you prefer the +preconception--that like every psychic production such as dreams, +visions and deliria this phantasy, too, must have some meaning. Let us +therefore lend our unprejudiced ears for a while to psychoanalytic work +which after all has not yet uttered the last word. + +The desire to take the male member into the mouth and suck it, which is +considered as one of the most disgusting of sexual perversions, is +nevertheless a frequent occurrence among the women of our time--and as +shown in old sculptures was the same in earlier times--and in the state +of being in love seems to lose entirely its disgusting character. The +physician encounters phantasies based on this desire, even in women who +did not come to the knowledge of the possibility of such sexual +gratification by reading V. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis or +through other information. It seems that it is quite easy for the women +themselves to produce such wish-phantasies.[26] Investigation then +teaches us that this situation, so forcibly condemned by custom, may be +traced to the most harmless origin. It is nothing but the elaboration of +another situation in which we all once felt comfort, namely, when we +were in the suckling-age ("when I was still in the cradle") and took the +nipple of our mother's or wet-nurse's breast into our mouth to suck it. +The organic impression of this first pleasure in our lives surely +remains indelibly impregnated; when the child later learns to know the +udder of the cow, which in function is a breast-nipple, but in shape and +in position on the abdomen resembles the penis, it obtains the primary +basis for the later formation of that disgusting sexual phantasy. + +We now understand why Leonardo displaced the memory of the supposed +experience with the vulture to his nursing period. This phantasy +conceals nothing more or less than a reminiscence of nursing--or being +nursed--at the mother's breast, a scene both human and beautiful, which +he as well as other artists undertook to depict with the brush in the +form of the mother of God and her child. At all events, we also wish to +maintain, something we do not as yet understand, that this reminiscence, +equally significant for both sexes, was elaborated in the man Leonardo +into a passive homosexual phantasy. For the present we shall not take up +the question as to what connection there is between homosexuality and +suckling at the mother's breast, we merely wish to recall that tradition +actually designates Leonardo as a person of homosexual feelings. In +considering this, it makes no difference whether that accusation against +the youth Leonardo was justified or not. It is not the real activity but +the nature of the feeling which causes us to decide whether to attribute +to some one the characteristic of homosexuality. + +Another incomprehensible feature of Leonardo's infantile phantasy next +claims our interest. We interpret the phantasy of being wet-nursed by +the mother and find that the mother is replaced by a vulture. Where does +this vulture originate and how does he come into this place? + +A thought now obtrudes itself which seems so remote that one is tempted +to ignore it. In the sacred hieroglyphics of the old Egyptians the +mother is represented by the picture of the vulture.[27] These Egyptians +also worshiped a motherly deity, whose head was vulture like, or who had +many heads of which at least one or two was that of a vulture.[28] The +name of this goddess was pronounced _Mut_; we may question whether the +sound similarity to our word mother (Mutter) is only accidental? So the +vulture really has some connection with the mother, but of what help is +that to us? Have we a right to attribute this knowledge to Leonardo when +François Champollion first succeeded in reading hieroglyphics between +1790-1832?[29] + +It would also be interesting to discover in what way the old Egyptians +came to choose the vulture as a symbol of motherhood. As a matter of +fact the religion and culture of Egyptians were subjects of scientific +interest even to the Greeks and Romans, and long before we ourselves +were able to read the Egyptian monuments we had at our disposal some +communications about them from preserved works of classical antiquity. +Some of these writings belonged to familiar authors like Strabo, +Plutarch, Aminianus Marcellus, and some bear unfamiliar names and are +uncertain as to origin and time, like the hieroglyphica of Horapollo +Nilus, and like the traditional book of oriental priestly wisdom bearing +the godly name Hermes Trismegistos. From these sources we learn that the +vulture was a symbol of motherhood because it was thought that this +species of birds had only female vultures and no males.[30] The natural +history of the ancients shows a counterpart to this limitation among the +scarebæus beetles which were revered by the Egyptians as godly, no +females were supposed to exist.[31] + +But how does impregnation take place in vultures if only females exist? +This is fully answered in a passage of Horapollo.[32] At a certain time +these birds stop in the midst of their flight, open their vagina and are +impregnated by the wind. + +Unexpectedly we have now reached a point where we can take something as +quite probable which only shortly before we had to reject as absurd. It +is quite possible that Leonardo was well acquainted with the scientific +fable, according to which the Egyptians represented the idea of mother +with the picture of the vulture. He was an omnivorous reader whose +interest comprised all spheres of literature and knowledge. In the Codex +Atlanticus we find an index of all books which he possessed at a certain +time,[33] as well as numerous notices about other books which he +borrowed from friends, and according to the excerpts which Fr. +Richter[34] compiled from his drawings we can hardly overestimate the +extent of his reading. Among these books there was no lack of older as +well as contemporary works treating of natural history. All these books +were already in print at that time, and it so happens that Milan was the +principal place of the young art of book printing in Italy. + +When we proceed further we come upon a communication which may raise to +a certainty the probability that Leonardo knew the vulture fable. The +erudite editor and commentator of Horapollo remarked in connection with +the text (p. 172) cited before: _Caeterum hanc fabulam de vulturibus +cupide amplexi sunt Patres Ecclesiastici, ut ita argumento ex rerum +natura petito refutarent eos, qui Virginis partum negabant; itaque apud +omnes fere hujus rei mentio occurit._ + +Hence the fable of the monosexuality and the conception of the vulture +by no means remained as an indifferent anecdote as in the case of the +analogous fable of the scarebæus beetles; that church fathers mastered +it in order to have it ready as an argument from natural history against +those who doubted the sacred history. If according the best information +from antiquity the vultures were directed to let themselves be +impregnated by the wind, why should the same thing not have happened +even once in a human female? On account of this use the church fathers +were "almost all" in the habit of relating this vulture fable, and now +it can hardly remain doubtful that it also became known to Leonardo +through so powerful a source. + +The origin of Leonardo's vulture phantasy can be conceived in the +following manner: While reading in the writings of a church father or in +a book on natural science that the vultures are all females and that +they know to procreate without the coöperation of a male, a memory +emerged in him which became transformed into that phantasy, but which +meant to say that he also had been such a vulture child, which had a +mother but no father. An echo of pleasure which he experienced at his +mother's breast was added to this in the manner as so old impressions +alone can manifest themselves. The allusion to the idea of the holy +virgin with the child, formed by the authors, which is so dear to every +artist, must have contributed to it to make this phantasy seem to him +valuable and important. For this helped him to identify himself with the +Christ child, the comforter and savior of not alone this one woman. + +When we break up an infantile phantasy we strive to separate the real +memory content from the later motives which modify and distort the same. +In the case of Leonardo we now think that we know the real content of +the phantasy. The replacement of the mother by the vulture indicates +that the child missed the father and felt himself alone with his mother. +The fact of Leonardo's illegitimate birth fits in with his vulture +phantasy; only on account of it was he able to compare himself with a +vulture child. But we have discovered as the next definite fact from his +youth that at the age of five years he had already been received in his +father's home; when this took place, whether a few months following his +birth, or a few weeks before the taking of the assessment of taxes, is +entirely unknown to us. The interpretation of the vulture phantasy then +steps in and wants to tell us that Leonardo did not spend the first +decisive years of his life with his father and his step-mother but with +his poor, forsaken, real mother, so that he had time to miss his father. +This still seems to be a rather meager and rather daring result of the +psychoanalytic effort, but on further reflection it will gain in +significance. Certainty will be promoted by mentioning the actual +relations in Leonardo's childhood. According to the reports, his father +Ser Piero da Vinci married the prominent Donna Albiera during the year +of Leonardo's birth; it was to the childlessness of this marriage that +the boy owed his legalized reception into his father's or rather +grandfather's house during his fifth year. However, it is not customary +to offer an illegitimate offspring to a young woman's care at the +beginning of marriage when she is still expecting to be blessed with +children. Years of disappointment must have elapsed before it was +decided to adopt the probably handsomely developed illegitimate child as +a compensation for legitimate children who were vainly hoped for. It +harmonizes best with the interpretation of the vulture-phantasy, if at +least three years or perhaps five years of Leonardo's life had elapsed +before he changed from his lonely mother to his father's home. But then +it had already become too late. In the first three or four years of life +impressions are fixed and modes of reactions are formed towards the +outer world which can never be robbed of their importance by any later +experiences. + +If it is true that the incomprehensible childhood reminiscences and the +person's phantasies based on them always bring out the most significant +of his psychic development, then the fact corroborated by the vulture +phantasy, that Leonardo passed the first years of his life alone with +his mother must have been a most decisive influence on the formation of +his inner life. Under the effect of this constellation it could not have +been otherwise than that the child which in his young life encountered +one problem more than other children, should have begun to ponder very +passionately over this riddle and thus should have become an +investigator early in life. For he was tortured by the great questions +where do children come from and what has the father to do with their +origin. The vague knowledge of this connection between his investigation +and his childhood history has later drawn from him the exclamation that +it was destined that he should deeply occupy himself with the problem of +the bird's flight, for already in his cradle he had been visited by a +vulture. To trace the curiosity which is directed to the flight of the +bird to the infantile sexual investigation will be a later task which +will not be difficult to accomplish. + + + + +III + + +The element of the vulture represents to us the real memory content in +Leonardo's childhood phantasy; the association into which Leonardo +himself placed his phantasy threw a bright light on the importance of +this content for his later life. In continuing the work of +interpretation we now encounter the strange problem why this memory +content was elaborated into a homosexual situation. The mother who +nursed the child, or rather from whom the child suckled was transformed +into a vulture which stuck its tail into the child's mouth. We maintain +that the "coda" (tail) of the vulture, following the common substituting +usages of language, cannot signify anything else but a male genital or +penis. But we do not understand how the phantastic activity came to +furnish precisely this maternal bird with the mark of masculinity, and +in view of this absurdity we become confused at the possibility of +reducing this phantastic structure to rational sense. + +However, we must not despair. How many seemingly absurd dreams have we +not forced to give up their sense! Why should it become more difficult +to accomplish this in a childhood phantasy than in a dream! + +Let us remember the fact that it is not good to find one isolated +peculiarity, and let us hasten to add another to it which is still more +striking. + +The vulture-headed goddess _Mut_ of the Egyptians, a figure of +altogether impersonal character, as expressed by Drexel in Roscher's +lexicon, was often fused with other maternal deities of living +individuality like Isis and Hathor, but she retained besides her +separate existence and reverence. It was especially characteristic of +the Egyptian pantheon that the individual gods did not perish in this +amalgamation. Besides the composition of deities the simple divine image +remained in her independence. In most representations the vulture-headed +maternal deity was formed by the Egyptians in a phallic manner,[35] her +body which was distinguished as feminine by its breasts also bore the +masculine member in a state of erection. + +The goddess Mut thus evinced the same union of maternal and paternal +characteristics as in Leonardo's vulture phantasy. Should we explain +this concurrence by the assumption that Leonardo knew from studying his +book the androgynous nature of the maternal vulture? Such possibility is +more than questionable; it seems that the sources accessible to him +contained nothing of remarkable determination. It is more likely that +here as there the agreement is to be traced to a common, effective and +unknown motive. + +Mythology can teach us that the androgynous formation, the union of +masculine and feminine sex characteristics, did not belong to the +goddess Mut alone but also to other deities such as Isis and Hathor, but +in the latter perhaps only insofar as they possessed also a motherly +nature and became fused with the goddess Mut.[36] It teaches us further +that other Egyptian deities such as Neith of Sais out of whom the Greek +Athene was later formed, were originally conceived as androgynous or +dihermaphroditic, and that the same held true for many of the Greek +gods, especially of the Dionysian circle, as well as for Aphrodite who +was later restricted to a feminine love deity. Mythology may also offer +the explanation that the phallus which was added to the feminine body +was meant to denote the creative primitive force of nature, and that all +these hermaphroditic deistic formations express the idea that only a +union of the masculine and feminine elements can result in a worthy +representation of divine perfection. But none of these observations +explain the psychological riddle, namely, that the phantasy of men takes +no offense at the fact that a figure which was to embody the essence of +the mother should be provided with the mark of the masculine power which +is the opposite of motherhood. + +The explanation comes from the infantile sexual theories. There really +was a time in which the male genital was found to be compatible with +the representation of the mother. When the male child first directs his +curiosity to the riddle of the sexual life, he is dominated by the +interest for his own genitals. He finds this part of the body too +valuable and too important to believe that it would be missing in other +persons to whom he feels such a resemblance. As he cannot divine that +there is still another equally valuable type of genital formation he +must grasp the assumption that all persons, also women, possess such a +member as he. This preconception is so firm in the youthful investigator +that it is not destroyed even by the first observation of the genitals +in little girls. His perception naturally tells him that there is +something different here than in him, but he is unable to admit to +himself as the content of this perception that he cannot find this +member in girls. That this member may be missing is to him a dismal and +unbearable thought, and he therefore seeks to reconcile it by deciding +that it also exists in girls but it is still very small and that it will +grow later.[37] If this expectation does not appear to be fulfilled on +later observation he has at his disposal another way of escape. The +member also existed in the little girl but it was cut off and on its +place there remained a wound. This progress of the theory already makes +use of his own painful experience; he was threatened in the meantime +that this important organ will be taken away from him if it will form +too much of an interest for his occupation. Under the influence of this +threat of castration he now interprets his conception of the female +genital, henceforth he will tremble for his masculinity, but at the same +time he will look with contempt upon those unhappy creatures upon whom, +in his opinion, this cruel punishment had already been visited. + +Before the child came under the domination of the castration complex, at +the time when he still held the woman at her full value, he began to +manifest an intensive desire to look as an erotic activity of his +impulse. He wished to see the genitals of other persons, originally +probably because he wished to compare them with his own. The erotic +attraction which emanated from the person of his mother soon reached +its height in the longing to see her genital which he believed to be a +penis. With the cognition acquired only later that the woman has no +penis, this longing often becomes transformed into its opposite and +gives place to disgust, which in the years of puberty may become the +cause of psychic impotence, of misogyny and of lasting homosexuality. +But the fixation on the once so vividly desired object, the penis of the +woman, leaves ineradicable traces in the psychic life of the child, +which has gone through that fragment of infantile sexual investigation +with particular thoroughness. The fetich-like reverence for the feminine +foot and shoe seems to take the foot only as a substitutive symbol for +the once revered and since then missed member of the woman. The +"braid-slashers" without knowing it play the part of persons who perform +the act of castration on the female genital. + +One will not gain any correct understanding of the activities of the +infantile sexuality and probably will consider these communications +unworthy of belief, as long as one does not relinquish the attitude of +our cultural depreciation of the genitals and of the sexual functions in +general. To understand the infantile psychic life one has to look to +analogies from primitive times. For a long series of generations we have +been in the habit of considering the genitals or _pudenda_ as objects of +shame, and in the case of more successful sexual repression as objects +of disgust. The majority of those living to-day only reluctantly obey +the laws of propagation, feeling thereby that their human dignity is +being offended and degraded. What exists among us of the other +conception of the sexual life is found only in the uncultivated and in +the lower social strata; among the higher and more refined types it is +concealed as culturally inferior, and its activity is ventured only +under the embittered admonition of a guilty conscience. It was quite +different in the primitive times of the human race. From the laborious +collections of students of civilization one gains the conviction that +the genitals were originally the pride and hope of living beings, they +enjoyed divine worship, and the divine nature of their functions was +transported to all newly acquired activities of mankind. Through +sublimation of its essential elements there arose innumerable +god-figures, and at the time when the relation of official religions +with sexual activity was already hidden from the general consciousness, +secret cults labored to preserve it alive among a number of the +initiated. In the course of cultural development it finally happened +that so much godliness and holiness had been extracted from sexuality +that the exhausted remnant fell into contempt. But considering the +indestructibility which is in the nature of all psychic impressions one +need not wonder that even the most primitive forms of genital worship +could be demonstrated until quite recent times, and that language, +customs and superstitions of present day humanity contain the remnants +of all phases of this course of development.[38] + +Important biological analogies have taught us that the psychic +development of the individual is a short repetition of the course of +development of the race, and we shall therefore not find improbable what +the psychoanalytic investigation of the child's psyche asserts +concerning the infantile estimation of the genitals. The infantile +assumption of the maternal penis is thus the common source of origin for +the androgynous formation of the maternal deities like the Egyptian +goddess Mut and the vulture's "coda" (tail) in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. As a matter of fact, it is only through misunderstanding that +these deistic representations are designated hermaphroditic in the +medical sense of the word. In none of them is there a union of the true +genitals of both sexes as they are united in some deformed beings to the +disgust of every human eye; but besides the breast as a mark of +motherhood there is also the male member, just as it existed in the +first imagination of the child about his mother's body. Mythology has +retained for the faithful this revered and very early fancied bodily +formation of the mother. The prominence given to the vulture-tail in +Leonardo's phantasy we can now translate as follows: At that time when I +directed my tender curiosity to my mother I still adjudged to her a +genital like my own. A further testimonial of Leonardo's precocious +sexual investigation, which in our opinion became decisive for his +entire life. + +A brief reflection now admonishes us that we should not be satisfied +with the explanation of the vulture-tail in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. It seems as if it contained more than we as yet understand. +For its more striking feature really consisted in the fact that the +nursing at the mother's breast was transformed into being nursed, that +is into a passive act which thus gives the situation an undoubted +homosexual character. Mindful of the historical probability that +Leonardo behaved in life as a homosexual in feeling, the question +obtrudes itself whether this phantasy does not point to a causal +connection between Leonardo's childhood relations to his mother and the +later manifest, if only ideal, homosexuality. We would not venture to +draw such conclusion from Leonardo's disfigured reminiscence were it not +for the fact that we know from our psychoanalytic investigation of +homosexual patients that such a relation exists, indeed it really is an +intimate and necessary relation. + +Homosexual men who have started in our times an energetic action against +the legal limitations of their sexual activity are fond of representing +themselves through theoretical spokesmen as evincing a sexual variation, +which may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate +stage of sex or as "a third sex." In other words, they maintain that +they are men who are forced by organic determinants originating in the +germ to find that pleasure in the man which they cannot feel in the +woman. As much as one would wish to subscribe to their demands out of +humane considerations, one must nevertheless exercise reserve regarding +their theories which were formulated without regard for the psychic +genesis of homosexuality. Psychoanalysis offers the means to fill this +gap and to put to test the assertions of the homosexuals. It is true +that psychoanalysis fulfilled this task in only a small number of +people, but all investigation thus far undertaken brought the same +surprising results.[39] In all our male homosexuals there was a very +intensive erotic attachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the +mother, which was manifest in the very first period of childhood and +later entirely forgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced +or favored by too much love from the mother herself, but was also +furthered by the retirement or absence of the father during the +childhood period. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers of his +homosexual patients were often man-women, or women with energetic traits +of character who were able to crowd out the father from the place +allotted to him in the family. I have sometimes observed the same thing, +but I was more impressed by those cases in which the father was absent +from the beginning or disappeared early so that the boy was altogether +under feminine influence. It almost seems that the presence of a strong +father would assure for the son the proper decision in the selection of +his object from the opposite sex. + +Following this primary stage, a transformation takes place whose +mechanisms we know but whose motive forces we have not yet grasped. The +love of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it +merges into repression. The boy represses the love for the mother by +putting himself in her place, by identifying himself with her, and by +taking his own person as a model through the similarity of which he is +guided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual; +as a matter of fact he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the boys +whom the growing adult now loves are only substitutive persons or +revivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as +his mother loved him. We say that he finds his love object on the road +to narcism, for the Greek legend called a boy Narcissus to whom nothing +was more pleasing than his own mirrored image, and who became +transformed into a beautiful flower of this name. + +Deeper psychological discussions justify the assertion that the person +who becomes homosexual in this manner remains fixed in his unconscious +on the memory picture or his mother, By repressing the love for his +mother he conserves the same in his unconscious and henceforth remains +faithful to her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus +runs away from women who could cause him to become faithless to his +mother. Through direct observation of individual cases we could +demonstrate that he who is seemingly receptive only of masculine stimuli +is in reality influenced by the charms emanating from women just like a +normal person, but each and every time he hastens to transfer the +stimulus he received from the woman to a male object and in this manner +he repeats again and again the mechanism through which he acquired his +homosexuality. + +It is far from us to exaggerate the importance of these explanations +concerning the psychic genesis of homosexuality. It is quite clear that +they are in crass opposition to the official theories of the homosexual +spokesmen, but we are aware that these explanations are not sufficiently +comprehensive to render possible a final explanation of the problem. +What one calls homosexual for practical purposes may have its origin in +a variety of psychosexual inhibiting processes, and the process +recognized by us is perhaps only one among many, and has reference only +to one type of "homosexuality." We must also admit, that the number of +cases in our homosexual type which shows the conditions required by us, +exceeds by far those cases in which the resulting effect really appears, +so that even we cannot reject the supposed coöperation of unknown +constitutional factors from which one was otherwise wont to deduce the +whole of homosexuality. As a matter of fact there would be no occasion +for entering into the psychic genesis of the form of homosexuality +studied by us if there were not a strong presumption that Leonardo, from +whose vulture-phantasy we started, really belonged to this one type of +homosexuality. + +As little as is known concerning the sexual behavior of the great artist +and investigator, we must still trust to the probability that the +testimonies of his contemporaries did not go far astray. In the light of +this tradition he appears to us as a man whose sexual need and activity +were extraordinarily low, as if a higher striving had raised him above +the common animal need of mankind. It may be open to doubt whether he +ever sought direct sexual gratification, and in what manner, or whether +he could dispense with it altogether. We are justified, however, to look +also in him for those emotional streams which imperatively force others +to the sexual act, for we cannot imagine a human psychic life in whose +development the sexual desire in the broadest sense, the libido, has not +had its share, whether the latter has withdrawn itself far from the +original aim or whether it was detained from being put into execution. + +Anything but traces of unchanged sexual desire we need not expect in +Leonardo. These point however to one direction and allow us to count him +among homosexuals. It has always been emphasized that he took as his +pupils only strikingly handsome boys and youths. He was kind and +considerate towards them, he cared for them and nursed them himself when +they were ill, just like a mother nurses her children, as his own mother +might have cared for him. As he selected them on account of their +beauty rather than their talent, none of them--Cesare da Sesto, G. +Boltraffio, Andrea Salaino, Francesco Melzi and the others--ever became +a prominent artist. Most of them could not make themselves independent +of their master and disappeared after his death without leaving a more +definite physiognomy to the history of art. The others who by their +productions earned the right to call themselves his pupils, as Luini and +Bazzi, nicknamed Sodoma, he probably did not know personally. + +We realize that we will have to face the objection that Leonardo's +behavior towards his pupils surely had nothing to do with sexual +motives, and permits no conclusion as to his sexual peculiarity. Against +this we wish to assert with all caution that our conception explains +some strange features in the master's behavior which otherwise would +have remained enigmatical. Leonardo kept a diary; he made entries in his +small hand, written from right to left which were meant only for +himself. It is to be noted that in this diary he addressed himself with +"thou": "Learn from master Lucca the multiplication of roots."[40] "Let +master d'Abacco show thee the square of the circle."[41] Or on the +occasion of a journey he entered in his diary: + +"I am going to Milan to look after the affairs of my garden ... order +two pack-sacks to be made. Ask Boltraffio to show thee his turning-lathe +and let him polish a stone on it.--Leave the book to master Andrea il +Todesco."[42] Or he wrote a resolution of quite different significance: +"Thou must show in thy treatise that the earth is a star, like the moon +or resembling it, and thus prove the nobility of our world."[43] + +In this diary, which like the diaries of other mortals often skim over +the most important events of the day with only few words or ignore them +altogether, one finds a few entries which on account of their +peculiarity are cited by all of Leonardo's biographers. They show +notations referring to the master's petty expenses, which are recorded +with painful exactitude as if coming from a pedantic and strictly +parsimonious family father, while there is nothing to show that he spent +greater sums, or that the artist was well versed in household +management. One of these notes refers to a new cloak which he bought for +his pupil Andrea Salaino:[44] + + Silver brocade Lira 15 Soldi 4 + Crimson velvet for trimming " 9 " 0 + Braid " 0 " 9 + Buttons " 0 " 12 + +Another very detailed notice gives all the expenses which he incurred +through the bad qualities and the thieving tendencies of another pupil +or model: "On 21st day of April, 1490, I started this book and started +again the horse.[45] Jacomo came to me on Magdalene day, 1490, at the +age of ten years (marginal note: thievish, mendacious, willful, +gluttonous). On the second day I ordered for him two shirts, a pair of +pants, and a jacket, and as I put the money away to pay for the things +named he stole the money from my purse, and it was never possible to +make him confess, although I was absolutely sure of it (marginal note: 4 +Lira ...)." So the report continues concerning the misdeeds of the +little boy and concludes with the expense account: "In the first year, a +cloak, Lira 2: 6 shirts, Lira 4: 3 jackets, Lira 6: 4 pair of socks, +Lira 7, etc."[46] + +Leonardo's biographers, to whom nothing was further than to solve the +riddle in the psychic life of their hero from these slight weaknesses +and peculiarities, were wont to remark in connection with these peculiar +accounts that they emphasized the kindness and consideration of the +master for his pupils. They forget thereby that it is not Leonardo's +behavior that needs an explanation, but the fact that he left us these +testimonies of it. As it is impossible to ascribe to him the motive of +smuggling into our hands proofs of his kindness, we must assume that +another affective motive caused him to write this down. It is not easy +to conjecture what this motive was, and we could not give any if not +for another account found among Leonardo's papers which throws a +brilliant light on these peculiarly petty notices about his pupils' +clothes, and others of a kind:[47] + + Burial expenses following the death of Caterina 27 florins + 2 pounds wax 18 " + Cataphalc 12 " + For the transportation and erection of the cross 4 " + Pall bearers 8 " + To 4 priests and 4 clerics 20 " + Ringing of bells 2 " + To grave diggers 16 " + For the approval--to the officials 1 " + ------------ + To sum up 108 florins + + Previous expenses: + To the doctor 4 florins + For sugar and candles 12 " + 16 florins + ------------ + Sum total 124 florins + +The writer Merejkowski is the only one who can tell us who this Caterina +was. From two different short notices he concludes that she was the +mother of Leonardo, the poor peasant woman from Vinci, who came to Milan +in 1493 to visit her son then 41 years old. While on this visit she fell +ill and was taken to the hospital by Leonardo, and following her death +she was buried by her son with such sumptuous funeral.[48] + +This deduction of the psychological writer of romances is not capable of +proof, but it can lay claim to so many inner probabilities, it agrees so +well with everything we know besides about Leonardo's emotional activity +that I cannot refrain from accepting it as correct. Leonardo succeeded +in forcing his feelings under the yoke of investigation and in +inhibiting their free utterance, but even in him there were episodes in +which the suppression obtained expression, and one of these was the +death of his mother whom he once loved so ardently. Through this account +of the burial expenses he represents to us the mourning of his mother in +an almost unrecognizable distortion. We wonder how such a distortion +could have come about, and we certainly cannot grasp it when viewed +under normal mental processes. But similar mechanisms are familiar to us +under the abnormal conditions of neuroses, and especially in the +so-called _compulsion neurosis_. Here one can observe how the +expressions of more intensive feelings have been displaced to trivial +and even foolish performances. The opposing forces succeeded in debasing +the expression of these repressed feelings to such an extent that one is +forced to estimate the intensity of these feelings as extremely +unimportant, but the imperative compulsion with which these +insignificant acts express themselves betrays the real force of the +feelings which are rooted in the unconscious, which consciousness would +wish to disavow. Only by bearing in mind the mechanisms of compulsion +neurosis can one explain Leonardo's account of the funeral expenses of +his mother. In his unconscious he was still tied to her as in childhood, +by erotically tinged feelings; the opposition of the repression of this +childhood love which appeared later stood in the way of erecting to her +in his diary a different and more dignified monument, but what resulted +as a compromise of this neurotic conflict had to be put in operation and +hence the account was entered in the diary which thus came to the +knowledge of posterity as something incomprehensible. + +It is not venturing far to transfer the interpretation obtained from the +funeral expenses to the accounts dealing with his pupils. Accordingly we +would say that here also we deal with a case in which Leonardo's meager +remnants of libidinous feelings compulsively obtained a distorted +expression. The mother and the pupils, the very images of his own boyish +beauty, would be his sexual objects--as far as his sexual repression +dominating his nature would allow such manifestations--and the +compulsion to note with painful circumstantiality his expenses on their +behalf, would designate the strange betrayal of his rudimentary +conflicts. From this we would conclude that Leonardo's love-life really +belonged to that type of homosexuality, the psychic development of which +we were able to disclose, and the appearance of the homosexual situation +in his vulture-phantasy would become comprehensible to us, for it states +nothing more or less than what we have asserted before concerning that +type. It requires the following interpretation: Through the erotic +relations to my mother I became a homosexual.[49] + + + + +IV + + +The vulture phantasy of Leonardo still absorbs our interest. In words +which only too plainly recall a sexual act ("and has many times struck +against my lips with his tail"), Leonardo emphasizes the intensity of +the erotic relations between the mother and the child. A second memory +content of the phantasy can readily be conjectured from the association +of the activity of the mother (of the vulture) with the accentuation of +the mouth zone. We can translate it as follows: My mother has pressed on +my mouth innumerable passionate kisses. The phantasy is composed of the +memories of being nursed and of being kissed by the mother. + +[Illustration: MONA LISA] + +A kindly nature has bestowed upon the artist the capacity to express in +artistic productions his most secret psychic feelings hidden even to +himself, which powerfully affect outsiders who are strangers to the +artist without their being able to state whence this emotivity comes. +Should there be no evidence in Leonardo's work of that which his memory +retained as the strongest impression of his childhood? One would have to +expect it. However, when one considers what profound transformations an +impression of an artist has to experience before it can add its +contribution to the work of art, one is obliged to moderate considerably +his expectation of demonstrating something definite. This is especially +true in the case of Leonardo. + +He who thinks of Leonardo's paintings will be reminded by the remarkably +fascinating and puzzling smile which he enchanted on the lips of all his +feminine figures. It is a fixed smile on elongated, sinuous lips which +is considered characteristic of him and is preferentially designated as +"Leonardesque." In the singular and beautiful visage of the Florentine +Monna Lisa del Giocondo it has produced the greatest effect on the +spectators and even perplexed them. This smile was in need of an +interpretation, and received many of the most varied kind but none of +them was considered satisfactory. As Gruyer puts it: "It is almost four +centuries since Monna Lisa causes all those to lose their heads who have +looked upon her for some time."[50] + +Muther states:[51] "What fascinates the spectator is the demoniacal +charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about +this woman, who now seems to smile upon us seductively and now to stare +coldly and lifelessly into space, but nobody has solved the riddle of +her smile, nobody has interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the +scenery is mysterious and dream-like, trembling as if in the sultriness +of sensuality." + +The idea that two diverse elements were united in the smile of Monna +Lisa has been felt by many critics. They therefore recognize in the play +of features of the beautiful Florentine lady the most perfect +representation of the contrasts dominating the love-life of the woman +which is foreign to man, as that of reserve and seduction, and of most +devoted tenderness and inconsiderateness in urgent and consuming +sensuality. Müntz[52] expresses himself in this manner: "One knows what +indecipherable and fascinating enigma Monna Lisa Gioconda has been +putting for nearly four centuries to the admirers who crowd around her. +No artist (I borrow the expression of the delicate writer who hides +himself under the pseudonym of Pierre de Corlay) has ever translated in +this manner the very essence of femininity: the tenderness and coquetry, +the modesty and quiet voluptuousness, the whole mystery of the heart +which holds itself aloof, of a brain which reflects, and of a +personality who watches itself and yields nothing from herself except +radiance...." The Italian Angelo Conti[53] saw the picture in the Louvre +illumined by a ray of the sun and expressed himself as follows: "The +woman smiled with a royal calmness, her instincts of conquest, of +ferocity, the entire heredity of the species, the will of seduction and +ensnaring, the charm of the deceiver, the kindness which conceals a +cruel purpose, all that appears and disappears alternately behind the +laughing veil and melts into the poem of her smile.... Good and evil, +cruelty and compassion, graceful and cat-like, she laughed...." + +Leonardo painted this picture four years, perhaps from 1503 until 1507, +during his second sojourn in Florence when he was about the age of fifty +years. According to Vasari he applied the choicest artifices in order to +divert the lady during the sittings and to hold that smile firmly on her +features. Of all the gracefulness that his brush reproduced on the +canvas at that time the picture preserves but very little in its present +state. During its production it was considered the highest that art +could accomplish; it is certain, however, that it did not satisfy +Leonardo himself, that he pronounced it as unfinished and did not +deliver it to the one who ordered it, but took it with him to France +where his benefactor Francis I, acquired it for the Louvre. + +Let us leave the physiognomic riddle of Monna Lisa unsolved, and let us +note the unequivocal fact that her smile fascinated the artist no less +than all the spectators for these 400 years. This captivating smile had +thereafter returned in all of his pictures and in those of his pupils. +As Leonardo's Monna Lisa was a portrait we cannot assume that he has +added to her face a trait of his own so difficult to express which she +herself did not possess. It seems, we cannot help but believe, that he +found this smile in his model and became so charmed by it that from now +on he endowed it on all the free creations of his phantasy. This obvious +conception is, e.g., expressed by A. Konstantinowa in the following +manner:[54] + +"During the long period in which the master occupied himself with the +portrait of Monna Lisa del Gioconda, he entered into the physiognomic +delicacies of this feminine face with such sympathy of feeling that he +transferred these creatures, especially the mysterious smile and the +peculiar glance, to all faces which he later painted or drew. The mimic +peculiarity of Gioconda can even be perceived in the picture of John the +Baptist in the Louvre. But above all they are distinctly recognized in +the features of Mary in the picture of St. Anne of the Louvre." + +But the case could have been different. The need for a deeper reason for +the fascination which the smile of Gioconda exerted on the artist from +which he could not rid himself has been felt by more than one of his +biographers. W. Pater, who sees in the picture of Monna Lisa the +embodiment of the entire erotic experience of modern man, and discourses +so excellently on "that unfathomable smile always with a touch of +something sinister in it, which plays over all Leonardo's work," leads +us to another track when he says:[55] + +"Besides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image +defining itself on the fabric of his dream; and but for express +historical testimony, we might fancy that this was but his ideal lady, +embodied and beheld at last." + +Herzfeld surely must have had something similar in mind when stating +that in Monna Lisa Leonardo encountered himself and therefore found it +possible to put so much of his own nature into the picture, "whose +features from time immemorial have been imbedded with mysterious +sympathy in Leonardo's soul."[56] + +Let us endeavor to clear up these intimations. It was quite possible +that Leonardo was fascinated by the smile of Monna Lisa, because it had +awakened something in him which had slumbered in his soul for a long +time, in all probability an old memory. This memory was of sufficient +importance to stick to him once it had been aroused; he was forced +continually to provide it with new expression. The assurance of Pater +that we can see an image like that of Monna Lisa defining itself from +Leonardo's childhood on the fabric of his dreams, seems worthy of belief +and deserves to be taken literally. + +Vasari mentions as Leonardo's first artistic endeavors, "heads of women +who laugh."[57] The passage, which is beyond suspicion, as it is not +meant to prove anything, reads more precisely as follows:[58] "He formed +in his youth some laughing feminine heads out of lime, which have been +reproduced in plaster, and some heads of children, which were as +beautiful as if modeled by the hands of a master...." + +Thus we discover that his practice of art began with the representation +of two kinds of objects, which would perforce remind us of the two kinds +of sexual objects which we have inferred from the analysis of his +vulture phantasy. If the beautiful children's heads were reproductions +of his own childish person, then the laughing women were nothing else +but reproductions of Caterina, his mother, and we are beginning to have +an inkling of the possibility that his mother possessed that mysterious +smile which he lost, and which fascinated him so much when he found it +again in the Florentine lady.[59] + +[Illustration: SAINT ANNE] + +The painting of Leonardo which in point of time stands nearest to the +Monna Lisa is the so-called Saint Anne of the Louvre, representing +Saint Anne, Mary and the Christ child. It shows the Leonardesque smile +most beautifully portrayed in the two feminine heads. It is impossible +to find out how much earlier or later than the portrait of Monna Lisa +Leonardo began to paint this picture. As both works extended over years, +we may well assume that they occupied the master simultaneously. But it +would best harmonize with our expectation if precisely the absorption in +the features of Monna Lisa would have instigated Leonardo to form the +composition of Saint Anne from his phantasy. For if the smile of +Gioconda had conjured up in him the memory of his mother, we would +naturally understand that he was first urged to produce a glorification +of motherhood, and to give back to her the smile he found in that +prominent lady. We may thus allow our interest to glide over from the +portrait of Monna Lisa to this other hardly less beautiful picture, now +also in the Louvre. + +Saint Anne with the daughter and grandchild is a subject seldom treated +in the Italian art of painting; at all events Leonardo's representation +differs widely from all that is otherwise known. Muther states:[60] + +"Some masters like Hans Fries, the older Holbein, and Girolamo dei +Libri, made Anne sit near Mary and placed the child between the two. +Others like Jakob Cornelicz in his Berlin pictures, represented Saint +Anne as holding in her arm the small figure of Mary upon which sits the +still smaller figure of the Christ child." In Leonardo's picture Mary +sits on her mother's lap, bent forward and is stretching out both arms +after the boy who plays with a little lamb, and must have slightly +maltreated it. The grandmother has one of her unconcealed arms propped +on her hip and looks down on both with a blissful smile. The grouping is +certainly not quite unconstrained. But the smile which is playing on the +lips of both women, although unmistakably the same as in the picture of +Monna Lisa, has lost its sinister and mysterious character; it expresses +a calm blissfulness.[61] + +On becoming somewhat engrossed in this picture it suddenly dawns upon +the spectator that only Leonardo could have painted this picture, as +only he could have formed the vulture phantasy. This picture contains +the synthesis of the history of Leonardo's childhood, the details of +which are explainable by the most intimate impressions of his life. In +his father's home he found not only the kind step-mother Donna Albiera, +but also the grandmother, his father's mother, Monna Lucia, who we will +assume was not less tender to him than grandmothers are wont to be. This +circumstance must have furnished him with the facts for the +representation of a childhood guarded by a mother and grandmother. +Another striking feature of the picture assumes still greater +significance. Saint Anne, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of the +boy who must have been a matron, is formed here perhaps somewhat more +mature and more serious than Saint Mary, but still as a young woman of +unfaded beauty. As a matter of fact Leonardo gave the boy two mothers, +the one who stretched out her arms after him and another who is seen in +the background, both are represented with the blissful smile of maternal +happiness. This peculiarity of the picture has not failed to excite the +wonder of the authors. Muther, for instance, believes that Leonardo +could not bring himself to paint old age, folds and wrinkles, and +therefore formed also Anne as a woman of radiant beauty. Whether one can +be satisfied with this explanation is a question. Other writers have +taken occasion to deny generally the sameness of age of mother and +daughter.[62] However, Muther's tentative explanation is sufficient +proof for the fact that the impression of Saint Anne's youthful +appearance was furnished by the picture and is not an imagination +produced by a tendency. + +Leonardo's childhood was precisely as remarkable as this picture. He has +had two mothers, the first his true mother, Caterina, from whom he was +torn away between the age of three and five years, and a young tender +step-mother, Donna Albiera, his father's wife. By connecting this fact +of his childhood with the one mentioned above and condensing them into a +uniform fusion, the composition of Saint Anne, Mary and the Child, +formed itself in him. The maternal form further away from the boy +designated as grandmother, corresponds in appearance and in spatial +relation to the boy, with the real first mother, Caterina. With the +blissful smile of Saint Anne the artist actually disavowed and concealed +the envy which the unfortunate mother felt when she was forced to give +up her son to her more aristocratic rival, as once before her lover. + +Our feeling that the smile of Monna Lisa del Gioconda awakened in the +man the memory of the mother of his first years of childhood would thus +be confirmed from another work of Leonardo. Following the production of +Monna Lisa, Italian artists depicted in Madonnas and prominent ladies +the humble dipping of the head and the peculiar blissful smile of the +poor peasant girl Caterina, who brought to the world the noble son who +was destined to paint, investigate, and suffer. + +When Leonardo succeeded in reproducing in the face of Monna Lisa the +double sense comprised in this smile, namely, the promise of unlimited +tenderness, and sinister threat (in the words of Pater), he remained +true even in this to the content of his earliest reminiscence. For the +love of the mother became his destiny, it determined his fate and the +privations which were in store for him. The impetuosity of the caressing +to which the vulture phantasy points was only too natural. The poor +forsaken mother had to give vent through mother's love to all her +memories of love enjoyed as well as to all her yearnings for more +affection; she was forced to it, not only in order to compensate herself +for not having a husband, but also the child for not having a father who +wanted to love it. In the manner of all ungratified mothers she thus +took her little son in place of her husband, and robbed him of a part of +his virility by the too early maturing of his eroticism. The love of the +mother for the suckling whom she nourishes and cares for is something +far deeper reaching than her later affection for the growing child. It +is of the nature of a fully gratified love affair, which fulfills not +only all the psychic wishes but also all physical needs, and when it +represents one of the forms of happiness attainable by man it is due, in +no little measure, to the possibility of gratifying without reproach +also wish feelings which were long repressed and designated as +perverse.[63] Even in the happiest recent marriage the father feels that +his child, especially the little boy has become his rival, and this +gives origin to an antagonism against the favorite one which is deeply +rooted in the unconscious. + +When in the prime of his life Leonardo re-encountered that blissful and +ecstatic smile as it had once encircled his mother's mouth in caressing, +he had long been under the ban of an inhibition, forbidding him ever +again to desire such tenderness from women's lips. But as he had become +a painter he endeavored to reproduce this smile with his brush and +furnish all his pictures with it, whether he executed them himself or +whether they were done by his pupils under his direction, as in Leda, +John, and Bacchus. The latter two are variations of the same type. +Muther says: "From the locust eater of the Bible Leonardo made a +Bacchus, an Apollo, who with a mysterious smile on his lips, and with +his soft thighs crossed, looks on us with infatuated eyes." These +pictures breathe a mysticism into the secret of which one dares not +penetrate; at most one can make the effort to construct the connection +to Leonardo's earlier productions. The figures are again androgynous but +no longer in the sense of the vulture phantasy, they are pretty boys of +feminine tenderness with feminine forms; they do not cast down their +eyes but gaze mysteriously triumphant, as if they knew of a great happy +issue concerning which one must remain quiet; the familiar fascinating +smile leads us to infer that it is a love secret. It is possible that in +these forms Leonardo disavowed and artistically conquered the +unhappiness of his love life, in that he represented the wish +fulfillment of the boy infatuated with his mother in such blissful union +of the male and female nature. + +[Illustration: JOHN THE BAPTIST] + + + + +V + + +Among the entries in Leonardo's diaries there is one which absorbs the +reader's attention through its important content and on account of a +small formal error. In July, 1504, he wrote: + +"Adi 9 Luglio, 1504, mercoledi, a ore 7 mori Ser Piero da Vinci notalio +al palazzo del Potestà, mio padre, a ore 7. Era d'età d'anni 80, lasciò +10 figlioli maschi e 2 feminine."[64] + +The notice as we see deals with the death of Leonardo's father. The +slight error in its form consists in the fact that in the computation of +the time "at 7 o'clock" is repeated two times, as if Leonardo had +forgotten at the end of the sentence that he had already written it at +the beginning. It is only a triviality to which any one but a +psychoanalyst would pay no attention. Perhaps he would not even notice +it, or if his attention would be called to it he would say "that can +happen to anybody during absent-mindedness or in an affective state and +has no further meaning." + +The psychoanalyst thinks differently; to him nothing is too trifling as +a manifestation of hidden psychic processes; he has long learned that +such forgetting or repetition is full of meaning, and that one is +indebted to the "absent-mindedness" when it makes possible the betrayal +of otherwise concealed feelings. + +We would say that, like the funeral account of Caterina and the expense +account of the pupils, this notice, too, corresponds to a case in which +Leonardo was unsuccessful in suppressing his affects, and the long +hidden feeling forcibly obtained a distorted expression. Also the form +is similar, it shows the same pedantic precision, the same pushing +forward of numbers.[65] + +We call such a repetition a perseveration. It is an excellent means to +indicate the affective accentuation. One recalls for example Saint +Peter's angry speech against his unworthy representative on earth, as +given in Dante's Paradiso:[66] + + "Quegli ch'usurpa in terra il luoga mio + Il luoga mio, il luogo mio, che vaca + Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio, + Fatto ha del cimiterio mio cloaca." + +Without Leonardo's affective inhibition the entry into the diary could +perhaps have read as follows: To-day at 7 o'clock died my father, Ser +Piero da Vinci, my poor father! But the displacement of the +perseveration to the most indifferent determination of the obituary to +dying-hour robs the notice of all pathos and lets us recognize that +there was something here to conceal and to suppress. + +Ser Piero da Vinci, notary and descendant of notaries, was a man of +great energy who attained respect and affluence. He was married four +times, the two first wives died childless, and not till the third +marriage has he gotten the first legitimate son, in 1476, when Leonardo +was 24 years old, and had long ago changed his father's home for the +studio of his master Verrocchio. With the fourth and last wife whom he +married when he was already in the fifties he begot nine sons and two +daughters.[67] + +To be sure the father also assumed importance in Leonardo's psychosexual +development, and what is more, it was not only in a negative sense, +through his absence during the boy's first childhood years, but also +directly through his presence in his later childhood. He who as a child +desires his mother, cannot help wishing to put himself in his father's +place, to identify himself with him in his phantasy and later make it +his life's task to triumph over him. As Leonardo was not yet five years +old when he was received into his paternal home, the young step-mother, +Albiera, certainly must have taken the place of his mother in his +feeling, and this brought him into that relation of rivalry to his +father which may be designated as normal. As is known, the preference +for homosexuality did not manifest itself till near the years of +puberty. When Leonardo accepted this preference the identification with +the father lost all significance for his sexual life, but continued in +other spheres of non-erotic activity. We hear that he was fond of luxury +and pretty raiments, and kept servants and horses, although according to +Vasari's words "he hardly possessed anything and worked little." We +shall not hold his artistic taste entirely responsible for all these +special likings; we recognize in them also the compulsion to copy his +father and to excel him. He played the part of the great gentleman to +the poor peasant girl, hence the son retained the incentive that he also +play the great gentleman, he had the strong feeling "to out-herod +Herod," and to show his father exactly how the real high rank looks. + +Whoever works as an artist certainly feels as a father to his works. The +identification with his father had a fateful result in Leonardo's works +of art. He created them and then troubled himself no longer about them, +just as his father did not trouble himself about him. The later +worriments of his father could change nothing in this compulsion, as the +latter originated from the impressions of the first years of childhood, +and the repression having remained unconscious was incorrigible through +later experiences. + +At the time of the Renaissance, and even much later, every artist was in +need of a gentleman of rank to act as his benefactor. This patron was +wont to give the artist commissions for work and entirely controlled his +destiny. Leonardo found his patron in Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il +Moro, a man of high aspirations, ostentations, diplomatically astute, +but of an unstable and unreliable character. In his court in Milan, +Leonardo spent the best period of his life, while in his service he +evinced his most uninhibited productive activity as is evidenced in The +Last Supper, and in the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. He left +Milan before the catastrophe struck Lodovico Moro, who died a prisoner +in a French prison. When the news of his benefactor's fate reached +Leonardo he made the following entry in his diary: "The duke has lost +state, wealth, and liberty, not one of his works will be finished by +himself."[68] It is remarkable and surely not without significance that +he here raises the same reproach to his benefactor that posterity was to +apply to him, as if he wanted to lay the responsibility to a person who +substituted his father-series, for the fact that he himself left his +works unfinished. As a matter of fact he was not wrong in what he said +about the Duke. + +However, if the imitation of his father hurt him as an artist, his +resistance against the father was the infantile determinant of his +perhaps equally vast accomplishment as an artist. According to +Merejkowski's beautiful comparison he was like a man who awoke too early +in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep. He dared utter +this bold principle which contains the justification for all independent +investigation: _"Chi dispute allegando l'autorità non adopra l'ingegno +ma piuttosto la memoria"_ (Whoever refers to authorities in disputing +ideas, works with his memory rather than with his reason).[69] Thus he +became the first modern natural philosopher, and his courage was +rewarded by an abundance of cognitions and suggestions; since the Greek +period he was the first to investigate the secrets of nature, relying +entirely on his observation and his own judgment. But when he learned to +depreciate authority and to reject the imitation of the "ancients" and +constantly pointed to the study of nature as the source of all wisdom, +he only repeated in the highest sublimation attainable to man, which had +already obtruded itself on the little boy who surveyed the world with +wonder. To retranslate the scientific abstractions into concrete +individual experiences, we would say that the "ancients" and authority +only corresponded to the father, and nature again became the tender +mother who nourished him. While in most human beings to-day, as in +primitive times, the need for a support of some authority is so +imperative that their world becomes shaky when their authority is +menaced, Leonardo alone was able to exist without such support; but that +would not have been possible had he not been deprived of his father in +the first years of his life. The boldness and independence of his later +scientific investigation presupposes that his infantile sexual +investigation was not inhibited by his father, and this same spirit of +scientific independence was continued by his withdrawing from sex. + +If any one like Leonardo escapes in his childhood his father's +intimidation and later throws off the shackles of authority in his +scientific investigation, it would be in gross contradiction to our +expectation if we found that this same man remained a believer and +unable to withdraw from dogmatic religion. Psychoanalysis has taught us +the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, +and daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious +belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down. In the +parental complex we thus recognize the roots of religious need; the +almighty, just God, and kindly nature appear to us as grand sublimations +of father and mother, or rather as revivals and restorations of the +infantile conceptions of both parents. Religiousness is biologically +traced to the long period of helplessness and need of help of the little +child. When the child grows up and realizes his loneliness and weakness +in the presence of the great forces of life, he perceives his condition +as in childhood and seeks to disavow his despair through a regressive +revival of the protecting forces of childhood. + +It does not seem that Leonardo's life disproves this conception of +religious belief. Accusations charging him with irreligiousness, which +in those times was equivalent to renouncing Christianity, were brought +against him already in his lifetime, and were clearly described in the +first biography given by Vasari.[70] In the second edition of his Vite +(1568) Vasari left out this observation. In view of the extraordinary +sensitiveness of his age in matters of religion it is perfectly +comprehensible to us why Leonardo refrained from directly expressing his +position to Christianity in his notes. As investigator he did not permit +himself to be misled by the account of the creation of the holy +scriptures; for instance, he disputed the possibility of a universal +flood, and in geology he was as unscrupulous in calculating with hundred +thousands of years as modern investigators. + +Among his "prophecies" one finds some things that would perforce offend +the sensitive feelings of a religious Christian, e.g. Praying to the +images of Saints, reads as follows:[71] + +"People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see +nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore +those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those +who do not see." + +Or: Concerning mourning on Good Friday (p. 297): + +"In all parts of Europe great peoples will bewail the death of one man +who died in the Orient." + +It was asserted of Leonardo's art that he took away the last remnant of +religious attachment from the holy figures and put them into human form +in order to depict in them great and beautiful human feelings. Muther +praises him for having overcome the feeling of decadence, and for having +returned to man the right of sensuality and pleasurable enjoyment. The +notices which show Leonardo absorbed in fathoming the great riddles of +nature do not lack any expressions of admiration for the creator, the +last cause of all these wonderful secrets, but nothing indicates that he +wished to hold any personal relation to this divine force. The sentences +which contain the deep wisdom of his last years breathe the resignation +of the man who subjects himself to the laws of nature and expects no +alleviation from the kindness or grace of God. There is hardly any doubt +that Leonardo had vanquished dogmatic as well as personal religion, and +through his work of investigation he had withdrawn far from the world +aspect of the religious Christian. + +From our views mentioned before in the development of the infantile +psychic life, it becomes clear that also Leonardo's first investigations +in childhood occupied themselves with the problems of sexuality. But he +himself betrays it to us through a transparent veil, in that he +connects his impulse to investigate with the vulture phantasy, and in +emphasizing the problem of the flight of the bird as one whose +elaboration devolved upon him through special concatenations of fate. A +very obscure as well as a prophetically sounding passage in his notes +dealing with the flight of the bird demonstrates in the nicest way with +how much affective interest he clung to the wish that he himself should +be able to imitate, the art of flying: "The human bird shall take his +first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his +fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang." He +probably hoped that he himself would sometimes be able to fly, and we +know from the wish fulfilling dreams of people what bliss one expects +from the fulfillment of this hope. + +But why do so many people dream that they are able to fly? +Psychoanalysis answers this question by stating that to fly or to be a +bird in the dream is only a concealment of another wish, to the +recognition of which one can reach by more than one linguistic or +objective bridge. When the inquisitive child is told that a big bird +like the stork brings the little children, when the ancients have formed +the phallus winged, when the popular designation of the sexual activity +of man is expressed in German by the word "to bird" (vögeln), when the +male member is directly called _l'uccello_ (bird) by the Italians, all +these facts are only small fragments from a large collection which +teaches us that the wish to be able to fly signifies in the dream +nothing more or less than the longing for the ability of sexual +accomplishment. This is an early infantile wish. When the grown-up +recalls his childhood it appears to him as a happy time in which one is +happy for the moment and looks to the future without any wishes, it is +for this reason that he envies children. But if children themselves +could inform us about it they would probably give different reports. It +seems that childhood is not that blissful Idyl into which we later +distort it, that on the contrary children are lashed through the years +of childhood by the wish to become big, and to imitate the grown ups. +This wish instigates all their playing. If in the course of their +sexual investigation children feel that the grown up knows something +wonderful in the mysterious and yet so important realm, what they are +prohibited from knowing or doing, they are seized with a violent wish to +know it, and dream of it in the form of flying, or prepare this disguise +of the wish for their later flying dreams. Thus aviation, which has +attained its aim in our times, has also its infantile erotic roots. + +By admitting that he entertained a special personal relation to the +problem of flying since his childhood, Leonardo bears out what we must +assume from our investigation of children of our times, namely, that his +childhood investigation was directed to sexual matters. At least this +one problem escaped the repression which has later estranged him from +sexuality. From childhood until the age of perfect intellectual maturity +this subject, slightly varied, continued to hold his interest, and it is +quite possible that he was as little successful in his cherished art in +the primary sexual sense as in his desires for mechanical matters, that +both wishes were denied to him. + +As a matter of fact the great Leonardo remained infantile in some ways +throughout his whole life; it is said that all great men retain +something of the infantile. As a grown up he still continued playing, +which sometimes made him appear strange and incomprehensible to his +contemporaries. When he constructed the most artistic mechanical toys +for court festivities and receptions we are dissatisfied thereby because +we dislike to see the master waste his power on such petty stuff. He +himself did not seem averse to giving his time to such things. Vasari +reports that he did similar things even when not urged to it by request: +"There (in Rome) he made a doughy mass out of wax, and when it softened +he formed thereof very delicate animals filled with air; when he blew +into them they flew in the air, and when the air was exhausted they fell +to the ground. For a peculiar lizard caught by the wine-grower of +Belvedere Leonardo made wings from skin pulled off from other lizards, +which he filled with mercury so that they moved and trembled when it +walked; he then made for it eyes, a beard and horns, tamed it and put it +in a little box and terrified all his friends with it."[72] Such +playing often served him as an expression of serious thoughts: "He had +often cleaned the intestines of a sheep so well that one could hold them +in the hollow of the hand; he brought them into a big room, and attached +them to a blacksmith's bellows which he kept in an adjacent room, he +then blew them up until they filled up the whole room so that everybody +had to crowd into a corner. In this manner he showed how they gradually +became transparent and filled up with air, and as they were at first +limited to very little space and gradually became more and more extended +in the big room, he compared them to a genius."[73] His fables and +riddles evince the same playful pleasure in harmless concealment and +artistic investment, the riddles were put into the form of prophecies; +almost all are rich in ideas and to a remarkable degree devoid of wit. + +The plays and jumps which Leonardo allowed his phantasy have in some +cases quite misled his biographers who misunderstood this part of his +nature. In Leonardo's Milanese manuscripts one finds, for example, +outlines of letters to the "Diodario of Sorio (Syria), viceroy of the +holy Sultan of Babylon," in which Leonardo presents himself as an +engineer sent to these regions of the Orient in order to construct some +works. In these letters he defends himself against the reproach of +laziness, he furnishes geographical descriptions of cities and +mountains, and finally discusses a big elementary event which occurred +while he was there.[74] + +In 1881, J. P. Richter had endeavored to prove from these documents that +Leonardo made these traveler's observations when he really was in the +service of the Sultan of Egypt, and that while in the Orient he embraced +the Mohammedan religion. This sojourn in the Orient should have taken +place in the time of 1483, that is, before he removed to the court of +the Duke of Milan. However, it was not difficult for other authors to +recognize the illustrations of this supposed journey to the Orient as +what they really were, namely, phantastic productions of the youthful +artist which he created for his own amusement, and in which he probably +brought to expression his wishes to see the world and experience +adventures. + +A phantastic formation is probably also the "Academia Vinciana," the +acceptance of which is due to the existence of five or six most clever +and intricate emblems with the inscription of the Academy. Vasari +mentions these drawings but not the Academy.[75] Müntz who placed such +ornament on the cover of his big work on Leonardo belongs to the few who +believe in the reality of an "Academia Vinciana." + +It is probable that this impulse to play disappeared in Leonardo's +maturer years, that it became discharged in the investigating activity +which signified the highest development of his personality. But the fact +that it continued so long may teach us how slowly one tears himself away +from his infantilism after having enjoyed in his childhood supreme +erotic happiness which is later unattainable. + + + + +VI + + +It would be futile to delude ourselves that at present, readers find +every pathography unsavory. This attitude is excused with the reproach +that from a pathographic elaboration of a great man one never obtains an +understanding of his importance and his attainments, that it is +therefore useless mischief to study in him things which could just as +well be found in the first comer. However, this criticism is so clearly +unjust that it can only be grasped when viewed as a pretext and a +disguise for something. As a matter of fact pathography does not aim at +making comprehensible the attainments of the great man; no one should +really be blamed for not doing something which one never promised. The +real motives for the opposition are quite different. One finds them when +one bears in mind that biographers are fixed on their heroes in quite a +peculiar manner. Frequently they take the hero as the object of study +because, for reasons of their personal emotional life, they bear him a +special affection from the very outset. They then devote themselves to a +work of idealization which strives to enroll the great men among their +infantile models, and to revive through him, as it were, the infantile +conception of the father. For the sake of this wish they wipe out the +individual features in his physiognomy, they rub out the traces of his +life's struggle with inner and outer resistances, and do not tolerate in +him anything of human weakness or imperfection; they then give us a +cold, strange, ideal form instead of the man to whom we could feel +distantly related. It is to be regretted that they do this, for they +thereby sacrifice the truth to an illusion, and for the sake of their +infantile phantasies they let slip the opportunity to penetrate into the +most attractive secrets of human nature.[76] + +Leonardo himself, judging from his love for the truth and his +inquisitiveness, would have interposed no objections to the effort of +discovering the determinations of his psychic and intellectual +development from the trivial peculiarities and riddles of his nature. We +respect him by learning from him. It does no injury to his greatness to +study the sacrifices which his development from the child must have +entailed, and to the compile factors which have stamped on his person +the tragic feature of failure. + +Let us expressly emphasize that we have never considered Leonardo as a +neurotic or as a "nervous person" in the sense of this awkward term. +Whoever takes it amiss that we should even dare apply to him viewpoints +gained from pathology, still clings to prejudices which we have at +present justly given up. We no longer believe that health and disease, +normal and nervous, are sharply distinguished from each other, and that +neurotic traits must be judged as proof of general inferiority. We know +to-day that neurotic symptoms are substitutive formations for certain +repressive acts which have to be brought about in the course of our +development from the child to the cultural man, that we all produce +such substitutive formations, and that only the amount, intensity, and +distribution of these substitutive formations justify the practical +conception of illness and the conclusion of constitutional inferiority. +Following the slight signs in Leonardo's personality we would place him +near that neurotic type which we designate as the "compulsive type," and +we would compare his investigation with the "reasoning mania" of +neurotics, and his inhibitions with the so-called "abulias" of the +latter. + +The object of our work was to explain the inhibitions in Leonardo's +sexual life and in his artistic activity. For this purpose we shall now +sum up what we could discover concerning the course of his psychic +development. + +We were unable to gain any knowledge about his hereditary factors, on +the other hand we recognize that the accidental circumstances of his +childhood produced a far reaching disturbing effect. His illegitimate +birth deprived him of the influence of a father until perhaps his fifth +year, and left him to the tender seduction of a mother whose only +consolation he was. Having been kissed by her into sexual prematurity, +he surely must have entered into a phase of infantile sexual activity of +which only one single manifestation was definitely evinced, namely, the +intensity of his infantile sexual investigation. The impulse for looking +and inquisitiveness were most strongly stimulated by his impressions +from early childhood; the enormous mouth-zone received its accentuation +which it had never given up. From his later contrasting behavior, as the +exaggerated sympathy for animals, we can conclude that this infantile +period did not lack in strong sadistic traits. + +An energetic shift of repression put an end to this infantile excess, +and established the dispositions which became manifest in the years of +puberty. The most striking result of this transformation was a turning +away from all gross sensual activities. Leonardo was able to lead a life +of abstinence and made the impression of an asexual person. When the +floods of pubescent excitement came over the boy they did not make him +ill by forcing him to costly and harmful substitutive formations; owing +to the early preference for sexual inquisitiveness, the greater part of +the sexual needs could be sublimated into a general thirst after +knowledge and so elude repression. A much smaller portion of the libido +was applied to sexual aims, and represented the stunted sexual life of +the grown up. In consequence of the repression of the love for the +mother this portion assumed a homosexual attitude and manifested itself +as ideal love for boys. The fixation on the mother, as well as the happy +reminiscences of his relations with her, was preserved in his +unconscious but remained for the time in an inactive state. In this +manner the repression, fixation, and sublimation participated in the +disposal of the contributions which the sexual impulse furnished to +Leonardo's psychic life. + +From the obscure age of boyhood Leonardo appears to us as an artist, a +painter, and sculptor, thanks to a specific talent which was probably +enforced by the early awakening of the impulse for looking in the first +years of childhood. We would gladly report in what way the artistic +activity depends on the psychic primitive forces were it not that our +material is inadequate just here. We content ourselves by emphasizing +the fact, concerning which hardly any doubt still exists, that the +productions of the artist give outlet also to his sexual desire, and in +the case of Leonardo we can refer to the information imparted by Vasari, +namely, that heads of laughing women and pretty boys, or representations +of his sexual objects, attracted attention among his first artistic +attempts. It seems that during his flourishing youth Leonardo at first +worked in an uninhibited manner. As he took his father as a model for +his outer conduct in life, he passed through a period of manly creative +power and artistic productivity in Milan, where favored by fate he found +a substitute for his father in the duke Lodovico Moro. But the +experience of others was soon confirmed in him, to wit, that the almost +complete suppression of the real sexual life does not furnish the most +favorable conditions for the activity of the sublimated sexual +strivings. The figurativeness of his sexual life asserted itself, his +activity and ability to quick decisions began to weaken, the tendency to +reflection and delay was already noticeable as a disturbance in The +Holy Supper, and with the influence of the technique determined the fate +of this magnificent work. Slowly a process developed in him which can be +put parallel only to the regressions of neurotics. His development at +puberty into the artist was outstripped by the early infantile +determinant of the investigator, the second sublimation of his erotic +impulses turned back to the primitive one which was prepared at the +first repression. He became an investigator, first in service of his +art, later independently and away from his art. With the loss of his +patron, the substitute for his father, and with the increasing +difficulties in his life, the regressive displacement extended in +dimension. He became _"impacientissimo al pennello"_ (most impatient +with the brush) as reported by a correspondent of the countess Isabella +d'Este who desired to possess at any cost a painting from his hand.[77] +His infantile past had obtained control over him. The investigation, +however, which now took the place of his artistic production, seems to +have born certain traits which betrayed the activity of unconscious +impulses; this was seen in his insatiability, his regardless obstinacy, +and in his lack of ability to adjust himself to actual conditions. + +At the summit of his life, in the age of the first fifties, at a time +when the sex characteristics of the woman have already undergone a +regressive change, and when the libido in the man not infrequently +ventures into an energetic advance, a new transformation came over him. +Still deeper strata of his psychic content became active again, but this +further regression was of benefit to his art which was in a state of +deterioration. He met the woman who awakened in him the memory of the +happy and sensuously enraptured smile of his mother, and under the +influence of this awakening he acquired back the stimulus which guided +him in the beginning of his artistic efforts when he formed the smiling +woman. He painted Monna Lisa, Saint Anne, and a number of mystic +pictures which were characterized by the enigmatic smile. With the help +of his oldest erotic feelings he triumphed in conquering once more the +inhibition in his art. This last development faded away in the obscurity +of the approaching old age. But before this his intellect rose to the +highest capacity of a view of life, which was far in advance of his +time. + +In the preceding chapters I have shown what justification one may have +for such representation of Leonardo's course of development, for this +manner of arranging his life and explaining his wavering between art and +science. If after accomplishing these things I should provoke the +criticism from even friends and adepts of psychoanalysis, that I have +only written a psychoanalytic romance, I should answer that I certainly +did not overestimate the reliability of these results. Like others I +succumbed to the attraction emanating from this great and mysterious +man, in whose being one seems to feel powerful propelling passions, +which after all can only evince themselves so remarkably subdued. + +But whatever may be the truth about Leonardo's life we cannot relinquish +our effort to investigate it psychoanalytically before we have finished +another task. In general we must mark out the limits which are set up +for the working capacity of psychoanalysis in biography so that every +omitted explanation should not be held up to us as a failure. +Psychoanalytic investigation has at its disposal the data of the history +of the person's life, which on the one hand consists of accidental +events and environmental influences, and on the other hand of the +reported reactions of the individual. Based on the knowledge of psychic +mechanisms it now seeks to investigate dynamically the character of the +individual from his reactions, and to lay bare his earliest psychic +motive forces as well as their later transformations and developments. +If this succeeds then the reaction of the personality is explained +through the coöperation of constitutional and accidental factors or +through inner and outer forces. If such an undertaking, as perhaps in +the case of Leonardo, does not yield definite results then the blame for +it is not to be laid to the faulty or inadequate psychoanalytic method, +but to the vague and fragmentary material left by tradition about this +person. It is, therefore, only the author who forced psychoanalysis to +furnish an expert opinion on such insufficient material, who is to be +held responsible for the failure. + +However, even if one had at his disposal a very rich historical material +and could manage the psychic mechanism with the greatest certainty, a +psychoanalytic investigation could not possibly furnish the definite +view, if it concerns two important questions, that the individual could +turn out only so and not differently. Concerning Leonardo we had to +represent the view that the accident of his illegitimate birth and the +pampering of his mother exerted the most decisive influence on his +character formation and his later fate, through the fact that the sexual +repression following this infantile phase caused him to sublimate his +libido into a thirst after knowledge, and thus determined his sexual +inactivity for his entire later life. The repression, however, which +followed the first erotic gratification of childhood did not have to +take place, in another individual it would perhaps not have taken place +or it would have turned out not nearly as profuse. We must recognize +here a degree of freedom which can no longer be solved psychoanalytically. +One is as little justified in representing the issue of this shift of +repression as the only possible issue. It is quite probable that another +person would not have succeeded in withdrawing the main part of his +libido from the repression through sublimation into a desire for +knowledge; under the same influences as Leonardo another person might +have sustained a permanent injury to his intellectual work or an +uncontrollable disposition to compulsion neurosis. The two +characteristics of Leonardo which remained unexplained through +psychoanalytic effort are first, his particular tendency to repress his +impulses, and second, his extraordinary ability to sublimate the +primitive impulses. + +The impulses and their transformations are the last things that +psychoanalysis can discern. Henceforth it leaves the place to biological +investigation. The tendency to repression, as well as the ability to +sublimate, must be traced back to the organic bases of the character, +upon which alone the psychic structure springs up. As artistic talent +and productive ability are intimately connected with sublimation we +have to admit that also the nature of artistic attainment is +psychoanalytically inaccessible to us. Biological investigation of our +time endeavors to explain the chief traits of the organic constitution +of a person through the fusion of male and female predispositions in the +material sense; Leonardo's physical beauty as well as his +left-handedness furnish here some support. However, we do not wish to +leave the ground of pure psychologic investigation. Our aim remains to +demonstrate the connection between outer experiences and reactions of +the person over the path of the activity of the impulses. Even if +psychoanalysis does not explain to us the fact of Leonardo's artistic +accomplishment, it still gives us an understanding of the expressions +and limitations of the same. It does seem as if only a man with +Leonardo's childhood experiences could have painted Monna Lisa and Saint +Anne, and could have supplied his works with that sad fate and so obtain +unheard of fame as a natural historian; it seems as if the key to all +his attainments and failures was hidden in the childhood phantasy of +the vulture. + +But may one not take offense at the results of an investigation which +concede to the accidents of the parental constellation so decisive an +influence on the fate of a person, which, for example, subordinates +Leonardo's fate to his illegitimate birth and to the sterility of his +first step-mother Donna Albiera? I believe that one has no right to feel +so; if one considers accident as unworthy of determining our fate, it is +only a relapse to the pious aspect of life, the overcoming of which +Leonardo himself prepared when he put down in writing that the sun does +not move. We are naturally grieved over the fact that a just God and a +kindly providence do not guard us better against such influences in our +most defenseless age. We thereby gladly forget that as a matter of fact +everything in our life is accident from our very origin through the +meeting of spermatozoa and ovum, accident, which nevertheless +participates in the lawfulness and fatalities of nature, and lacks only +the connection to our wishes and illusions. The division of life's +determinants into the "fatalities" of our constitution and the +"accidents" of our childhood may still be indefinite in individual +cases, but taken altogether one can no longer entertain any doubt about +the importance of precisely our first years of childhood. We all still +show too little respect for nature, which in Leonardo's deep words +recalling Hamlet's speech _"is full of infinite reasons which never +appeared in experience."_[78] Every one of us human beings corresponds +to one of the infinite experiments in which these "reasons of nature" +force themselves into experience. + + +THE END + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In the words of J. Burckhard, cited by Alexandra Konstantinowa, Die +Entwicklung des Madonnentypus by Leonardo da Vinci, Strassburg, 1907. + +[2] Vite, etc. LXXXIII. 1550-1584. + +[3] Traktat von der Malerei, new edition and introduction by Marie +Herzfeld, E. Diederichs, Jena, 1909. + +[4] Solmi. La resurrezione dell' opera di Leonardo in the collected +work; Leonardo da Vinci. Conferenze Florentine, Milan, 1910. + +[5] Scognamiglio Ricerche e Documenti sulla giovinezza di Leonardo da +Vinci. Napoli, 1900. + +[6] W. v. Seidlitz. Leonardo da Vinci, der Wendepunkt der Renaissance, +1909, Bd. I, p. 203. + +[7] W. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 48 + +[8] W. Pater. The Renaissance, p. 107, The Macmillan Co., 1910. "But it +is certain that at one period of his life he had almost ceased to be an +artist." + +[9] Cf. v. Seidlitz, Bd. I die Geschichte der Restaurations--und +Rettungsversuche. + +[10] Müntz. Léonard de Vinci, Paris, 1899, p. 18. (A letter of a +contemporary from India to a Medici alludes to this peculiarity of +Leonardo. Given by Richter: The literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.) + +[11] F. Botazzi. Leonardo biologo e anatomico. Conferenze Florentine, p. +186, 1910. + +[12] E. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci. German Translation by Emmi Hirschberg. +Berlin, 1908. + +[13] Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci der Denker, Forscher und Poet. +Second edition. Jena, 1906. + +[14] His collected witticisms--belle facezie,--which are not translated, +may be an exception. Cf. Herzfeld, Leonardo da Vinci, p. 151. + +[15] According to Scognamiglio (l. c. p. 49) reference is made to this +episode in an obscure and even variously interpreted passage of the +Codex Atlanticus: "Quando io feci Domeneddio putto voi mi metteste in +prigione, ora s'io lo fo grande, voi mi farete peggio." + +[16] Merejkowski: The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by +Herbert Trench, G. P. Putnam Sons, New York. It forms the second of the +historical Trilogy entitled Christ and Anti-Christ, of which the first +volume is Julian Apostata, and the third volume is Peter the Great and +Alexei. + +[17] Solmi l. c. p. 46. + +[18] Filippo Botazzi, l. c. p. 193. + +[19] Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, Traktat von der Malerei, Jena, +1909 (Chap. I, 64). + +[20] "Such transfiguration of science and of nature into emotions, or +one might say, religion, is one of the characteristic traits of da +Vinci's manuscripts, which one finds expressed hundreds of times." +Solmi: La resurrezione, etc, p. 11. + +[21] La resurrezione, etc., p. 8: "Leonardo placed the study of nature +as a precept to painting ... later the passion for study became +dominating, he no longer wished to acquire science for art, but science +for science' sake." + +[22] For an enumeration of his scientific attainments see Marie +Herzfeld's interesting introduction (Jena, 1906) to the essays of the +Conference Florentine, 1910, and elsewhere. + +[23] For a corroboration of this improbable sounding assertion see the +"Analysis of the Phobia of a Five-year-old Boy," Jahrbuch für +Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, Bd. I, 1909, and +the similar observation in Bd. II, 1910. In an essay concerning +"Infantile Theories of Sex" (Sammlungen kleiner Schriften zur +Neurosenlehre, p. 167, Second Series, 1909), I wrote: "But this +reasoning and doubting serves as a model for all later intellectual work +in problems, and the first failure acts as a paralyzer for all times." + +[24] Scognamiglio 1. c., p. 15. + +[25] Cited by Scognamiglio from the Codex Atlanticus, p. 65. + +[26] Cf. here the "Bruchstück einer Hysterieanalyse," in Neurosenlehre, +Second series, 1909. + +[27] Horapollo: Hieroglyphica I, II. Μητἑρα δἑ γρἁφοντες ... γὑπα ζωγραφοὑσιυ. + +[28] Roscher: Ausf. Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie. +Artikel Mut, II Bd., 1894-1897.--Lanzone. Dizionario di Mitologia +egizia. Torino, 1882. + +[29] H. Hartleben, Champollion. Sein Leben und sein Werk, 1906. + +[30] "γὑπα δἑ ἁρρενα οὑ φασνγἑνεσθαι ποτε, ἁιλἁ φηλεἱας ἁπἁσας," cited by v. Römer. Über die +androgynische Idee des Lebens, Jahrb. f. Sexuelle Zwischenstufen, V, 1903, p. 732. + +[31] Plutarch: Veluti scarabaeos mares tantum esse putarunt Aegyptii sic +inter vultures mares non inveniri statuerunt + +[32] Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica edidit Conradus Leemans +Amstelodami, 1835. The words referring to the sex of the vulture read as +follows (p. 14): "μητἑρα μἑν ἑπειδἡ ἁρρεν ἑν τοὑτω γἑνει τὡων οὑχ ὑπἁρχει." + +[33] E. Müntz, 1. c., p. 282. + +[34] E. Müntz, 1. c. + +[35] See the illustrations in Lanzone l. c. T. CXXXVI-VIII. + +[36] v. Römer l. c. + +[37] Cf. the observations in the Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und +Psychopathologische Forschungen, Vol. I, 1909. + +[38] Cf. Richard Payne Knight: The Cult of Priapus. + +[39] Prominently among those who undertook these investigations are I. +Sadger, whose results I can essentially corroborate from my own +experience. I am also aware that Stekel of Vienna, Ferenczi of Budapest, +and Brill of New York, came to the same conclusions. + +[40] Edm. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci, German translation, p. 152. + +[41] Solmi, 1. c. p. 203. + +[42] Leonardo thus behaves like one who was in the habit of making a +daily confession to another person whom he now replaced by his diary. +For an assumption as to who this person may have been see Merejkowski, +p. 309. + +[43] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, 1906, p. 141. + +[44] The wording is that of Merejkowski, 1. c. p. 237. + +[45] The equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza. + +[46] The full wording is found in M. Herzfeld, 1. c. p. 45. + +[47] Merejkowski 1. c.--As a disappointing illustration of the vagueness +of the information concerning Leonardo's intimate life, meager as it is, +I mention the fact that the same expense account is given by Solmi with +considerable variation (German translation, p. 104). The most serious +difference is the substitution of florins by soldi. One may assume that +in this account florins do not mean the old "gold florins," but those +used at a later period which amounted to 1-2/3 lira or 33-1/2 +soldi.--Solmi represents Caterina as a servant who had taken care of +Leonardo's household for a certain time. The source from which the two +representations of this account were taken was not accessible to me. + +[48] "Caterina came in July, 1493." + +[49] The manner of expression through which the repressed libidio could +manifest itself in Leonardo, such as circumstantiality and marked +interest in money, belongs to those traits of character which emanate +from anal eroticism. Cf. Character und Analerotik in the second series +of my Sammlung zur Neurosenlehre, 1909, also Brill's Psychoanalysis, its +Theories and Practical Applications, Chap. XIII, Anal Eroticism and +Character, Saunders, Philadelphia. + +[50] Seidlitz: Leonardo da Vinci, II Bd., p. 280. + +[51] Geschichte der Malerei, Bd. I, p. 314. + +[52] l. c. p. 417. + +[53] A. Conti: Leonardo pittore, Conferenze Fiorentine, l. c. p. 93. + +[54] l. c. p. 45. + +[55] W. Pater: The Renaissance, p. 124, The Macmillan Co., 1910. + +[56] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, p. 88. + +[57] Scognamiglio, l. c. p. 32. + +[58] L. Schorn, Bd. III, 1843, p. 6. + +[59] The same is assumed by Merejkowski, who imagined a childhood for +Leonardo which deviates in the essential points from ours, drawn from +the results of the vulture phantasy. But if Leonardo himself had +displayed this smile, tradition hardly would have failed to report to us +this coincidence. + +[60] l. c. p. 309. + +[61] A. Konstantinowa, l. c., says: "Mary looks tenderly down on her +beloved child with a smile that recalls the mysterious expression of la +Gioconda." Elsewhere speaking of Mary she says: "The smile of Gioconda +floats upon her features." + +[62] Cf. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 274. + +[63] Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, translated by A. A. +Brill, 2nd edition, 1916, Monograph series. + +[64] "On the 9th of July, 1504, Wednesday at 7 o'clock died Ser Piero da +Vinci, notary at the palace of the Podesta, my father, at 7 o'clock. He +was 80 years old, left 10 sons and 2 daughters." (E. Müntz, l. c. p. +13.) + +[65] I shall overlook a greater error committed by Leonardo in his +notice in that he gives his 77-year-old father 80 years. + +[66] "He who usurps on earth my place, my place, my place, which is void +in the presence of the Son of God, has made out of my cemetery a sewer." +Canto XXXVII. + +[67] It seems that in that passage of the diary Leonardo also erred in +the number of his sisters and brothers, which stands in remarkable +contrast to the apparent exactness of the same. + +[68] v. Seidlitz, l. c., II, p. 270. + +[69] Solmi, Conf. fior, p. 13. + +[70] Müntz, l. c., La Religion de Leonardo, p. 292, etc. + +[71] Herzfeld, p. 292. + +[72] Vasari, translated by Schorn, 1843. + +[73] Ebenda, p. 39. + +[74] Concerning these letters and the combinations connected with them +see Müntz, l. c., p. 82; for the wording of the same and for the notices +connected with them see Herzfeld, l. c., p. 223. + +[75] Besides, he lost some time in that he even made a drawing of a +braided cord in which one could follow the thread from one end to the +other, until it formed a perfectly circular figure; a very difficult and +beautiful drawing of this kind is engraved on copper, in the center of +it one can read the words: "Leonardus Vinci Academia" (p. 8). + +[76] This criticism holds quite generally and is not aimed at Leonardo's +biographers in particular. + +[77] Seidlitz II, p. 271. + +[78] La natura è piena d'infinite ragionè che non furono mai in +isperienza, M. Herzfeld, l. c. p. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/34300-0.zip b/34300-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fbd17d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/34300-0.zip diff --git a/34300-8.txt b/34300-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..727a867 --- /dev/null +++ b/34300-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2872 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leonardo da Vinci, by Sigmund Freud + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leonardo da Vinci + A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence + +Author: Sigmund Freud + +Translator: A. A. Brill + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEONARDO DA VINCI *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI] + + + + +Leonardo da Vinci + +A PSYCHOSEXUAL STUDY OF AN +INFANTILE REMINISCENCE + +BY +PROFESSOR DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. +(UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA) + +TRANSLATED BY + +A. A. BRILL, PH.B., M.D. + +Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal +Psychology, New York University + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY +1916 + +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY + +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Leonardo Da Vinci _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + +Mona Lisa 78 + +Saint Anne 86 + +John the Baptist 94 + + + + +LEONARDO DA VINCI + + + + +I + + +When psychoanalytic investigation, which usually contents itself with +frail human material, approaches the great personages of humanity, it is +not impelled to it by motives which are often attributed to it by +laymen. It does not strive "to blacken the radiant and to drag the +sublime into the mire"; it finds no satisfaction in diminishing the +distance between the perfection of the great and the inadequacy of the +ordinary objects. But it cannot help finding that everything is worthy +of understanding that can be perceived through those prototypes, and it +also believes that none is so big as to be ashamed of being subject to +the laws which control the normal and morbid actions with the same +strictness. + +Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was admired even by his contemporaries as +one of the greatest men of the Italian Renaissance, still even then he +appeared as mysterious to them as he now appears to us. An all-sided +genius, "whose form can only be divined but never deeply fathomed,"[1] +he exerted the most decisive influence on his time as an artist; and it +remained to us to recognize his greatness as a naturalist which was +united in him with the artist. Although he left masterpieces of the art +of painting, while his scientific discoveries remained unpublished and +unused, the investigator in him has never quite left the artist, often +it has severely injured the artist and in the end it has perhaps +suppressed the artist altogether. According to Vasari, Leonardo +reproached himself during the last hour of his life for having insulted +God and men because he has not done his duty to his art.[2] And even if +Vasari's story lacks all probability and belongs to those legends which +began to be woven about the mystic master while he was still living, it +nevertheless retains indisputable value as a testimonial of the judgment +of those people and of those times. + +What was it that removed the personality of Leonardo from the +understanding of his contemporaries? Certainly not the many sidedness of +his capacities and knowledge, which allowed him to install himself as a +player of the lyre on an instrument invented by himself, in the court of +Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il Moro, the Duke of Milan, or which allowed +him to write to the same person that remarkable letter in which he +boasts of his abilities as a civil and military engineer. For the +combination of manifold talents in the same person was not unusual in +the times of the Renaissance; to be sure Leonardo himself furnished one +of the most splendid examples of such persons. Nor did he belong to that +type of genial persons who are outwardly poorly endowed by nature, and +who on their side place no value on the outer forms of life, and in the +painful gloominess of their feelings fly from human relations. On the +contrary he was tall and symmetrically built, of consummate beauty of +countenance and of unusual physical strength, he was charming in his +manner, a master of speech, and jovial and affectionate to everybody. He +loved beauty in the objects of his surroundings, he was fond of wearing +magnificent garments and appreciated every refinement of conduct. In his +treatise[3] on the art of painting he compares in a significant passage +the art of painting with its sister arts and thus discusses the +difficulties of the sculptor: "Now his face is entirely smeared and +powdered with marble dust, so that he looks like a baker, he is covered +with small marble splinters, so that it seems as if it snowed on his +back, and his house is full of stone splinters, and dust. The case of +the painter is quite different from that; for the painter is well +dressed and sits with great comfort before his work, he gently and very +lightly brushes in the beautiful colors. He wears as decorative clothes +as he likes, and his house is filled with beautiful paintings and is +spotlessly clean. He often enjoys company, music, or some one may read +for him various nice works, and all this can be listened to with great +pleasure, undisturbed by any pounding from the hammer and other noises." + +It is quite possible that the conception of a beaming jovial and happy +Leonardo was true only for the first and longer period of the master's +life. From now on, when the downfall of the rule of Lodovico Moro forced +him to leave Milan, his sphere of action and his assured position, to +lead an unsteady and unsuccessful life until his last asylum in France, +it is possible that the luster of his disposition became pale and some +odd features of his character became more prominent. The turning of his +interest from his art to science which increased with age must have also +been responsible for widening the gap between himself and his +contemporaries. All his efforts with which, according to their opinion, +he wasted his time instead of diligently filling orders and becoming +rich as perhaps his former classmate Perugino, seemed to his +contemporaries as capricious playing, or even caused them to suspect him +of being in the service of the "black art." We who know him from his +sketches understand him better. In a time in which the authority of the +church began to be substituted by that of antiquity and in which only +theoretical investigation existed, he the forerunner, or better the +worthy competitor of Bacon and Copernicus, was necessarily isolated. +When he dissected cadavers of horses and human beings, and built flying +apparatus, or when he studied the nourishment of plants and their +behavior towards poisons, he naturally deviated much from the +commentators of Aristotle and came nearer the despised alchemists, in +whose laboratories the experimental investigations found some refuge +during these unfavorable times. + +The effect that this had on his paintings was that he disliked to handle +the brush, he painted less and what was more often the case, the things +he began were mostly left unfinished; he cared less and less for the +future fate of his works. It was this mode of working that was held up +to him as a reproach from his contemporaries to whom his behavior to his +art remained a riddle. + +Many of Leonardo's later admirers have attempted to wipe off the stain +of unsteadiness from his character. They maintained that what is blamed +in Leonardo is a general characteristic of great artists. They said that +even the energetic Michelangelo who was absorbed in his work left many +incompleted works, which was as little due to his fault as to Leonardo's +in the same case. Besides some pictures were not as unfinished as he +claimed, and what the layman would call a masterpiece may still appear +to the creator of the work of art as an unsatisfied embodiment of his +intentions; he has a faint notion of a perfection which he despairs of +reproducing in likeness. Least of all should the artist be held +responsible for the fate which befalls his works. + +As plausible as some of these excuses may sound they nevertheless do not +explain the whole state of affairs which we find in Leonardo. The +painful struggle with the work, the final flight from it and the +indifference to its future fate may be seen in many other artists, but +this behavior is shown in Leonardo to highest degree. Edm. Solmi[4] +cites (p. 12) the expression of one of his pupils: "Pareva, che ad ogni +ora tremasse, quando si poneva a dipingere, e per no diede mai fine ad +alcuna cosa cominciata, considerando la grandezza dell'arte, tal che +egli scorgeva errori in quelle cose, che ad altri parevano miracoli." +His last pictures, Leda, the Madonna di Saint Onofrio, Bacchus and St. +John the Baptist, remained unfinished "come quasi intervenne di tutte le +cose sue." Lomazzo,[5] who finished a copy of The Holy Supper, refers in +a sonnet to the familiar inability of Leonardo to finish his works: + + "Protogen che il penel di sue pitture + Non levava, agguaglio il Vinci Divo, + Di cui opra non finita pure." + +The slowness with which Leonardo worked was proverbial. After the most +thorough preliminary studies he painted The Holy Supper for three years +in the cloister of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. One of his +contemporaries, Matteo Bandelli, the writer of novels, who was then a +young monk in the cloister, relates that Leonardo often ascended the +scaffold very early in the morning and did not leave the brush out of +his hand until twilight, never thinking of eating or drinking. Then days +passed without putting his hand on it, sometimes he remained for hours +before the painting and derived satisfaction from studying it by +himself. At other times he came directly to the cloister from the palace +of the Milanese Castle where he formed the model of the equestrian +statue for Francesco Sforza, in order to add a few strokes with the +brush to one of the figures and then stopped immediately.[6] According +to Vasari he worked for years on the portrait of Monna Lisa, the wife of +the Florentine de Gioconda, without being able to bring it to +completion. This circumstance may also account for the fact that it was +never delivered to the one who ordered it but remained with Leonardo who +took it with him to France.[7] Having been procured by King Francis I, +it now forms one of the greatest treasures of the Louvre. + +When one compares these reports about Leonardo's way of working with the +evidence of the extraordinary amount of sketches and studies left by +him, one is bound altogether to reject the idea that traits of +flightiness and unsteadiness exerted the slightest influence on +Leonardo's relation to his art. On the contrary one notices a very +extraordinary absorption in work, a richness in possibilities in which a +decision could be reached only hestitatingly, claims which could hardly +be satisfied, and an inhibition in the execution which could not even be +explained by the inevitable backwardness of the artist behind his ideal +purpose. The slowness which was striking in Leonardo's works from the +very beginning proved to be a symptom of his inhibition, a forerunner of +his turning away from painting which manifested itself later.[8] It was +this slowness which decided the not undeserving fate of The Holy +Supper. Leonardo could not take kindly to the art of fresco painting +which demands quick work while the background is still moist, it was for +this reason that he chose oil colors, the drying of which permitted him +to complete the picture according to his mood and leisure. But these +colors separated themselves from the background upon which they were +painted and which isolated them from the brick wall; the blemishes of +this wall and the vicissitudes to which the room was subjected seemingly +contributed to the inevitable deterioration of the picture.[9] + +The picture of the cavalry battle of Anghiari, which in competition with +Michelangelo he began to paint later on a wall of the Sala de Consiglio +in Florence and which he also left in an unfinished state, seemed to +have perished through the failure of a similar technical process. It +seems here as if a peculiar interest, that of the experimenter, at first +renforced the artistic, only later to damage the art production. + +The character of the man Leonardo evinces still some other unusual +traits and apparent contradictions. Thus a certain inactivity and +indifference seemed very evident in him. At a time when every individual +sought to gain the widest latitude for his activity, which could not +take place without the development of energetic aggression towards +others, he surprised every one through his quiet peacefulness, his +shunning of all competition and controversies. He was mild and kind to +all, he was said to have rejected a meat diet because he did not +consider it just to rob animals of their lives, and one of his special +pleasures was to buy caged birds in the market and set them free.[10] He +condemned war and bloodshed and designated man not so much as the king +of the animal world, but rather as the worst of the wild beasts.[11] But +this effeminate delicacy of feeling did not prevent him from +accompanying condemned criminals on their way to execution in order to +study and sketch in his notebook their features, distorted by fear, nor +did it prevent him from inventing the most cruel offensive weapons, and +from entering the service of Cesare Borgia as chief military engineer. +Often he seemed to be indifferent to good and evil, or he had to be +measured with a special standard. He held a high position in Cesare's +campaign which gained for this most inconsiderate and most faithless of +foes the possession of the Romagna. Not a single line of Leonardo's +sketches betrays any criticism or sympathy of the events of those days. +The comparison with Goethe during the French campaign cannot here be +altogether rejected. + +If a biographical effort really endeavors to penetrate the understanding +of the psychic life of its hero it must not, as happens in most +biographies through discretion or prudery, pass over in silence the +sexual activity or the sex peculiarity of the one examined. What we know +about it in Leonardo is very little but full of significance. In a +period where there was a constant struggle between riotous +licentiousness and gloomy asceticism, Leonardo presented an example of +cool sexual rejection which one would not expect in an artist and a +portrayer of feminine beauty. Solmi[12] cites the following sentence +from Leonardo showing his frigidity: "The act of procreation and +everything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human +beings would soon die out if it were not a traditional custom and if +there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions." His posthumous +works which not only treat of the greatest scientific problems but also +comprise the most guileless objects which to us do not seem worthy of so +great a mind (an allegorical natural history, animal fables, witticisms, +prophecies),[13] are chaste to a degree--one might say abstinent--that +in a work of _belle lettres_ would excite wonder even to-day. They evade +everything sexual so thoroughly, as if Eros alone who preserves +everything living was no worthy material for the scientific impulse of +the investigator.[14] It is known how frequently great artists found +pleasure in giving vent to their phantasies in erotic and even grossly +obscene representations; in contradistinction to this Leonardo left only +some anatomical drawings of the woman's internal genitals, the position +of the child in the womb, etc. + +It is doubtful whether Leonardo ever embraced a woman in love, nor is it +known that he ever entertained an intimate spiritual relation with a +woman as in the case of Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna. While he +still lived as an apprentice in the house of his master Verrocchio, he +with other young men were accused of forbidden homosexual relations +which ended in his acquittal. It seems that he came into this suspicion +because he employed as a model a boy of evil repute.[15] When he was a +master he surrounded himself with handsome boys and youths whom he took +as pupils. The last of these pupils Francesco Melzi, accompanied him to +France, remained with him until his death, and was named by him as his +heir. Without sharing the certainty of his modern biographers, who +naturally reject the possibility of a sexual relation between himself +and his pupils as a baseless insult to this great man, it may be thought +by far more probable that the affectionate relationships of Leonardo to +the young men did not result in sexual activity. Nor should one +attribute to him a high measure of sexual activity. + +The peculiarity of this emotional and sexual life viewed in connection +with Leonardo's double nature as an artist and investigator can be +grasped only in one way. Of the biographers to whom psychological +viewpoints are often very foreign, only one, Edm. Solmi, has to my +knowledge approached the solution of the riddle. But a writer, Dimitri +Sergewitsch Merejkowski, who selected Leonardo as the hero of a great +historical novel has based his delineation on such an understanding of +this unusual man, and if not in dry words he gave unmistakable +utterance in plastic expression in the manner of a poet.[16] Solmi +judges Leonardo as follows: "But the unrequited desire to understand +everything surrounding him, and with cold reflection to discover the +deepest secret of everything that is perfect, has condemned Leonardo's +works to remain forever unfinished."[17] In an essay of the Conferenze +Fiorentine the utterances of Leonardo are cited, which show his +confession of faith and furnish the key to his character. + + "_Nessuna cosa si pu amare n odiare, se_ + _prima no si ha cognition di quella._"[18] + +That is: One has no right to love or to hate anything if one has not +acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature. And the same is repeated by +Leonardo in a passage of the Treaties on the Art of Painting where he +seems to defend himself against the accusation of irreligiousness: + +"But such censurers might better remain silent. For that action is the +manner of showing the workmaster so many wonderful things, and this is +the way to love so great a discoverer. For, verily great love springs +from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it +you will be able to love it only little or not at all."[19] + +The value of these utterances of Leonardo cannot be found in that they +impart to us an important psychological fact, for what they maintain is +obviously false, and Leonardo must have known this as well as we do. It +is not true that people refrain from loving or hating until they have +studied and became familiar with the nature of the object to whom they +wish to give these affects, on the contrary they love impulsively and +are guided by emotional motives which have nothing to do with cognition +and whose affects are weakened, if anything, by thought and reflection. +Leonardo only could have implied that the love practiced by people is +not of the proper and unobjectionable kind, one should so love as to +hold back the affect and to subject it to mental elaboration, and only +after it has stood the test of the intellect should free play be given +to it. And we thereby understand that he wishes to tell us that this was +the case with himself and that it would be worth the effort of everybody +else to treat love and hatred as he himself does. + +And it seems that in his case it was really so. His affects were +controlled and subjected to the investigation impulse, he neither loved +nor hated, but questioned himself whence does that arise, which he was +to love or hate, and what does it signify, and thus he was at first +forced to appear indifferent to good and evil, to beauty and ugliness. +During this work of investigation love and hatred threw off their +designs and uniformly changed into intellectual interest. As a matter of +fact Leonardo was not dispassionate, he did not lack the divine spark +which is the mediate or immediate motive power--_il primo motore_--of +all human activity. He only transmuted his passion into +inquisitiveness. He then applied himself to study with that +persistence, steadiness, and profundity which comes from passion, and on +the height of the psychic work, after the cognition was won, he allowed +the long checked affect to break loose and to flow off freely like a +branch of a stream, after it has accomplished its work. At the height of +his cognition when he could examine a big part of the whole he was +seized with a feeling of pathos, and in ecstatic words he praised the +grandeur of that part of creation which he studied, or--in religious +cloak--the greatness of the creator. Solmi has correctly divined this +process of transformation in Leonardo. According to the quotation of +such a passage, in which Leonardo celebrated the higher impulse of +nature ("O mirabile necessita ... ") he said: "Tale trasfigurazione +della scienza della natura in emozione, quasi direi, religiosa, uno +dei tratti caratteristici de manoscritti vinciani, e si trova cento e +cento volte espressa...."[20] + +Leonardo was called the Italian Faust on account of his insatiable and +indefatigable desire for investigation. But even if we disregard the +fact that it is the possible retransformation of the desire for +investigation into the joys of life which is presupposed in the Faust +tragedy, one might venture to remark that Leonardo's system recalls +Spinoza's mode of thinking. + +The transformation of psychic motive power into the different forms of +activity is perhaps as little convertible without loss, as in the case +of physical powers. Leonardo's example teaches how many other things one +must follow up in these processes. Not to love before one gains full +knowledge of the thing loved presupposes a delay which is harmful. When +one finally reaches cognition he neither loves nor hates properly; one +remains beyond love and hatred. One has investigated instead of having +loved. It is perhaps for this reason that Leonardo's life was so much +poorer in love than those of other great men and great artists. The +storming passions of the soul-stirring and consuming kind, in which +others experience the best part of their lives, seem to have missed +him. + +There are still other consequences when one follows Leonardo's dictum. +Instead of acting and producing one just investigates. He who begins to +divine the grandeur of the universe and its needs readily forgets his +own insignificant self. When one is struck with admiration and becomes +truly humble he easily forgets that he himself is a part of that living +force, and that according to the measure of his own personality he has +the right to make an effort to change that destined course of the world, +the world in which the insignificant is no less wonderful and important +than the great. + +Solmi thinks that Leonardo's investigations started with his art,[21] he +tried to investigate the attributes and laws of light, of color, of +shades and of perspective so as to be sure of becoming a master in the +imitation of nature and to be able to show the way to others. It is +probable that already at that time he overestimated the value of this +knowledge for the artist. Following the guide-rope of the painter's +need, he was then driven further and further to investigate the objects +of the art of painting, such as animals and plants, and the proportions +of the human body, and to follow the path from their exterior to their +interior structure and biological functions, which really also express +themselves in their appearance and should be depicted in art. And +finally he was pulled along by this overwhelming desire until the +connection was torn from the demands of his art, so that he discovered +the general laws of mechanics and divined the history of the +stratification and fossilization of the Arno-valley, until he could +enter in his book with capital letters the cognition: _Il sole non si +move_ (The sun does not move). His investigations were thus extended +over almost all realms of natural science, in every one of which he was +a discoverer or at least a prophet or forerunner.[22] However, his +curiosity continued to be directed to the outer world, something kept +him away from the investigation of the psychic life of men; there was +little room for psychology in the "Academia Vinciana," for which he drew +very artistic and very complicated emblems. + +When he later made the effort to return from his investigations to the +art from which he started he felt that he was disturbed by the new paths +of his interest and by the changed nature of his psychic work. In the +picture he was interested above all in a problem, and behind this one he +saw emerging numerous other problems just as he was accustomed in the +endless and indeterminable investigations of natural history. He was no +longer able to limit his demands, to isolate the work of art, and to +tear it out from that great connection of which he knew it formed part. +After the most exhausting efforts to bring to expression all that was in +him, all that was connected with it in his thoughts, he was forced to +leave it unfinished, or to declare it incomplete. + +The artist had once taken into his service the investigator to assist +him, now the servant was stronger and suppressed his master. + +When we find in the portrait of a person one single impulse very +forcibly developed, as curiosity in the case of Leonardo, we look for +the explanation in a special constitution, concerning its probable +organic determination hardly anything is known. Our psychoanalytic +studies of nervous people lead us to look for two other expectations +which we would like to find verified in every case. We consider it +probable that this very forcible impulse was already active in the +earliest childhood of the person, and that its supreme sway was fixed by +infantile impressions; and we further assume that originally it drew +upon sexual motive powers for its renforcement so that it later can +take the place of a part of the sexual life. Such person would then, +e.g., investigate with that passionate devotion which another would give +to his love, and he could investigate instead of loving. We would +venture the conclusion of a sexual renforcement not only in the impulse +to investigate, but also in most other cases of special intensity of an +impulse. + +Observation of daily life shows us that most persons have the capacity +to direct a very tangible part of their sexual motive powers to their +professional or business activities. The sexual impulse is particularly +suited to yield such contributions because it is endowed with the +capacity of sublimation, i.e., it has the power to exchange its nearest +aim for others of higher value which are not sexual. We consider this +process as proved, if the history of childhood or the psychic +developmental history of a person shows that in childhood this powerful +impulse was in the service of the sexual interest. We consider it a +further corroboration if this is substantiated by a striking stunting in +the sexual life of mature years, as if a part of the sexual activity had +now been replaced by the activity of the predominant impulse. + +The application of these assumptions to the case of the predominant +investigation-impulse seems to be subject to special difficulties, as +one is unwilling to admit that this serious impulse exists in children +or that children show any noteworthy sexual interest. However, these +difficulties are easily obviated. The untiring pleasure in questioning +as seen in little children demonstrates their curiosity, which is +puzzling to the grown-up, as long as he does not understand that all +these questions are only circumlocutions, and that they cannot come to +an end because they replace only one question which the child does not +put. When the child becomes older and gains more understanding this +manifestation of curiosity suddenly disappears. But psychoanalytic +investigation gives us a full explanation in that it teaches us that +many, perhaps most children, at least the most gifted ones, go through a +period beginning with the third year, which may be designated as the +period of _infantile sexual investigation_. As far as we know, the +curiosity is not awakened spontaneously in children of this age, but is +aroused through the impression of an important experience, through the +birth of a little brother or sister, or through fear of the same +endangered by some outward experience, wherein the child sees a danger +to his egotistic interests. The investigation directs itself to the +question whence children come, as if the child were looking for means +to guard against such undesired event. We were astonished to find that +the child refuses to give credence to the information imparted to it, +e.g., it energetically rejects the mythological and so ingenious +stork-fable, we were astonished to find that its psychic independence +dates from this act of disbelief, that it often feels itself at serious +variance with the grown-ups, and never forgives them for having been +deceived of the truth on this occasion. It investigates in its own way, +it divines that the child is in the mother's womb, and guided by the +feelings of its own sexuality, it formulates for itself theories about +the origin of children from food, about being born through the bowels, +about the rle of the father which is difficult to fathom, and even at +that time it has a vague conception of the sexual act which appears to +the child as something hostile, as something violent. But as its own +sexual constitution is not yet equal to the task of producing children, +his investigation whence come children must also run aground and must be +left in the lurch as unfinished. The impression of this failure at the +first attempt of intellectual independence seems to be of a persevering +and profoundly depressing nature.[23] + +If the period of infantile sexual investigation comes to an end through +an impetus of energetic sexual repression, the early association with +sexual interest may result in three different possibilities for the +future fate of the investigation impulse. The investigation either +shares the fate of the sexuality, the curiosity henceforth remains +inhibited and the free activity of intelligence may become narrowed for +life; this is especially made possible by the powerful religious +inhibition of thought, which is brought about shortly hereafter through +education. This is the type of neurotic inhibition. We know well that +the so acquired mental weakness furnishes effective support for the +outbreak of a neurotic disease. In a second type the intellectual +development is sufficiently strong to withstand the sexual repression +pulling at it. Sometimes after the disappearance of the infantile sexual +investigation, it offers its support to the old association in order to +elude the sexual repression, and the suppressed sexual investigation +comes back from the unconscious as compulsive reasoning, it is naturally +distorted and not free, but forceful enough to sexualize even thought +itself and to accentuate the intellectual operations with the pleasure +and fear of the actual sexual processes. Here the investigation becomes +sexual activity and often exclusively so, the feeling of settling the +problem and of explaining things in the mind is put in place of sexual +gratification. But the indeterminate character of the infantile +investigation repeats itself also in the fact that this reasoning never +ends, and that the desired intellectual feeling of the solution +constantly recedes into the distance. By virtue of a special disposition +the third, which is the most rare and most perfect type, escapes the +inhibition of thought and the compulsive reasoning. Also here sexual +repression takes place, it is unable, however, to direct a partial +impulse of the sexual pleasure into the unconscious, but the libido +withdraws from the fate of the repression by being sublimated from the +beginning into curiosity, and by renforcing the powerful investigation +impulse. Here, too, the investigation becomes more or less compulsive +and a substitute of the sexual activity, but owing to the absolute +difference of the psychic process behind it (sublimation in place of the +emergence from the unconscious) the character of the neurosis does not +manifest itself, the subjection to the original complexes of the +infantile sexual investigation disappears, and the impulse can freely +put itself in the service of the intellectual interest. It takes account +of the sexual repression which made it so strong in contributing to it +sublimated libido, by avoiding all occupation with sexual themes. + +In mentioning the concurrence in Leonardo of the powerful investigation +impulse with the stunting of his sexual life which was limited to the +so-called ideal homosexuality, we feel inclined to consider him as a +model example of our third type. The most essential point of his +character and the secret of it seems to lie in the fact, that after +utilizing the infantile activity of curiosity in the service of sexual +interest he was able to sublimate the greater part of his libido into +the impulse of investigation. But to be sure the proof of this +conception is not easy to produce. To do this we would have to have an +insight into the psychic development of his first childhood years, and +it seems foolish to hope for such material when the reports concerning +his life are so meager and so uncertain; and moreover, when we deal with +information which even persons of our own generation withdraw from the +attention of the observer. + +We know very little concerning Leonardo's youth. He was born in 1452 in +the little city of Vinci between Florence and Empoli; he was an +illegitimate child which was surely not considered a great popular stain +in that time. His father was Ser Piero da Vinci, a notary and descendant +of notaries and farmers, who took their name from the place Vinci; his +mother, a certain Caterina, probably a peasant girl, who later married +another native of Vinci. Nothing else about his mother appears in the +life history of Leonardo, only the writer Merejkowski believed to have +found some traces of her. The only definite information about Leonardo's +childhood is furnished by a legal document from the year 1457, a +register of assessment in which Vinci Leonardo is mentioned among the +members of the family as a five-year-old illegitimate child of Ser +Piero.[24] As the marriage of Ser Piero with Donna Albiera remained +childless the little Leonardo could be brought up in his father's house. +He did not leave this house until he entered as apprentice--it is not +known what year--in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1472 +Leonardo's name could already be found in the register of the members of +the "Compagnia dei Pittori." That is all. + + + + +II + + +As far as I know Leonardo only once interspersed in his scientific +descriptions a communication from his childhood. In a passage where he +speaks about the flight of the vulture, he suddenly interrupts himself +in order to follow up a memory from very early years which came to his +mind. + +"_It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself +so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early +memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he +opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail +against my lips._"[25] + +We have here an infantile memory and to be sure of the strangest sort. +It is strange on account of its content and account of the time of life +in which it was fixed. That a person could retain a memory of the +nursing period is perhaps not impossible, but it can in no way be taken +as certain. But what this memory of Leonardo states, namely, that a +vulture opened the child's mouth with its tail, sounds so improbable, so +fabulous, that another conception which puts an end to the two +difficulties with one stroke appeals much more to our judgment. The +scene of the vulture is not a memory of Leonardo, but a phantasy which +he formed later, and transferred into his childhood. The childhood +memories of persons often have no different origin, as a matter of fact, +they are not fixated from an experience like the conscious memories from +the time of maturity and then repeated, but they are not produced until +a later period when childhood is already past, they are then changed and +disguised and put in the service of later tendencies, so that in general +they cannot be strictly differentiated from phantasies. Their nature +will perhaps be best understood by recalling the manner in which history +writing originated among ancient nations. As long as the nation was +small and weak it gave no thought to the writing of its history, it +tilled the soil of its land, defended its existence against its +neighbors by seeking to wrest land from them and endeavored to become +rich. It was a heroic but unhistoric time. Then came another age, a +period of self-realization in which one felt rich and powerful, and it +was then that one experienced the need to discover whence one originated +and how one developed. The history-writing which then continues to +register the present events throws also its backward glance to the past, +it gathers traditions and legends, it interprets what survived from +olden times into customs and uses, and thus creates a history of past +ages. It is quite natural that this history of the past ages is more the +expressions of opinions and desires of the present than a faithful +picture of the past, for many a thing escaped the people's memory, other +things became distorted, some trace of the past was misunderstood and +interpreted in the sense of the present; and besides one does not write +history through motives of objective curiosity, but because one desires +to impress his contemporaries, to stimulate and extol them, or to hold +the mirror before them. The conscious memory of a person concerning the +experiences of his maturity may now be fully compared to that of history +writing, and his infantile memories, as far as their origin and +reliability are concerned will actually correspond to the history of the +primitive period of a people which was compiled later with purposive +intent. + +Now one may think that if Leonardo's story of the vulture which visited +him in his cradle is only a phantasy of later birth, it is hardly worth +while giving more time to it. One could easily explain it by his openly +avowed inclination to occupy himself with the problem of the flight of +the bird which would lend to this phantasy an air of predetermined fate. +But with this depreciation one commits as great an injustice as if one +would simply ignore the material of legends, traditions, and +interpretations in the primitive history of a people. Notwithstanding +all distortions and misunderstandings to the contrary they still +represent the reality of the past; they represent what the people formed +out of the experiences of its past age under the domination of once +powerful and to-day still effective motives, and if these distortions +could be unraveled through the knowledge of all effective forces, one +would surely discover the historic truth under this legendary material. +The same holds true for the infantile reminiscences or for the +phantasies of individuals. What a person thinks he recalls from his +childhood, is not of an indifferent nature. As a rule the memory +remnants, which he himself does not understand, conceal invaluable +evidences of the most important features of his psychic development. As +the psychoanalytic technique affords us excellent means for bringing to +light this concealed material, we shall venture the attempt to fill the +gaps in the history of Leonardo's life through the analysis of his +infantile phantasy. And if we should not attain a satisfactory degree of +certainty, we will have to console ourselves with the fact that so many +other investigations about this great and mysterious man have met no +better fate. + +When we examine Leonardo's vulture-phantasy with the eyes of a +psychoanalyst then it does not seem strange very long; we recall that we +have often found similar structures in dreams, so that we may venture +to translate this phantasy from its strange language into words that are +universally understood. The translation then follows an erotic +direction. Tail, "coda," is one of the most familiar symbols, as well as +a substitutive designation of the male member which is no less true in +Italian than in other languages. The situation contained in the +phantasy, that a vulture opened the mouth of the child and forcefully +belabored it with its tail, corresponds to the idea of fellatio, a +sexual act in which the member is placed into the mouth of the other +person. Strangely enough this phantasy is altogether of a passive +character; it resembles certain dreams and phantasies of women and of +passive homosexuals who play the feminine part in sexual relations. + +Let the reader be patient for a while and not flare up with indignation +and refuse to follow psychoanalysis because in its very first +applications it leads to an unpardonable slander of the memory of a +great and pure man. For it is quite certain that this indignation will +never solve for us the meaning of Leonardo's childhood phantasy; on the +other hand, Leonardo has unequivocally acknowledged this phantasy, and +we shall therefore not relinquish the expectation--or if you prefer the +preconception--that like every psychic production such as dreams, +visions and deliria this phantasy, too, must have some meaning. Let us +therefore lend our unprejudiced ears for a while to psychoanalytic work +which after all has not yet uttered the last word. + +The desire to take the male member into the mouth and suck it, which is +considered as one of the most disgusting of sexual perversions, is +nevertheless a frequent occurrence among the women of our time--and as +shown in old sculptures was the same in earlier times--and in the state +of being in love seems to lose entirely its disgusting character. The +physician encounters phantasies based on this desire, even in women who +did not come to the knowledge of the possibility of such sexual +gratification by reading V. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis or +through other information. It seems that it is quite easy for the women +themselves to produce such wish-phantasies.[26] Investigation then +teaches us that this situation, so forcibly condemned by custom, may be +traced to the most harmless origin. It is nothing but the elaboration of +another situation in which we all once felt comfort, namely, when we +were in the suckling-age ("when I was still in the cradle") and took the +nipple of our mother's or wet-nurse's breast into our mouth to suck it. +The organic impression of this first pleasure in our lives surely +remains indelibly impregnated; when the child later learns to know the +udder of the cow, which in function is a breast-nipple, but in shape and +in position on the abdomen resembles the penis, it obtains the primary +basis for the later formation of that disgusting sexual phantasy. + +We now understand why Leonardo displaced the memory of the supposed +experience with the vulture to his nursing period. This phantasy +conceals nothing more or less than a reminiscence of nursing--or being +nursed--at the mother's breast, a scene both human and beautiful, which +he as well as other artists undertook to depict with the brush in the +form of the mother of God and her child. At all events, we also wish to +maintain, something we do not as yet understand, that this reminiscence, +equally significant for both sexes, was elaborated in the man Leonardo +into a passive homosexual phantasy. For the present we shall not take up +the question as to what connection there is between homosexuality and +suckling at the mother's breast, we merely wish to recall that tradition +actually designates Leonardo as a person of homosexual feelings. In +considering this, it makes no difference whether that accusation against +the youth Leonardo was justified or not. It is not the real activity but +the nature of the feeling which causes us to decide whether to attribute +to some one the characteristic of homosexuality. + +Another incomprehensible feature of Leonardo's infantile phantasy next +claims our interest. We interpret the phantasy of being wet-nursed by +the mother and find that the mother is replaced by a vulture. Where does +this vulture originate and how does he come into this place? + +A thought now obtrudes itself which seems so remote that one is tempted +to ignore it. In the sacred hieroglyphics of the old Egyptians the +mother is represented by the picture of the vulture.[27] These Egyptians +also worshiped a motherly deity, whose head was vulture like, or who had +many heads of which at least one or two was that of a vulture.[28] The +name of this goddess was pronounced _Mut_; we may question whether the +sound similarity to our word mother (Mutter) is only accidental? So the +vulture really has some connection with the mother, but of what help is +that to us? Have we a right to attribute this knowledge to Leonardo when +Franois Champollion first succeeded in reading hieroglyphics between +1790-1832?[29] + +It would also be interesting to discover in what way the old Egyptians +came to choose the vulture as a symbol of motherhood. As a matter of +fact the religion and culture of Egyptians were subjects of scientific +interest even to the Greeks and Romans, and long before we ourselves +were able to read the Egyptian monuments we had at our disposal some +communications about them from preserved works of classical antiquity. +Some of these writings belonged to familiar authors like Strabo, +Plutarch, Aminianus Marcellus, and some bear unfamiliar names and are +uncertain as to origin and time, like the hieroglyphica of Horapollo +Nilus, and like the traditional book of oriental priestly wisdom bearing +the godly name Hermes Trismegistos. From these sources we learn that the +vulture was a symbol of motherhood because it was thought that this +species of birds had only female vultures and no males.[30] The natural +history of the ancients shows a counterpart to this limitation among the +scarebus beetles which were revered by the Egyptians as godly, no +females were supposed to exist.[31] + +But how does impregnation take place in vultures if only females exist? +This is fully answered in a passage of Horapollo.[32] At a certain time +these birds stop in the midst of their flight, open their vagina and are +impregnated by the wind. + +Unexpectedly we have now reached a point where we can take something as +quite probable which only shortly before we had to reject as absurd. It +is quite possible that Leonardo was well acquainted with the scientific +fable, according to which the Egyptians represented the idea of mother +with the picture of the vulture. He was an omnivorous reader whose +interest comprised all spheres of literature and knowledge. In the Codex +Atlanticus we find an index of all books which he possessed at a certain +time,[33] as well as numerous notices about other books which he +borrowed from friends, and according to the excerpts which Fr. +Richter[34] compiled from his drawings we can hardly overestimate the +extent of his reading. Among these books there was no lack of older as +well as contemporary works treating of natural history. All these books +were already in print at that time, and it so happens that Milan was the +principal place of the young art of book printing in Italy. + +When we proceed further we come upon a communication which may raise to +a certainty the probability that Leonardo knew the vulture fable. The +erudite editor and commentator of Horapollo remarked in connection with +the text (p. 172) cited before: _Caeterum hanc fabulam de vulturibus +cupide amplexi sunt Patres Ecclesiastici, ut ita argumento ex rerum +natura petito refutarent eos, qui Virginis partum negabant; itaque apud +omnes fere hujus rei mentio occurit._ + +Hence the fable of the monosexuality and the conception of the vulture +by no means remained as an indifferent anecdote as in the case of the +analogous fable of the scarebus beetles; that church fathers mastered +it in order to have it ready as an argument from natural history against +those who doubted the sacred history. If according the best information +from antiquity the vultures were directed to let themselves be +impregnated by the wind, why should the same thing not have happened +even once in a human female? On account of this use the church fathers +were "almost all" in the habit of relating this vulture fable, and now +it can hardly remain doubtful that it also became known to Leonardo +through so powerful a source. + +The origin of Leonardo's vulture phantasy can be conceived in the +following manner: While reading in the writings of a church father or in +a book on natural science that the vultures are all females and that +they know to procreate without the coperation of a male, a memory +emerged in him which became transformed into that phantasy, but which +meant to say that he also had been such a vulture child, which had a +mother but no father. An echo of pleasure which he experienced at his +mother's breast was added to this in the manner as so old impressions +alone can manifest themselves. The allusion to the idea of the holy +virgin with the child, formed by the authors, which is so dear to every +artist, must have contributed to it to make this phantasy seem to him +valuable and important. For this helped him to identify himself with the +Christ child, the comforter and savior of not alone this one woman. + +When we break up an infantile phantasy we strive to separate the real +memory content from the later motives which modify and distort the same. +In the case of Leonardo we now think that we know the real content of +the phantasy. The replacement of the mother by the vulture indicates +that the child missed the father and felt himself alone with his mother. +The fact of Leonardo's illegitimate birth fits in with his vulture +phantasy; only on account of it was he able to compare himself with a +vulture child. But we have discovered as the next definite fact from his +youth that at the age of five years he had already been received in his +father's home; when this took place, whether a few months following his +birth, or a few weeks before the taking of the assessment of taxes, is +entirely unknown to us. The interpretation of the vulture phantasy then +steps in and wants to tell us that Leonardo did not spend the first +decisive years of his life with his father and his step-mother but with +his poor, forsaken, real mother, so that he had time to miss his father. +This still seems to be a rather meager and rather daring result of the +psychoanalytic effort, but on further reflection it will gain in +significance. Certainty will be promoted by mentioning the actual +relations in Leonardo's childhood. According to the reports, his father +Ser Piero da Vinci married the prominent Donna Albiera during the year +of Leonardo's birth; it was to the childlessness of this marriage that +the boy owed his legalized reception into his father's or rather +grandfather's house during his fifth year. However, it is not customary +to offer an illegitimate offspring to a young woman's care at the +beginning of marriage when she is still expecting to be blessed with +children. Years of disappointment must have elapsed before it was +decided to adopt the probably handsomely developed illegitimate child as +a compensation for legitimate children who were vainly hoped for. It +harmonizes best with the interpretation of the vulture-phantasy, if at +least three years or perhaps five years of Leonardo's life had elapsed +before he changed from his lonely mother to his father's home. But then +it had already become too late. In the first three or four years of life +impressions are fixed and modes of reactions are formed towards the +outer world which can never be robbed of their importance by any later +experiences. + +If it is true that the incomprehensible childhood reminiscences and the +person's phantasies based on them always bring out the most significant +of his psychic development, then the fact corroborated by the vulture +phantasy, that Leonardo passed the first years of his life alone with +his mother must have been a most decisive influence on the formation of +his inner life. Under the effect of this constellation it could not have +been otherwise than that the child which in his young life encountered +one problem more than other children, should have begun to ponder very +passionately over this riddle and thus should have become an +investigator early in life. For he was tortured by the great questions +where do children come from and what has the father to do with their +origin. The vague knowledge of this connection between his investigation +and his childhood history has later drawn from him the exclamation that +it was destined that he should deeply occupy himself with the problem of +the bird's flight, for already in his cradle he had been visited by a +vulture. To trace the curiosity which is directed to the flight of the +bird to the infantile sexual investigation will be a later task which +will not be difficult to accomplish. + + + + +III + + +The element of the vulture represents to us the real memory content in +Leonardo's childhood phantasy; the association into which Leonardo +himself placed his phantasy threw a bright light on the importance of +this content for his later life. In continuing the work of +interpretation we now encounter the strange problem why this memory +content was elaborated into a homosexual situation. The mother who +nursed the child, or rather from whom the child suckled was transformed +into a vulture which stuck its tail into the child's mouth. We maintain +that the "coda" (tail) of the vulture, following the common substituting +usages of language, cannot signify anything else but a male genital or +penis. But we do not understand how the phantastic activity came to +furnish precisely this maternal bird with the mark of masculinity, and +in view of this absurdity we become confused at the possibility of +reducing this phantastic structure to rational sense. + +However, we must not despair. How many seemingly absurd dreams have we +not forced to give up their sense! Why should it become more difficult +to accomplish this in a childhood phantasy than in a dream! + +Let us remember the fact that it is not good to find one isolated +peculiarity, and let us hasten to add another to it which is still more +striking. + +The vulture-headed goddess _Mut_ of the Egyptians, a figure of +altogether impersonal character, as expressed by Drexel in Roscher's +lexicon, was often fused with other maternal deities of living +individuality like Isis and Hathor, but she retained besides her +separate existence and reverence. It was especially characteristic of +the Egyptian pantheon that the individual gods did not perish in this +amalgamation. Besides the composition of deities the simple divine image +remained in her independence. In most representations the vulture-headed +maternal deity was formed by the Egyptians in a phallic manner,[35] her +body which was distinguished as feminine by its breasts also bore the +masculine member in a state of erection. + +The goddess Mut thus evinced the same union of maternal and paternal +characteristics as in Leonardo's vulture phantasy. Should we explain +this concurrence by the assumption that Leonardo knew from studying his +book the androgynous nature of the maternal vulture? Such possibility is +more than questionable; it seems that the sources accessible to him +contained nothing of remarkable determination. It is more likely that +here as there the agreement is to be traced to a common, effective and +unknown motive. + +Mythology can teach us that the androgynous formation, the union of +masculine and feminine sex characteristics, did not belong to the +goddess Mut alone but also to other deities such as Isis and Hathor, but +in the latter perhaps only insofar as they possessed also a motherly +nature and became fused with the goddess Mut.[36] It teaches us further +that other Egyptian deities such as Neith of Sais out of whom the Greek +Athene was later formed, were originally conceived as androgynous or +dihermaphroditic, and that the same held true for many of the Greek +gods, especially of the Dionysian circle, as well as for Aphrodite who +was later restricted to a feminine love deity. Mythology may also offer +the explanation that the phallus which was added to the feminine body +was meant to denote the creative primitive force of nature, and that all +these hermaphroditic deistic formations express the idea that only a +union of the masculine and feminine elements can result in a worthy +representation of divine perfection. But none of these observations +explain the psychological riddle, namely, that the phantasy of men takes +no offense at the fact that a figure which was to embody the essence of +the mother should be provided with the mark of the masculine power which +is the opposite of motherhood. + +The explanation comes from the infantile sexual theories. There really +was a time in which the male genital was found to be compatible with +the representation of the mother. When the male child first directs his +curiosity to the riddle of the sexual life, he is dominated by the +interest for his own genitals. He finds this part of the body too +valuable and too important to believe that it would be missing in other +persons to whom he feels such a resemblance. As he cannot divine that +there is still another equally valuable type of genital formation he +must grasp the assumption that all persons, also women, possess such a +member as he. This preconception is so firm in the youthful investigator +that it is not destroyed even by the first observation of the genitals +in little girls. His perception naturally tells him that there is +something different here than in him, but he is unable to admit to +himself as the content of this perception that he cannot find this +member in girls. That this member may be missing is to him a dismal and +unbearable thought, and he therefore seeks to reconcile it by deciding +that it also exists in girls but it is still very small and that it will +grow later.[37] If this expectation does not appear to be fulfilled on +later observation he has at his disposal another way of escape. The +member also existed in the little girl but it was cut off and on its +place there remained a wound. This progress of the theory already makes +use of his own painful experience; he was threatened in the meantime +that this important organ will be taken away from him if it will form +too much of an interest for his occupation. Under the influence of this +threat of castration he now interprets his conception of the female +genital, henceforth he will tremble for his masculinity, but at the same +time he will look with contempt upon those unhappy creatures upon whom, +in his opinion, this cruel punishment had already been visited. + +Before the child came under the domination of the castration complex, at +the time when he still held the woman at her full value, he began to +manifest an intensive desire to look as an erotic activity of his +impulse. He wished to see the genitals of other persons, originally +probably because he wished to compare them with his own. The erotic +attraction which emanated from the person of his mother soon reached +its height in the longing to see her genital which he believed to be a +penis. With the cognition acquired only later that the woman has no +penis, this longing often becomes transformed into its opposite and +gives place to disgust, which in the years of puberty may become the +cause of psychic impotence, of misogyny and of lasting homosexuality. +But the fixation on the once so vividly desired object, the penis of the +woman, leaves ineradicable traces in the psychic life of the child, +which has gone through that fragment of infantile sexual investigation +with particular thoroughness. The fetich-like reverence for the feminine +foot and shoe seems to take the foot only as a substitutive symbol for +the once revered and since then missed member of the woman. The +"braid-slashers" without knowing it play the part of persons who perform +the act of castration on the female genital. + +One will not gain any correct understanding of the activities of the +infantile sexuality and probably will consider these communications +unworthy of belief, as long as one does not relinquish the attitude of +our cultural depreciation of the genitals and of the sexual functions in +general. To understand the infantile psychic life one has to look to +analogies from primitive times. For a long series of generations we have +been in the habit of considering the genitals or _pudenda_ as objects of +shame, and in the case of more successful sexual repression as objects +of disgust. The majority of those living to-day only reluctantly obey +the laws of propagation, feeling thereby that their human dignity is +being offended and degraded. What exists among us of the other +conception of the sexual life is found only in the uncultivated and in +the lower social strata; among the higher and more refined types it is +concealed as culturally inferior, and its activity is ventured only +under the embittered admonition of a guilty conscience. It was quite +different in the primitive times of the human race. From the laborious +collections of students of civilization one gains the conviction that +the genitals were originally the pride and hope of living beings, they +enjoyed divine worship, and the divine nature of their functions was +transported to all newly acquired activities of mankind. Through +sublimation of its essential elements there arose innumerable +god-figures, and at the time when the relation of official religions +with sexual activity was already hidden from the general consciousness, +secret cults labored to preserve it alive among a number of the +initiated. In the course of cultural development it finally happened +that so much godliness and holiness had been extracted from sexuality +that the exhausted remnant fell into contempt. But considering the +indestructibility which is in the nature of all psychic impressions one +need not wonder that even the most primitive forms of genital worship +could be demonstrated until quite recent times, and that language, +customs and superstitions of present day humanity contain the remnants +of all phases of this course of development.[38] + +Important biological analogies have taught us that the psychic +development of the individual is a short repetition of the course of +development of the race, and we shall therefore not find improbable what +the psychoanalytic investigation of the child's psyche asserts +concerning the infantile estimation of the genitals. The infantile +assumption of the maternal penis is thus the common source of origin for +the androgynous formation of the maternal deities like the Egyptian +goddess Mut and the vulture's "coda" (tail) in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. As a matter of fact, it is only through misunderstanding that +these deistic representations are designated hermaphroditic in the +medical sense of the word. In none of them is there a union of the true +genitals of both sexes as they are united in some deformed beings to the +disgust of every human eye; but besides the breast as a mark of +motherhood there is also the male member, just as it existed in the +first imagination of the child about his mother's body. Mythology has +retained for the faithful this revered and very early fancied bodily +formation of the mother. The prominence given to the vulture-tail in +Leonardo's phantasy we can now translate as follows: At that time when I +directed my tender curiosity to my mother I still adjudged to her a +genital like my own. A further testimonial of Leonardo's precocious +sexual investigation, which in our opinion became decisive for his +entire life. + +A brief reflection now admonishes us that we should not be satisfied +with the explanation of the vulture-tail in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. It seems as if it contained more than we as yet understand. +For its more striking feature really consisted in the fact that the +nursing at the mother's breast was transformed into being nursed, that +is into a passive act which thus gives the situation an undoubted +homosexual character. Mindful of the historical probability that +Leonardo behaved in life as a homosexual in feeling, the question +obtrudes itself whether this phantasy does not point to a causal +connection between Leonardo's childhood relations to his mother and the +later manifest, if only ideal, homosexuality. We would not venture to +draw such conclusion from Leonardo's disfigured reminiscence were it not +for the fact that we know from our psychoanalytic investigation of +homosexual patients that such a relation exists, indeed it really is an +intimate and necessary relation. + +Homosexual men who have started in our times an energetic action against +the legal limitations of their sexual activity are fond of representing +themselves through theoretical spokesmen as evincing a sexual variation, +which may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate +stage of sex or as "a third sex." In other words, they maintain that +they are men who are forced by organic determinants originating in the +germ to find that pleasure in the man which they cannot feel in the +woman. As much as one would wish to subscribe to their demands out of +humane considerations, one must nevertheless exercise reserve regarding +their theories which were formulated without regard for the psychic +genesis of homosexuality. Psychoanalysis offers the means to fill this +gap and to put to test the assertions of the homosexuals. It is true +that psychoanalysis fulfilled this task in only a small number of +people, but all investigation thus far undertaken brought the same +surprising results.[39] In all our male homosexuals there was a very +intensive erotic attachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the +mother, which was manifest in the very first period of childhood and +later entirely forgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced +or favored by too much love from the mother herself, but was also +furthered by the retirement or absence of the father during the +childhood period. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers of his +homosexual patients were often man-women, or women with energetic traits +of character who were able to crowd out the father from the place +allotted to him in the family. I have sometimes observed the same thing, +but I was more impressed by those cases in which the father was absent +from the beginning or disappeared early so that the boy was altogether +under feminine influence. It almost seems that the presence of a strong +father would assure for the son the proper decision in the selection of +his object from the opposite sex. + +Following this primary stage, a transformation takes place whose +mechanisms we know but whose motive forces we have not yet grasped. The +love of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it +merges into repression. The boy represses the love for the mother by +putting himself in her place, by identifying himself with her, and by +taking his own person as a model through the similarity of which he is +guided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual; +as a matter of fact he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the boys +whom the growing adult now loves are only substitutive persons or +revivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as +his mother loved him. We say that he finds his love object on the road +to narcism, for the Greek legend called a boy Narcissus to whom nothing +was more pleasing than his own mirrored image, and who became +transformed into a beautiful flower of this name. + +Deeper psychological discussions justify the assertion that the person +who becomes homosexual in this manner remains fixed in his unconscious +on the memory picture or his mother, By repressing the love for his +mother he conserves the same in his unconscious and henceforth remains +faithful to her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus +runs away from women who could cause him to become faithless to his +mother. Through direct observation of individual cases we could +demonstrate that he who is seemingly receptive only of masculine stimuli +is in reality influenced by the charms emanating from women just like a +normal person, but each and every time he hastens to transfer the +stimulus he received from the woman to a male object and in this manner +he repeats again and again the mechanism through which he acquired his +homosexuality. + +It is far from us to exaggerate the importance of these explanations +concerning the psychic genesis of homosexuality. It is quite clear that +they are in crass opposition to the official theories of the homosexual +spokesmen, but we are aware that these explanations are not sufficiently +comprehensive to render possible a final explanation of the problem. +What one calls homosexual for practical purposes may have its origin in +a variety of psychosexual inhibiting processes, and the process +recognized by us is perhaps only one among many, and has reference only +to one type of "homosexuality." We must also admit, that the number of +cases in our homosexual type which shows the conditions required by us, +exceeds by far those cases in which the resulting effect really appears, +so that even we cannot reject the supposed coperation of unknown +constitutional factors from which one was otherwise wont to deduce the +whole of homosexuality. As a matter of fact there would be no occasion +for entering into the psychic genesis of the form of homosexuality +studied by us if there were not a strong presumption that Leonardo, from +whose vulture-phantasy we started, really belonged to this one type of +homosexuality. + +As little as is known concerning the sexual behavior of the great artist +and investigator, we must still trust to the probability that the +testimonies of his contemporaries did not go far astray. In the light of +this tradition he appears to us as a man whose sexual need and activity +were extraordinarily low, as if a higher striving had raised him above +the common animal need of mankind. It may be open to doubt whether he +ever sought direct sexual gratification, and in what manner, or whether +he could dispense with it altogether. We are justified, however, to look +also in him for those emotional streams which imperatively force others +to the sexual act, for we cannot imagine a human psychic life in whose +development the sexual desire in the broadest sense, the libido, has not +had its share, whether the latter has withdrawn itself far from the +original aim or whether it was detained from being put into execution. + +Anything but traces of unchanged sexual desire we need not expect in +Leonardo. These point however to one direction and allow us to count him +among homosexuals. It has always been emphasized that he took as his +pupils only strikingly handsome boys and youths. He was kind and +considerate towards them, he cared for them and nursed them himself when +they were ill, just like a mother nurses her children, as his own mother +might have cared for him. As he selected them on account of their +beauty rather than their talent, none of them--Cesare da Sesto, G. +Boltraffio, Andrea Salaino, Francesco Melzi and the others--ever became +a prominent artist. Most of them could not make themselves independent +of their master and disappeared after his death without leaving a more +definite physiognomy to the history of art. The others who by their +productions earned the right to call themselves his pupils, as Luini and +Bazzi, nicknamed Sodoma, he probably did not know personally. + +We realize that we will have to face the objection that Leonardo's +behavior towards his pupils surely had nothing to do with sexual +motives, and permits no conclusion as to his sexual peculiarity. Against +this we wish to assert with all caution that our conception explains +some strange features in the master's behavior which otherwise would +have remained enigmatical. Leonardo kept a diary; he made entries in his +small hand, written from right to left which were meant only for +himself. It is to be noted that in this diary he addressed himself with +"thou": "Learn from master Lucca the multiplication of roots."[40] "Let +master d'Abacco show thee the square of the circle."[41] Or on the +occasion of a journey he entered in his diary: + +"I am going to Milan to look after the affairs of my garden ... order +two pack-sacks to be made. Ask Boltraffio to show thee his turning-lathe +and let him polish a stone on it.--Leave the book to master Andrea il +Todesco."[42] Or he wrote a resolution of quite different significance: +"Thou must show in thy treatise that the earth is a star, like the moon +or resembling it, and thus prove the nobility of our world."[43] + +In this diary, which like the diaries of other mortals often skim over +the most important events of the day with only few words or ignore them +altogether, one finds a few entries which on account of their +peculiarity are cited by all of Leonardo's biographers. They show +notations referring to the master's petty expenses, which are recorded +with painful exactitude as if coming from a pedantic and strictly +parsimonious family father, while there is nothing to show that he spent +greater sums, or that the artist was well versed in household +management. One of these notes refers to a new cloak which he bought for +his pupil Andrea Salaino:[44] + + Silver brocade Lira 15 Soldi 4 + Crimson velvet for trimming " 9 " 0 + Braid " 0 " 9 + Buttons " 0 " 12 + +Another very detailed notice gives all the expenses which he incurred +through the bad qualities and the thieving tendencies of another pupil +or model: "On 21st day of April, 1490, I started this book and started +again the horse.[45] Jacomo came to me on Magdalene day, 1490, at the +age of ten years (marginal note: thievish, mendacious, willful, +gluttonous). On the second day I ordered for him two shirts, a pair of +pants, and a jacket, and as I put the money away to pay for the things +named he stole the money from my purse, and it was never possible to +make him confess, although I was absolutely sure of it (marginal note: 4 +Lira ...)." So the report continues concerning the misdeeds of the +little boy and concludes with the expense account: "In the first year, a +cloak, Lira 2: 6 shirts, Lira 4: 3 jackets, Lira 6: 4 pair of socks, +Lira 7, etc."[46] + +Leonardo's biographers, to whom nothing was further than to solve the +riddle in the psychic life of their hero from these slight weaknesses +and peculiarities, were wont to remark in connection with these peculiar +accounts that they emphasized the kindness and consideration of the +master for his pupils. They forget thereby that it is not Leonardo's +behavior that needs an explanation, but the fact that he left us these +testimonies of it. As it is impossible to ascribe to him the motive of +smuggling into our hands proofs of his kindness, we must assume that +another affective motive caused him to write this down. It is not easy +to conjecture what this motive was, and we could not give any if not +for another account found among Leonardo's papers which throws a +brilliant light on these peculiarly petty notices about his pupils' +clothes, and others of a kind:[47] + + Burial expenses following the death of Caterina 27 florins + 2 pounds wax 18 " + Cataphalc 12 " + For the transportation and erection of the cross 4 " + Pall bearers 8 " + To 4 priests and 4 clerics 20 " + Ringing of bells 2 " + To grave diggers 16 " + For the approval--to the officials 1 " + ------------ + To sum up 108 florins + + Previous expenses: + To the doctor 4 florins + For sugar and candles 12 " + 16 florins + ------------ + Sum total 124 florins + +The writer Merejkowski is the only one who can tell us who this Caterina +was. From two different short notices he concludes that she was the +mother of Leonardo, the poor peasant woman from Vinci, who came to Milan +in 1493 to visit her son then 41 years old. While on this visit she fell +ill and was taken to the hospital by Leonardo, and following her death +she was buried by her son with such sumptuous funeral.[48] + +This deduction of the psychological writer of romances is not capable of +proof, but it can lay claim to so many inner probabilities, it agrees so +well with everything we know besides about Leonardo's emotional activity +that I cannot refrain from accepting it as correct. Leonardo succeeded +in forcing his feelings under the yoke of investigation and in +inhibiting their free utterance, but even in him there were episodes in +which the suppression obtained expression, and one of these was the +death of his mother whom he once loved so ardently. Through this account +of the burial expenses he represents to us the mourning of his mother in +an almost unrecognizable distortion. We wonder how such a distortion +could have come about, and we certainly cannot grasp it when viewed +under normal mental processes. But similar mechanisms are familiar to us +under the abnormal conditions of neuroses, and especially in the +so-called _compulsion neurosis_. Here one can observe how the +expressions of more intensive feelings have been displaced to trivial +and even foolish performances. The opposing forces succeeded in debasing +the expression of these repressed feelings to such an extent that one is +forced to estimate the intensity of these feelings as extremely +unimportant, but the imperative compulsion with which these +insignificant acts express themselves betrays the real force of the +feelings which are rooted in the unconscious, which consciousness would +wish to disavow. Only by bearing in mind the mechanisms of compulsion +neurosis can one explain Leonardo's account of the funeral expenses of +his mother. In his unconscious he was still tied to her as in childhood, +by erotically tinged feelings; the opposition of the repression of this +childhood love which appeared later stood in the way of erecting to her +in his diary a different and more dignified monument, but what resulted +as a compromise of this neurotic conflict had to be put in operation and +hence the account was entered in the diary which thus came to the +knowledge of posterity as something incomprehensible. + +It is not venturing far to transfer the interpretation obtained from the +funeral expenses to the accounts dealing with his pupils. Accordingly we +would say that here also we deal with a case in which Leonardo's meager +remnants of libidinous feelings compulsively obtained a distorted +expression. The mother and the pupils, the very images of his own boyish +beauty, would be his sexual objects--as far as his sexual repression +dominating his nature would allow such manifestations--and the +compulsion to note with painful circumstantiality his expenses on their +behalf, would designate the strange betrayal of his rudimentary +conflicts. From this we would conclude that Leonardo's love-life really +belonged to that type of homosexuality, the psychic development of which +we were able to disclose, and the appearance of the homosexual situation +in his vulture-phantasy would become comprehensible to us, for it states +nothing more or less than what we have asserted before concerning that +type. It requires the following interpretation: Through the erotic +relations to my mother I became a homosexual.[49] + + + + +IV + + +The vulture phantasy of Leonardo still absorbs our interest. In words +which only too plainly recall a sexual act ("and has many times struck +against my lips with his tail"), Leonardo emphasizes the intensity of +the erotic relations between the mother and the child. A second memory +content of the phantasy can readily be conjectured from the association +of the activity of the mother (of the vulture) with the accentuation of +the mouth zone. We can translate it as follows: My mother has pressed on +my mouth innumerable passionate kisses. The phantasy is composed of the +memories of being nursed and of being kissed by the mother. + +[Illustration: MONA LISA] + +A kindly nature has bestowed upon the artist the capacity to express in +artistic productions his most secret psychic feelings hidden even to +himself, which powerfully affect outsiders who are strangers to the +artist without their being able to state whence this emotivity comes. +Should there be no evidence in Leonardo's work of that which his memory +retained as the strongest impression of his childhood? One would have to +expect it. However, when one considers what profound transformations an +impression of an artist has to experience before it can add its +contribution to the work of art, one is obliged to moderate considerably +his expectation of demonstrating something definite. This is especially +true in the case of Leonardo. + +He who thinks of Leonardo's paintings will be reminded by the remarkably +fascinating and puzzling smile which he enchanted on the lips of all his +feminine figures. It is a fixed smile on elongated, sinuous lips which +is considered characteristic of him and is preferentially designated as +"Leonardesque." In the singular and beautiful visage of the Florentine +Monna Lisa del Giocondo it has produced the greatest effect on the +spectators and even perplexed them. This smile was in need of an +interpretation, and received many of the most varied kind but none of +them was considered satisfactory. As Gruyer puts it: "It is almost four +centuries since Monna Lisa causes all those to lose their heads who have +looked upon her for some time."[50] + +Muther states:[51] "What fascinates the spectator is the demoniacal +charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about +this woman, who now seems to smile upon us seductively and now to stare +coldly and lifelessly into space, but nobody has solved the riddle of +her smile, nobody has interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the +scenery is mysterious and dream-like, trembling as if in the sultriness +of sensuality." + +The idea that two diverse elements were united in the smile of Monna +Lisa has been felt by many critics. They therefore recognize in the play +of features of the beautiful Florentine lady the most perfect +representation of the contrasts dominating the love-life of the woman +which is foreign to man, as that of reserve and seduction, and of most +devoted tenderness and inconsiderateness in urgent and consuming +sensuality. Mntz[52] expresses himself in this manner: "One knows what +indecipherable and fascinating enigma Monna Lisa Gioconda has been +putting for nearly four centuries to the admirers who crowd around her. +No artist (I borrow the expression of the delicate writer who hides +himself under the pseudonym of Pierre de Corlay) has ever translated in +this manner the very essence of femininity: the tenderness and coquetry, +the modesty and quiet voluptuousness, the whole mystery of the heart +which holds itself aloof, of a brain which reflects, and of a +personality who watches itself and yields nothing from herself except +radiance...." The Italian Angelo Conti[53] saw the picture in the Louvre +illumined by a ray of the sun and expressed himself as follows: "The +woman smiled with a royal calmness, her instincts of conquest, of +ferocity, the entire heredity of the species, the will of seduction and +ensnaring, the charm of the deceiver, the kindness which conceals a +cruel purpose, all that appears and disappears alternately behind the +laughing veil and melts into the poem of her smile.... Good and evil, +cruelty and compassion, graceful and cat-like, she laughed...." + +Leonardo painted this picture four years, perhaps from 1503 until 1507, +during his second sojourn in Florence when he was about the age of fifty +years. According to Vasari he applied the choicest artifices in order to +divert the lady during the sittings and to hold that smile firmly on her +features. Of all the gracefulness that his brush reproduced on the +canvas at that time the picture preserves but very little in its present +state. During its production it was considered the highest that art +could accomplish; it is certain, however, that it did not satisfy +Leonardo himself, that he pronounced it as unfinished and did not +deliver it to the one who ordered it, but took it with him to France +where his benefactor Francis I, acquired it for the Louvre. + +Let us leave the physiognomic riddle of Monna Lisa unsolved, and let us +note the unequivocal fact that her smile fascinated the artist no less +than all the spectators for these 400 years. This captivating smile had +thereafter returned in all of his pictures and in those of his pupils. +As Leonardo's Monna Lisa was a portrait we cannot assume that he has +added to her face a trait of his own so difficult to express which she +herself did not possess. It seems, we cannot help but believe, that he +found this smile in his model and became so charmed by it that from now +on he endowed it on all the free creations of his phantasy. This obvious +conception is, e.g., expressed by A. Konstantinowa in the following +manner:[54] + +"During the long period in which the master occupied himself with the +portrait of Monna Lisa del Gioconda, he entered into the physiognomic +delicacies of this feminine face with such sympathy of feeling that he +transferred these creatures, especially the mysterious smile and the +peculiar glance, to all faces which he later painted or drew. The mimic +peculiarity of Gioconda can even be perceived in the picture of John the +Baptist in the Louvre. But above all they are distinctly recognized in +the features of Mary in the picture of St. Anne of the Louvre." + +But the case could have been different. The need for a deeper reason for +the fascination which the smile of Gioconda exerted on the artist from +which he could not rid himself has been felt by more than one of his +biographers. W. Pater, who sees in the picture of Monna Lisa the +embodiment of the entire erotic experience of modern man, and discourses +so excellently on "that unfathomable smile always with a touch of +something sinister in it, which plays over all Leonardo's work," leads +us to another track when he says:[55] + +"Besides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image +defining itself on the fabric of his dream; and but for express +historical testimony, we might fancy that this was but his ideal lady, +embodied and beheld at last." + +Herzfeld surely must have had something similar in mind when stating +that in Monna Lisa Leonardo encountered himself and therefore found it +possible to put so much of his own nature into the picture, "whose +features from time immemorial have been imbedded with mysterious +sympathy in Leonardo's soul."[56] + +Let us endeavor to clear up these intimations. It was quite possible +that Leonardo was fascinated by the smile of Monna Lisa, because it had +awakened something in him which had slumbered in his soul for a long +time, in all probability an old memory. This memory was of sufficient +importance to stick to him once it had been aroused; he was forced +continually to provide it with new expression. The assurance of Pater +that we can see an image like that of Monna Lisa defining itself from +Leonardo's childhood on the fabric of his dreams, seems worthy of belief +and deserves to be taken literally. + +Vasari mentions as Leonardo's first artistic endeavors, "heads of women +who laugh."[57] The passage, which is beyond suspicion, as it is not +meant to prove anything, reads more precisely as follows:[58] "He formed +in his youth some laughing feminine heads out of lime, which have been +reproduced in plaster, and some heads of children, which were as +beautiful as if modeled by the hands of a master...." + +Thus we discover that his practice of art began with the representation +of two kinds of objects, which would perforce remind us of the two kinds +of sexual objects which we have inferred from the analysis of his +vulture phantasy. If the beautiful children's heads were reproductions +of his own childish person, then the laughing women were nothing else +but reproductions of Caterina, his mother, and we are beginning to have +an inkling of the possibility that his mother possessed that mysterious +smile which he lost, and which fascinated him so much when he found it +again in the Florentine lady.[59] + +[Illustration: SAINT ANNE] + +The painting of Leonardo which in point of time stands nearest to the +Monna Lisa is the so-called Saint Anne of the Louvre, representing +Saint Anne, Mary and the Christ child. It shows the Leonardesque smile +most beautifully portrayed in the two feminine heads. It is impossible +to find out how much earlier or later than the portrait of Monna Lisa +Leonardo began to paint this picture. As both works extended over years, +we may well assume that they occupied the master simultaneously. But it +would best harmonize with our expectation if precisely the absorption in +the features of Monna Lisa would have instigated Leonardo to form the +composition of Saint Anne from his phantasy. For if the smile of +Gioconda had conjured up in him the memory of his mother, we would +naturally understand that he was first urged to produce a glorification +of motherhood, and to give back to her the smile he found in that +prominent lady. We may thus allow our interest to glide over from the +portrait of Monna Lisa to this other hardly less beautiful picture, now +also in the Louvre. + +Saint Anne with the daughter and grandchild is a subject seldom treated +in the Italian art of painting; at all events Leonardo's representation +differs widely from all that is otherwise known. Muther states:[60] + +"Some masters like Hans Fries, the older Holbein, and Girolamo dei +Libri, made Anne sit near Mary and placed the child between the two. +Others like Jakob Cornelicz in his Berlin pictures, represented Saint +Anne as holding in her arm the small figure of Mary upon which sits the +still smaller figure of the Christ child." In Leonardo's picture Mary +sits on her mother's lap, bent forward and is stretching out both arms +after the boy who plays with a little lamb, and must have slightly +maltreated it. The grandmother has one of her unconcealed arms propped +on her hip and looks down on both with a blissful smile. The grouping is +certainly not quite unconstrained. But the smile which is playing on the +lips of both women, although unmistakably the same as in the picture of +Monna Lisa, has lost its sinister and mysterious character; it expresses +a calm blissfulness.[61] + +On becoming somewhat engrossed in this picture it suddenly dawns upon +the spectator that only Leonardo could have painted this picture, as +only he could have formed the vulture phantasy. This picture contains +the synthesis of the history of Leonardo's childhood, the details of +which are explainable by the most intimate impressions of his life. In +his father's home he found not only the kind step-mother Donna Albiera, +but also the grandmother, his father's mother, Monna Lucia, who we will +assume was not less tender to him than grandmothers are wont to be. This +circumstance must have furnished him with the facts for the +representation of a childhood guarded by a mother and grandmother. +Another striking feature of the picture assumes still greater +significance. Saint Anne, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of the +boy who must have been a matron, is formed here perhaps somewhat more +mature and more serious than Saint Mary, but still as a young woman of +unfaded beauty. As a matter of fact Leonardo gave the boy two mothers, +the one who stretched out her arms after him and another who is seen in +the background, both are represented with the blissful smile of maternal +happiness. This peculiarity of the picture has not failed to excite the +wonder of the authors. Muther, for instance, believes that Leonardo +could not bring himself to paint old age, folds and wrinkles, and +therefore formed also Anne as a woman of radiant beauty. Whether one can +be satisfied with this explanation is a question. Other writers have +taken occasion to deny generally the sameness of age of mother and +daughter.[62] However, Muther's tentative explanation is sufficient +proof for the fact that the impression of Saint Anne's youthful +appearance was furnished by the picture and is not an imagination +produced by a tendency. + +Leonardo's childhood was precisely as remarkable as this picture. He has +had two mothers, the first his true mother, Caterina, from whom he was +torn away between the age of three and five years, and a young tender +step-mother, Donna Albiera, his father's wife. By connecting this fact +of his childhood with the one mentioned above and condensing them into a +uniform fusion, the composition of Saint Anne, Mary and the Child, +formed itself in him. The maternal form further away from the boy +designated as grandmother, corresponds in appearance and in spatial +relation to the boy, with the real first mother, Caterina. With the +blissful smile of Saint Anne the artist actually disavowed and concealed +the envy which the unfortunate mother felt when she was forced to give +up her son to her more aristocratic rival, as once before her lover. + +Our feeling that the smile of Monna Lisa del Gioconda awakened in the +man the memory of the mother of his first years of childhood would thus +be confirmed from another work of Leonardo. Following the production of +Monna Lisa, Italian artists depicted in Madonnas and prominent ladies +the humble dipping of the head and the peculiar blissful smile of the +poor peasant girl Caterina, who brought to the world the noble son who +was destined to paint, investigate, and suffer. + +When Leonardo succeeded in reproducing in the face of Monna Lisa the +double sense comprised in this smile, namely, the promise of unlimited +tenderness, and sinister threat (in the words of Pater), he remained +true even in this to the content of his earliest reminiscence. For the +love of the mother became his destiny, it determined his fate and the +privations which were in store for him. The impetuosity of the caressing +to which the vulture phantasy points was only too natural. The poor +forsaken mother had to give vent through mother's love to all her +memories of love enjoyed as well as to all her yearnings for more +affection; she was forced to it, not only in order to compensate herself +for not having a husband, but also the child for not having a father who +wanted to love it. In the manner of all ungratified mothers she thus +took her little son in place of her husband, and robbed him of a part of +his virility by the too early maturing of his eroticism. The love of the +mother for the suckling whom she nourishes and cares for is something +far deeper reaching than her later affection for the growing child. It +is of the nature of a fully gratified love affair, which fulfills not +only all the psychic wishes but also all physical needs, and when it +represents one of the forms of happiness attainable by man it is due, in +no little measure, to the possibility of gratifying without reproach +also wish feelings which were long repressed and designated as +perverse.[63] Even in the happiest recent marriage the father feels that +his child, especially the little boy has become his rival, and this +gives origin to an antagonism against the favorite one which is deeply +rooted in the unconscious. + +When in the prime of his life Leonardo re-encountered that blissful and +ecstatic smile as it had once encircled his mother's mouth in caressing, +he had long been under the ban of an inhibition, forbidding him ever +again to desire such tenderness from women's lips. But as he had become +a painter he endeavored to reproduce this smile with his brush and +furnish all his pictures with it, whether he executed them himself or +whether they were done by his pupils under his direction, as in Leda, +John, and Bacchus. The latter two are variations of the same type. +Muther says: "From the locust eater of the Bible Leonardo made a +Bacchus, an Apollo, who with a mysterious smile on his lips, and with +his soft thighs crossed, looks on us with infatuated eyes." These +pictures breathe a mysticism into the secret of which one dares not +penetrate; at most one can make the effort to construct the connection +to Leonardo's earlier productions. The figures are again androgynous but +no longer in the sense of the vulture phantasy, they are pretty boys of +feminine tenderness with feminine forms; they do not cast down their +eyes but gaze mysteriously triumphant, as if they knew of a great happy +issue concerning which one must remain quiet; the familiar fascinating +smile leads us to infer that it is a love secret. It is possible that in +these forms Leonardo disavowed and artistically conquered the +unhappiness of his love life, in that he represented the wish +fulfillment of the boy infatuated with his mother in such blissful union +of the male and female nature. + +[Illustration: JOHN THE BAPTIST] + + + + +V + + +Among the entries in Leonardo's diaries there is one which absorbs the +reader's attention through its important content and on account of a +small formal error. In July, 1504, he wrote: + +"Adi 9 Luglio, 1504, mercoledi, a ore 7 mori Ser Piero da Vinci notalio +al palazzo del Potest, mio padre, a ore 7. Era d'et d'anni 80, lasci +10 figlioli maschi e 2 feminine."[64] + +The notice as we see deals with the death of Leonardo's father. The +slight error in its form consists in the fact that in the computation of +the time "at 7 o'clock" is repeated two times, as if Leonardo had +forgotten at the end of the sentence that he had already written it at +the beginning. It is only a triviality to which any one but a +psychoanalyst would pay no attention. Perhaps he would not even notice +it, or if his attention would be called to it he would say "that can +happen to anybody during absent-mindedness or in an affective state and +has no further meaning." + +The psychoanalyst thinks differently; to him nothing is too trifling as +a manifestation of hidden psychic processes; he has long learned that +such forgetting or repetition is full of meaning, and that one is +indebted to the "absent-mindedness" when it makes possible the betrayal +of otherwise concealed feelings. + +We would say that, like the funeral account of Caterina and the expense +account of the pupils, this notice, too, corresponds to a case in which +Leonardo was unsuccessful in suppressing his affects, and the long +hidden feeling forcibly obtained a distorted expression. Also the form +is similar, it shows the same pedantic precision, the same pushing +forward of numbers.[65] + +We call such a repetition a perseveration. It is an excellent means to +indicate the affective accentuation. One recalls for example Saint +Peter's angry speech against his unworthy representative on earth, as +given in Dante's Paradiso:[66] + + "Quegli ch'usurpa in terra il luoga mio + Il luoga mio, il luogo mio, che vaca + Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio, + Fatto ha del cimiterio mio cloaca." + +Without Leonardo's affective inhibition the entry into the diary could +perhaps have read as follows: To-day at 7 o'clock died my father, Ser +Piero da Vinci, my poor father! But the displacement of the +perseveration to the most indifferent determination of the obituary to +dying-hour robs the notice of all pathos and lets us recognize that +there was something here to conceal and to suppress. + +Ser Piero da Vinci, notary and descendant of notaries, was a man of +great energy who attained respect and affluence. He was married four +times, the two first wives died childless, and not till the third +marriage has he gotten the first legitimate son, in 1476, when Leonardo +was 24 years old, and had long ago changed his father's home for the +studio of his master Verrocchio. With the fourth and last wife whom he +married when he was already in the fifties he begot nine sons and two +daughters.[67] + +To be sure the father also assumed importance in Leonardo's psychosexual +development, and what is more, it was not only in a negative sense, +through his absence during the boy's first childhood years, but also +directly through his presence in his later childhood. He who as a child +desires his mother, cannot help wishing to put himself in his father's +place, to identify himself with him in his phantasy and later make it +his life's task to triumph over him. As Leonardo was not yet five years +old when he was received into his paternal home, the young step-mother, +Albiera, certainly must have taken the place of his mother in his +feeling, and this brought him into that relation of rivalry to his +father which may be designated as normal. As is known, the preference +for homosexuality did not manifest itself till near the years of +puberty. When Leonardo accepted this preference the identification with +the father lost all significance for his sexual life, but continued in +other spheres of non-erotic activity. We hear that he was fond of luxury +and pretty raiments, and kept servants and horses, although according to +Vasari's words "he hardly possessed anything and worked little." We +shall not hold his artistic taste entirely responsible for all these +special likings; we recognize in them also the compulsion to copy his +father and to excel him. He played the part of the great gentleman to +the poor peasant girl, hence the son retained the incentive that he also +play the great gentleman, he had the strong feeling "to out-herod +Herod," and to show his father exactly how the real high rank looks. + +Whoever works as an artist certainly feels as a father to his works. The +identification with his father had a fateful result in Leonardo's works +of art. He created them and then troubled himself no longer about them, +just as his father did not trouble himself about him. The later +worriments of his father could change nothing in this compulsion, as the +latter originated from the impressions of the first years of childhood, +and the repression having remained unconscious was incorrigible through +later experiences. + +At the time of the Renaissance, and even much later, every artist was in +need of a gentleman of rank to act as his benefactor. This patron was +wont to give the artist commissions for work and entirely controlled his +destiny. Leonardo found his patron in Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il +Moro, a man of high aspirations, ostentations, diplomatically astute, +but of an unstable and unreliable character. In his court in Milan, +Leonardo spent the best period of his life, while in his service he +evinced his most uninhibited productive activity as is evidenced in The +Last Supper, and in the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. He left +Milan before the catastrophe struck Lodovico Moro, who died a prisoner +in a French prison. When the news of his benefactor's fate reached +Leonardo he made the following entry in his diary: "The duke has lost +state, wealth, and liberty, not one of his works will be finished by +himself."[68] It is remarkable and surely not without significance that +he here raises the same reproach to his benefactor that posterity was to +apply to him, as if he wanted to lay the responsibility to a person who +substituted his father-series, for the fact that he himself left his +works unfinished. As a matter of fact he was not wrong in what he said +about the Duke. + +However, if the imitation of his father hurt him as an artist, his +resistance against the father was the infantile determinant of his +perhaps equally vast accomplishment as an artist. According to +Merejkowski's beautiful comparison he was like a man who awoke too early +in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep. He dared utter +this bold principle which contains the justification for all independent +investigation: _"Chi dispute allegando l'autorit non adopra l'ingegno +ma piuttosto la memoria"_ (Whoever refers to authorities in disputing +ideas, works with his memory rather than with his reason).[69] Thus he +became the first modern natural philosopher, and his courage was +rewarded by an abundance of cognitions and suggestions; since the Greek +period he was the first to investigate the secrets of nature, relying +entirely on his observation and his own judgment. But when he learned to +depreciate authority and to reject the imitation of the "ancients" and +constantly pointed to the study of nature as the source of all wisdom, +he only repeated in the highest sublimation attainable to man, which had +already obtruded itself on the little boy who surveyed the world with +wonder. To retranslate the scientific abstractions into concrete +individual experiences, we would say that the "ancients" and authority +only corresponded to the father, and nature again became the tender +mother who nourished him. While in most human beings to-day, as in +primitive times, the need for a support of some authority is so +imperative that their world becomes shaky when their authority is +menaced, Leonardo alone was able to exist without such support; but that +would not have been possible had he not been deprived of his father in +the first years of his life. The boldness and independence of his later +scientific investigation presupposes that his infantile sexual +investigation was not inhibited by his father, and this same spirit of +scientific independence was continued by his withdrawing from sex. + +If any one like Leonardo escapes in his childhood his father's +intimidation and later throws off the shackles of authority in his +scientific investigation, it would be in gross contradiction to our +expectation if we found that this same man remained a believer and +unable to withdraw from dogmatic religion. Psychoanalysis has taught us +the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, +and daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious +belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down. In the +parental complex we thus recognize the roots of religious need; the +almighty, just God, and kindly nature appear to us as grand sublimations +of father and mother, or rather as revivals and restorations of the +infantile conceptions of both parents. Religiousness is biologically +traced to the long period of helplessness and need of help of the little +child. When the child grows up and realizes his loneliness and weakness +in the presence of the great forces of life, he perceives his condition +as in childhood and seeks to disavow his despair through a regressive +revival of the protecting forces of childhood. + +It does not seem that Leonardo's life disproves this conception of +religious belief. Accusations charging him with irreligiousness, which +in those times was equivalent to renouncing Christianity, were brought +against him already in his lifetime, and were clearly described in the +first biography given by Vasari.[70] In the second edition of his Vite +(1568) Vasari left out this observation. In view of the extraordinary +sensitiveness of his age in matters of religion it is perfectly +comprehensible to us why Leonardo refrained from directly expressing his +position to Christianity in his notes. As investigator he did not permit +himself to be misled by the account of the creation of the holy +scriptures; for instance, he disputed the possibility of a universal +flood, and in geology he was as unscrupulous in calculating with hundred +thousands of years as modern investigators. + +Among his "prophecies" one finds some things that would perforce offend +the sensitive feelings of a religious Christian, e.g. Praying to the +images of Saints, reads as follows:[71] + +"People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see +nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore +those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those +who do not see." + +Or: Concerning mourning on Good Friday (p. 297): + +"In all parts of Europe great peoples will bewail the death of one man +who died in the Orient." + +It was asserted of Leonardo's art that he took away the last remnant of +religious attachment from the holy figures and put them into human form +in order to depict in them great and beautiful human feelings. Muther +praises him for having overcome the feeling of decadence, and for having +returned to man the right of sensuality and pleasurable enjoyment. The +notices which show Leonardo absorbed in fathoming the great riddles of +nature do not lack any expressions of admiration for the creator, the +last cause of all these wonderful secrets, but nothing indicates that he +wished to hold any personal relation to this divine force. The sentences +which contain the deep wisdom of his last years breathe the resignation +of the man who subjects himself to the laws of nature and expects no +alleviation from the kindness or grace of God. There is hardly any doubt +that Leonardo had vanquished dogmatic as well as personal religion, and +through his work of investigation he had withdrawn far from the world +aspect of the religious Christian. + +From our views mentioned before in the development of the infantile +psychic life, it becomes clear that also Leonardo's first investigations +in childhood occupied themselves with the problems of sexuality. But he +himself betrays it to us through a transparent veil, in that he +connects his impulse to investigate with the vulture phantasy, and in +emphasizing the problem of the flight of the bird as one whose +elaboration devolved upon him through special concatenations of fate. A +very obscure as well as a prophetically sounding passage in his notes +dealing with the flight of the bird demonstrates in the nicest way with +how much affective interest he clung to the wish that he himself should +be able to imitate, the art of flying: "The human bird shall take his +first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his +fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang." He +probably hoped that he himself would sometimes be able to fly, and we +know from the wish fulfilling dreams of people what bliss one expects +from the fulfillment of this hope. + +But why do so many people dream that they are able to fly? +Psychoanalysis answers this question by stating that to fly or to be a +bird in the dream is only a concealment of another wish, to the +recognition of which one can reach by more than one linguistic or +objective bridge. When the inquisitive child is told that a big bird +like the stork brings the little children, when the ancients have formed +the phallus winged, when the popular designation of the sexual activity +of man is expressed in German by the word "to bird" (vgeln), when the +male member is directly called _l'uccello_ (bird) by the Italians, all +these facts are only small fragments from a large collection which +teaches us that the wish to be able to fly signifies in the dream +nothing more or less than the longing for the ability of sexual +accomplishment. This is an early infantile wish. When the grown-up +recalls his childhood it appears to him as a happy time in which one is +happy for the moment and looks to the future without any wishes, it is +for this reason that he envies children. But if children themselves +could inform us about it they would probably give different reports. It +seems that childhood is not that blissful Idyl into which we later +distort it, that on the contrary children are lashed through the years +of childhood by the wish to become big, and to imitate the grown ups. +This wish instigates all their playing. If in the course of their +sexual investigation children feel that the grown up knows something +wonderful in the mysterious and yet so important realm, what they are +prohibited from knowing or doing, they are seized with a violent wish to +know it, and dream of it in the form of flying, or prepare this disguise +of the wish for their later flying dreams. Thus aviation, which has +attained its aim in our times, has also its infantile erotic roots. + +By admitting that he entertained a special personal relation to the +problem of flying since his childhood, Leonardo bears out what we must +assume from our investigation of children of our times, namely, that his +childhood investigation was directed to sexual matters. At least this +one problem escaped the repression which has later estranged him from +sexuality. From childhood until the age of perfect intellectual maturity +this subject, slightly varied, continued to hold his interest, and it is +quite possible that he was as little successful in his cherished art in +the primary sexual sense as in his desires for mechanical matters, that +both wishes were denied to him. + +As a matter of fact the great Leonardo remained infantile in some ways +throughout his whole life; it is said that all great men retain +something of the infantile. As a grown up he still continued playing, +which sometimes made him appear strange and incomprehensible to his +contemporaries. When he constructed the most artistic mechanical toys +for court festivities and receptions we are dissatisfied thereby because +we dislike to see the master waste his power on such petty stuff. He +himself did not seem averse to giving his time to such things. Vasari +reports that he did similar things even when not urged to it by request: +"There (in Rome) he made a doughy mass out of wax, and when it softened +he formed thereof very delicate animals filled with air; when he blew +into them they flew in the air, and when the air was exhausted they fell +to the ground. For a peculiar lizard caught by the wine-grower of +Belvedere Leonardo made wings from skin pulled off from other lizards, +which he filled with mercury so that they moved and trembled when it +walked; he then made for it eyes, a beard and horns, tamed it and put it +in a little box and terrified all his friends with it."[72] Such +playing often served him as an expression of serious thoughts: "He had +often cleaned the intestines of a sheep so well that one could hold them +in the hollow of the hand; he brought them into a big room, and attached +them to a blacksmith's bellows which he kept in an adjacent room, he +then blew them up until they filled up the whole room so that everybody +had to crowd into a corner. In this manner he showed how they gradually +became transparent and filled up with air, and as they were at first +limited to very little space and gradually became more and more extended +in the big room, he compared them to a genius."[73] His fables and +riddles evince the same playful pleasure in harmless concealment and +artistic investment, the riddles were put into the form of prophecies; +almost all are rich in ideas and to a remarkable degree devoid of wit. + +The plays and jumps which Leonardo allowed his phantasy have in some +cases quite misled his biographers who misunderstood this part of his +nature. In Leonardo's Milanese manuscripts one finds, for example, +outlines of letters to the "Diodario of Sorio (Syria), viceroy of the +holy Sultan of Babylon," in which Leonardo presents himself as an +engineer sent to these regions of the Orient in order to construct some +works. In these letters he defends himself against the reproach of +laziness, he furnishes geographical descriptions of cities and +mountains, and finally discusses a big elementary event which occurred +while he was there.[74] + +In 1881, J. P. Richter had endeavored to prove from these documents that +Leonardo made these traveler's observations when he really was in the +service of the Sultan of Egypt, and that while in the Orient he embraced +the Mohammedan religion. This sojourn in the Orient should have taken +place in the time of 1483, that is, before he removed to the court of +the Duke of Milan. However, it was not difficult for other authors to +recognize the illustrations of this supposed journey to the Orient as +what they really were, namely, phantastic productions of the youthful +artist which he created for his own amusement, and in which he probably +brought to expression his wishes to see the world and experience +adventures. + +A phantastic formation is probably also the "Academia Vinciana," the +acceptance of which is due to the existence of five or six most clever +and intricate emblems with the inscription of the Academy. Vasari +mentions these drawings but not the Academy.[75] Mntz who placed such +ornament on the cover of his big work on Leonardo belongs to the few who +believe in the reality of an "Academia Vinciana." + +It is probable that this impulse to play disappeared in Leonardo's +maturer years, that it became discharged in the investigating activity +which signified the highest development of his personality. But the fact +that it continued so long may teach us how slowly one tears himself away +from his infantilism after having enjoyed in his childhood supreme +erotic happiness which is later unattainable. + + + + +VI + + +It would be futile to delude ourselves that at present, readers find +every pathography unsavory. This attitude is excused with the reproach +that from a pathographic elaboration of a great man one never obtains an +understanding of his importance and his attainments, that it is +therefore useless mischief to study in him things which could just as +well be found in the first comer. However, this criticism is so clearly +unjust that it can only be grasped when viewed as a pretext and a +disguise for something. As a matter of fact pathography does not aim at +making comprehensible the attainments of the great man; no one should +really be blamed for not doing something which one never promised. The +real motives for the opposition are quite different. One finds them when +one bears in mind that biographers are fixed on their heroes in quite a +peculiar manner. Frequently they take the hero as the object of study +because, for reasons of their personal emotional life, they bear him a +special affection from the very outset. They then devote themselves to a +work of idealization which strives to enroll the great men among their +infantile models, and to revive through him, as it were, the infantile +conception of the father. For the sake of this wish they wipe out the +individual features in his physiognomy, they rub out the traces of his +life's struggle with inner and outer resistances, and do not tolerate in +him anything of human weakness or imperfection; they then give us a +cold, strange, ideal form instead of the man to whom we could feel +distantly related. It is to be regretted that they do this, for they +thereby sacrifice the truth to an illusion, and for the sake of their +infantile phantasies they let slip the opportunity to penetrate into the +most attractive secrets of human nature.[76] + +Leonardo himself, judging from his love for the truth and his +inquisitiveness, would have interposed no objections to the effort of +discovering the determinations of his psychic and intellectual +development from the trivial peculiarities and riddles of his nature. We +respect him by learning from him. It does no injury to his greatness to +study the sacrifices which his development from the child must have +entailed, and to the compile factors which have stamped on his person +the tragic feature of failure. + +Let us expressly emphasize that we have never considered Leonardo as a +neurotic or as a "nervous person" in the sense of this awkward term. +Whoever takes it amiss that we should even dare apply to him viewpoints +gained from pathology, still clings to prejudices which we have at +present justly given up. We no longer believe that health and disease, +normal and nervous, are sharply distinguished from each other, and that +neurotic traits must be judged as proof of general inferiority. We know +to-day that neurotic symptoms are substitutive formations for certain +repressive acts which have to be brought about in the course of our +development from the child to the cultural man, that we all produce +such substitutive formations, and that only the amount, intensity, and +distribution of these substitutive formations justify the practical +conception of illness and the conclusion of constitutional inferiority. +Following the slight signs in Leonardo's personality we would place him +near that neurotic type which we designate as the "compulsive type," and +we would compare his investigation with the "reasoning mania" of +neurotics, and his inhibitions with the so-called "abulias" of the +latter. + +The object of our work was to explain the inhibitions in Leonardo's +sexual life and in his artistic activity. For this purpose we shall now +sum up what we could discover concerning the course of his psychic +development. + +We were unable to gain any knowledge about his hereditary factors, on +the other hand we recognize that the accidental circumstances of his +childhood produced a far reaching disturbing effect. His illegitimate +birth deprived him of the influence of a father until perhaps his fifth +year, and left him to the tender seduction of a mother whose only +consolation he was. Having been kissed by her into sexual prematurity, +he surely must have entered into a phase of infantile sexual activity of +which only one single manifestation was definitely evinced, namely, the +intensity of his infantile sexual investigation. The impulse for looking +and inquisitiveness were most strongly stimulated by his impressions +from early childhood; the enormous mouth-zone received its accentuation +which it had never given up. From his later contrasting behavior, as the +exaggerated sympathy for animals, we can conclude that this infantile +period did not lack in strong sadistic traits. + +An energetic shift of repression put an end to this infantile excess, +and established the dispositions which became manifest in the years of +puberty. The most striking result of this transformation was a turning +away from all gross sensual activities. Leonardo was able to lead a life +of abstinence and made the impression of an asexual person. When the +floods of pubescent excitement came over the boy they did not make him +ill by forcing him to costly and harmful substitutive formations; owing +to the early preference for sexual inquisitiveness, the greater part of +the sexual needs could be sublimated into a general thirst after +knowledge and so elude repression. A much smaller portion of the libido +was applied to sexual aims, and represented the stunted sexual life of +the grown up. In consequence of the repression of the love for the +mother this portion assumed a homosexual attitude and manifested itself +as ideal love for boys. The fixation on the mother, as well as the happy +reminiscences of his relations with her, was preserved in his +unconscious but remained for the time in an inactive state. In this +manner the repression, fixation, and sublimation participated in the +disposal of the contributions which the sexual impulse furnished to +Leonardo's psychic life. + +From the obscure age of boyhood Leonardo appears to us as an artist, a +painter, and sculptor, thanks to a specific talent which was probably +enforced by the early awakening of the impulse for looking in the first +years of childhood. We would gladly report in what way the artistic +activity depends on the psychic primitive forces were it not that our +material is inadequate just here. We content ourselves by emphasizing +the fact, concerning which hardly any doubt still exists, that the +productions of the artist give outlet also to his sexual desire, and in +the case of Leonardo we can refer to the information imparted by Vasari, +namely, that heads of laughing women and pretty boys, or representations +of his sexual objects, attracted attention among his first artistic +attempts. It seems that during his flourishing youth Leonardo at first +worked in an uninhibited manner. As he took his father as a model for +his outer conduct in life, he passed through a period of manly creative +power and artistic productivity in Milan, where favored by fate he found +a substitute for his father in the duke Lodovico Moro. But the +experience of others was soon confirmed in him, to wit, that the almost +complete suppression of the real sexual life does not furnish the most +favorable conditions for the activity of the sublimated sexual +strivings. The figurativeness of his sexual life asserted itself, his +activity and ability to quick decisions began to weaken, the tendency to +reflection and delay was already noticeable as a disturbance in The +Holy Supper, and with the influence of the technique determined the fate +of this magnificent work. Slowly a process developed in him which can be +put parallel only to the regressions of neurotics. His development at +puberty into the artist was outstripped by the early infantile +determinant of the investigator, the second sublimation of his erotic +impulses turned back to the primitive one which was prepared at the +first repression. He became an investigator, first in service of his +art, later independently and away from his art. With the loss of his +patron, the substitute for his father, and with the increasing +difficulties in his life, the regressive displacement extended in +dimension. He became _"impacientissimo al pennello"_ (most impatient +with the brush) as reported by a correspondent of the countess Isabella +d'Este who desired to possess at any cost a painting from his hand.[77] +His infantile past had obtained control over him. The investigation, +however, which now took the place of his artistic production, seems to +have born certain traits which betrayed the activity of unconscious +impulses; this was seen in his insatiability, his regardless obstinacy, +and in his lack of ability to adjust himself to actual conditions. + +At the summit of his life, in the age of the first fifties, at a time +when the sex characteristics of the woman have already undergone a +regressive change, and when the libido in the man not infrequently +ventures into an energetic advance, a new transformation came over him. +Still deeper strata of his psychic content became active again, but this +further regression was of benefit to his art which was in a state of +deterioration. He met the woman who awakened in him the memory of the +happy and sensuously enraptured smile of his mother, and under the +influence of this awakening he acquired back the stimulus which guided +him in the beginning of his artistic efforts when he formed the smiling +woman. He painted Monna Lisa, Saint Anne, and a number of mystic +pictures which were characterized by the enigmatic smile. With the help +of his oldest erotic feelings he triumphed in conquering once more the +inhibition in his art. This last development faded away in the obscurity +of the approaching old age. But before this his intellect rose to the +highest capacity of a view of life, which was far in advance of his +time. + +In the preceding chapters I have shown what justification one may have +for such representation of Leonardo's course of development, for this +manner of arranging his life and explaining his wavering between art and +science. If after accomplishing these things I should provoke the +criticism from even friends and adepts of psychoanalysis, that I have +only written a psychoanalytic romance, I should answer that I certainly +did not overestimate the reliability of these results. Like others I +succumbed to the attraction emanating from this great and mysterious +man, in whose being one seems to feel powerful propelling passions, +which after all can only evince themselves so remarkably subdued. + +But whatever may be the truth about Leonardo's life we cannot relinquish +our effort to investigate it psychoanalytically before we have finished +another task. In general we must mark out the limits which are set up +for the working capacity of psychoanalysis in biography so that every +omitted explanation should not be held up to us as a failure. +Psychoanalytic investigation has at its disposal the data of the history +of the person's life, which on the one hand consists of accidental +events and environmental influences, and on the other hand of the +reported reactions of the individual. Based on the knowledge of psychic +mechanisms it now seeks to investigate dynamically the character of the +individual from his reactions, and to lay bare his earliest psychic +motive forces as well as their later transformations and developments. +If this succeeds then the reaction of the personality is explained +through the coperation of constitutional and accidental factors or +through inner and outer forces. If such an undertaking, as perhaps in +the case of Leonardo, does not yield definite results then the blame for +it is not to be laid to the faulty or inadequate psychoanalytic method, +but to the vague and fragmentary material left by tradition about this +person. It is, therefore, only the author who forced psychoanalysis to +furnish an expert opinion on such insufficient material, who is to be +held responsible for the failure. + +However, even if one had at his disposal a very rich historical material +and could manage the psychic mechanism with the greatest certainty, a +psychoanalytic investigation could not possibly furnish the definite +view, if it concerns two important questions, that the individual could +turn out only so and not differently. Concerning Leonardo we had to +represent the view that the accident of his illegitimate birth and the +pampering of his mother exerted the most decisive influence on his +character formation and his later fate, through the fact that the sexual +repression following this infantile phase caused him to sublimate his +libido into a thirst after knowledge, and thus determined his sexual +inactivity for his entire later life. The repression, however, which +followed the first erotic gratification of childhood did not have to +take place, in another individual it would perhaps not have taken place +or it would have turned out not nearly as profuse. We must recognize +here a degree of freedom which can no longer be solved psychoanalytically. +One is as little justified in representing the issue of this shift of +repression as the only possible issue. It is quite probable that another +person would not have succeeded in withdrawing the main part of his +libido from the repression through sublimation into a desire for +knowledge; under the same influences as Leonardo another person might +have sustained a permanent injury to his intellectual work or an +uncontrollable disposition to compulsion neurosis. The two +characteristics of Leonardo which remained unexplained through +psychoanalytic effort are first, his particular tendency to repress his +impulses, and second, his extraordinary ability to sublimate the +primitive impulses. + +The impulses and their transformations are the last things that +psychoanalysis can discern. Henceforth it leaves the place to biological +investigation. The tendency to repression, as well as the ability to +sublimate, must be traced back to the organic bases of the character, +upon which alone the psychic structure springs up. As artistic talent +and productive ability are intimately connected with sublimation we +have to admit that also the nature of artistic attainment is +psychoanalytically inaccessible to us. Biological investigation of our +time endeavors to explain the chief traits of the organic constitution +of a person through the fusion of male and female predispositions in the +material sense; Leonardo's physical beauty as well as his +left-handedness furnish here some support. However, we do not wish to +leave the ground of pure psychologic investigation. Our aim remains to +demonstrate the connection between outer experiences and reactions of +the person over the path of the activity of the impulses. Even if +psychoanalysis does not explain to us the fact of Leonardo's artistic +accomplishment, it still gives us an understanding of the expressions +and limitations of the same. It does seem as if only a man with +Leonardo's childhood experiences could have painted Monna Lisa and Saint +Anne, and could have supplied his works with that sad fate and so obtain +unheard of fame as a natural historian; it seems as if the key to all +his attainments and failures was hidden in the childhood phantasy of +the vulture. + +But may one not take offense at the results of an investigation which +concede to the accidents of the parental constellation so decisive an +influence on the fate of a person, which, for example, subordinates +Leonardo's fate to his illegitimate birth and to the sterility of his +first step-mother Donna Albiera? I believe that one has no right to feel +so; if one considers accident as unworthy of determining our fate, it is +only a relapse to the pious aspect of life, the overcoming of which +Leonardo himself prepared when he put down in writing that the sun does +not move. We are naturally grieved over the fact that a just God and a +kindly providence do not guard us better against such influences in our +most defenseless age. We thereby gladly forget that as a matter of fact +everything in our life is accident from our very origin through the +meeting of spermatozoa and ovum, accident, which nevertheless +participates in the lawfulness and fatalities of nature, and lacks only +the connection to our wishes and illusions. The division of life's +determinants into the "fatalities" of our constitution and the +"accidents" of our childhood may still be indefinite in individual +cases, but taken altogether one can no longer entertain any doubt about +the importance of precisely our first years of childhood. We all still +show too little respect for nature, which in Leonardo's deep words +recalling Hamlet's speech _"is full of infinite reasons which never +appeared in experience."_[78] Every one of us human beings corresponds +to one of the infinite experiments in which these "reasons of nature" +force themselves into experience. + + +THE END + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In the words of J. Burckhard, cited by Alexandra Konstantinowa, Die +Entwicklung des Madonnentypus by Leonardo da Vinci, Strassburg, 1907. + +[2] Vite, etc. LXXXIII. 1550-1584. + +[3] Traktat von der Malerei, new edition and introduction by Marie +Herzfeld, E. Diederichs, Jena, 1909. + +[4] Solmi. La resurrezione dell' opera di Leonardo in the collected +work; Leonardo da Vinci. Conferenze Florentine, Milan, 1910. + +[5] Scognamiglio Ricerche e Documenti sulla giovinezza di Leonardo da +Vinci. Napoli, 1900. + +[6] W. v. Seidlitz. Leonardo da Vinci, der Wendepunkt der Renaissance, +1909, Bd. I, p. 203. + +[7] W. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 48 + +[8] W. Pater. The Renaissance, p. 107, The Macmillan Co., 1910. "But it +is certain that at one period of his life he had almost ceased to be an +artist." + +[9] Cf. v. Seidlitz, Bd. I die Geschichte der Restaurations--und +Rettungsversuche. + +[10] Mntz. Lonard de Vinci, Paris, 1899, p. 18. (A letter of a +contemporary from India to a Medici alludes to this peculiarity of +Leonardo. Given by Richter: The literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.) + +[11] F. Botazzi. Leonardo biologo e anatomico. Conferenze Florentine, p. +186, 1910. + +[12] E. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci. German Translation by Emmi Hirschberg. +Berlin, 1908. + +[13] Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci der Denker, Forscher und Poet. +Second edition. Jena, 1906. + +[14] His collected witticisms--belle facezie,--which are not translated, +may be an exception. Cf. Herzfeld, Leonardo da Vinci, p. 151. + +[15] According to Scognamiglio (l. c. p. 49) reference is made to this +episode in an obscure and even variously interpreted passage of the +Codex Atlanticus: "Quando io feci Domeneddio putto voi mi metteste in +prigione, ora s'io lo fo grande, voi mi farete peggio." + +[16] Merejkowski: The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by +Herbert Trench, G. P. Putnam Sons, New York. It forms the second of the +historical Trilogy entitled Christ and Anti-Christ, of which the first +volume is Julian Apostata, and the third volume is Peter the Great and +Alexei. + +[17] Solmi l. c. p. 46. + +[18] Filippo Botazzi, l. c. p. 193. + +[19] Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, Traktat von der Malerei, Jena, +1909 (Chap. I, 64). + +[20] "Such transfiguration of science and of nature into emotions, or +one might say, religion, is one of the characteristic traits of da +Vinci's manuscripts, which one finds expressed hundreds of times." +Solmi: La resurrezione, etc, p. 11. + +[21] La resurrezione, etc., p. 8: "Leonardo placed the study of nature +as a precept to painting ... later the passion for study became +dominating, he no longer wished to acquire science for art, but science +for science' sake." + +[22] For an enumeration of his scientific attainments see Marie +Herzfeld's interesting introduction (Jena, 1906) to the essays of the +Conference Florentine, 1910, and elsewhere. + +[23] For a corroboration of this improbable sounding assertion see the +"Analysis of the Phobia of a Five-year-old Boy," Jahrbuch fr +Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, Bd. I, 1909, and +the similar observation in Bd. II, 1910. In an essay concerning +"Infantile Theories of Sex" (Sammlungen kleiner Schriften zur +Neurosenlehre, p. 167, Second Series, 1909), I wrote: "But this +reasoning and doubting serves as a model for all later intellectual work +in problems, and the first failure acts as a paralyzer for all times." + +[24] Scognamiglio 1. c., p. 15. + +[25] Cited by Scognamiglio from the Codex Atlanticus, p. 65. + +[26] Cf. here the "Bruchstck einer Hysterieanalyse," in Neurosenlehre, +Second series, 1909. + +[27] Horapollo: Hieroglyphica I, II. [Greek: Mtera de graphontex ... +gupa zographonsin]. + +[28] Roscher: Ausf. Lexicon der griechischen und rmischen Mythologie. +Artikel Mut, II Bd., 1894-1897.--Lanzone. Dizionario di Mitologia +egizia. Torino, 1882. + +[29] H. Hartleben, Champollion. Sein Leben und sein Werk, 1906. + +[30] "[Greek: gypa de arrena ou phasigenesthai pote, aila phleias +apasas]," cited by v. Rmer. ber die androgynische Idee des Lebens, +Jahrb. f. Sexuelle Zwischenstufen, V, 1903, p. 732. + +[31] Plutarch: Veluti scarabaeos mares tantum esse putarunt Aegyptii sic +inter vultures mares non inveniri statuerunt + +[32] Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica edidit Conradus Leemans +Amstelodami, 1835. The words referring to the sex of the vulture read as +follows (p. 14): "[Greek: ptera men hepeid arren en tout genei tn +zn ouch hyparchei.]." + +[33] E. Mntz, 1. c., p. 282. + +[34] E. Mntz, 1. c. + +[35] See the illustrations in Lanzone l. c. T. CXXXVI-VIII. + +[36] v. Rmer l. c. + +[37] Cf. the observations in the Jahrbuch fr Psychoanalytische und +Psychopathologische Forschungen, Vol. I, 1909. + +[38] Cf. Richard Payne Knight: The Cult of Priapus. + +[39] Prominently among those who undertook these investigations are I. +Sadger, whose results I can essentially corroborate from my own +experience. I am also aware that Stekel of Vienna, Ferenczi of Budapest, +and Brill of New York, came to the same conclusions. + +[40] Edm. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci, German translation, p. 152. + +[41] Solmi, 1. c. p. 203. + +[42] Leonardo thus behaves like one who was in the habit of making a +daily confession to another person whom he now replaced by his diary. +For an assumption as to who this person may have been see Merejkowski, +p. 309. + +[43] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, 1906, p. 141. + +[44] The wording is that of Merejkowski, 1. c. p. 237. + +[45] The equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza. + +[46] The full wording is found in M. Herzfeld, 1. c. p. 45. + +[47] Merejkowski 1. c.--As a disappointing illustration of the vagueness +of the information concerning Leonardo's intimate life, meager as it is, +I mention the fact that the same expense account is given by Solmi with +considerable variation (German translation, p. 104). The most serious +difference is the substitution of florins by soldi. One may assume that +in this account florins do not mean the old "gold florins," but those +used at a later period which amounted to 1-2/3 lira or 33-1/2 +soldi.--Solmi represents Caterina as a servant who had taken care of +Leonardo's household for a certain time. The source from which the two +representations of this account were taken was not accessible to me. + +[48] "Caterina came in July, 1493." + +[49] The manner of expression through which the repressed libidio could +manifest itself in Leonardo, such as circumstantiality and marked +interest in money, belongs to those traits of character which emanate +from anal eroticism. Cf. Character und Analerotik in the second series +of my Sammlung zur Neurosenlehre, 1909, also Brill's Psychoanalysis, its +Theories and Practical Applications, Chap. XIII, Anal Eroticism and +Character, Saunders, Philadelphia. + +[50] Seidlitz: Leonardo da Vinci, II Bd., p. 280. + +[51] Geschichte der Malerei, Bd. I, p. 314. + +[52] l. c. p. 417. + +[53] A. Conti: Leonardo pittore, Conferenze Fiorentine, l. c. p. 93. + +[54] l. c. p. 45. + +[55] W. Pater: The Renaissance, p. 124, The Macmillan Co., 1910. + +[56] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, p. 88. + +[57] Scognamiglio, l. c. p. 32. + +[58] L. Schorn, Bd. III, 1843, p. 6. + +[59] The same is assumed by Merejkowski, who imagined a childhood for +Leonardo which deviates in the essential points from ours, drawn from +the results of the vulture phantasy. But if Leonardo himself had +displayed this smile, tradition hardly would have failed to report to us +this coincidence. + +[60] l. c. p. 309. + +[61] A. Konstantinowa, l. c., says: "Mary looks tenderly down on her +beloved child with a smile that recalls the mysterious expression of la +Gioconda." Elsewhere speaking of Mary she says: "The smile of Gioconda +floats upon her features." + +[62] Cf. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 274. + +[63] Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, translated by A. A. +Brill, 2nd edition, 1916, Monograph series. + +[64] "On the 9th of July, 1504, Wednesday at 7 o'clock died Ser Piero da +Vinci, notary at the palace of the Podesta, my father, at 7 o'clock. He +was 80 years old, left 10 sons and 2 daughters." (E. Mntz, l. c. p. +13.) + +[65] I shall overlook a greater error committed by Leonardo in his +notice in that he gives his 77-year-old father 80 years. + +[66] "He who usurps on earth my place, my place, my place, which is void +in the presence of the Son of God, has made out of my cemetery a sewer." +Canto XXXVII. + +[67] It seems that in that passage of the diary Leonardo also erred in +the number of his sisters and brothers, which stands in remarkable +contrast to the apparent exactness of the same. + +[68] v. Seidlitz, l. c., II, p. 270. + +[69] Solmi, Conf. fior, p. 13. + +[70] Mntz, l. c., La Religion de Leonardo, p. 292, etc. + +[71] Herzfeld, p. 292. + +[72] Vasari, translated by Schorn, 1843. + +[73] Ebenda, p. 39. + +[74] Concerning these letters and the combinations connected with them +see Mntz, l. c., p. 82; for the wording of the same and for the notices +connected with them see Herzfeld, l. c., p. 223. + +[75] Besides, he lost some time in that he even made a drawing of a +braided cord in which one could follow the thread from one end to the +other, until it formed a perfectly circular figure; a very difficult and +beautiful drawing of this kind is engraved on copper, in the center of +it one can read the words: "Leonardus Vinci Academia" (p. 8). + +[76] This criticism holds quite generally and is not aimed at Leonardo's +biographers in particular. + +[77] Seidlitz II, p. 271. + +[78] La natura piena d'infinite ragion che non furono mai in +isperienza, M. Herzfeld, l. c. p. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leonardo da Vinci + A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence + +Author: Sigmund Freud + +Translator: A. A. Brill + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEONARDO DA VINCI *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 354px;"> +<img src="images/ill_leonardo.jpg" width="354" height="480" alt="LEONARDO DA VINCI" title="" /> +<p class="caption">LEONARDO DA VINCI</p> +</div> + +<h1>Leonardo da Vinci</h1> +<p class="c"><b> +A PSYCHOSEXUAL STUDY OF AN<br /> +INFANTILE REMINISCENCE</b></p> + +<p class="c"><b>BY<br /> +PROFESSOR DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D.<br /> +<small><small>(UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA)</small></small></b></p> + +<p class="c"><b>TRANSLATED BY<br /> +A. A. BRILL, P<small>H</small>.B., M.D.<br /> +<small>Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal<br /> +Psychology, New York University</small></b></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75px; +margin:5% auto 5% auto;"> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="75" height="104" +alt="colophon" title="" +style="border:none;" /> +</div> + +<p class="c"><b>NEW YORK<br /> +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY<br /> +1916</b></p> + +<p class="c"><small>Copyright, 1916, by<br /> +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY</small></p> + +<h3><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Leonardo Da Vinci </td><td align="left"><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="right"><small><small>FACING<br />PAGE</small></small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mona Lisa</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_078">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saint Anne</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_086">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">John the Baptist</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_094">94</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h1><a name="LEONARDO_DA_VINCI" id="LEONARDO_DA_VINCI"></a>LEONARDO DA VINCI</h1> + +<p><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<table border="3" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td>Chapters: <b><a href="#I">I</a>,</b> +<b><a href="#II">II</a>,</b> +<b><a href="#III">III</a>,</b> +<b><a href="#IV">IV</a>,</b> +<b><a href="#V">V</a>,</b> +<b><a href="#VI">VI</a></b> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h3> + +<p>W<small>HEN</small> psychoanalytic investigation, which usually contents itself with +frail human material, approaches the great personages of humanity, it is +not impelled to it by motives which are often attributed to it by +laymen. It does not strive "to blacken the radiant and to drag the +sublime into the mire"; it finds no satisfaction in diminishing the +distance between the perfection of the great and the inadequacy of the +ordinary objects. But it cannot help finding that everything is worthy +of understanding that can be perceived through those prototypes, and it +also believes that none is so big as to be ashamed of being subject to +the laws which control the normal and morbid actions with the same +strictness.</p> + +<p>Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was admired<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> even by his contemporaries as +one of the greatest men of the Italian Renaissance, still even then he +appeared as mysterious to them as he now appears to us. An all-sided +genius, "whose form can only be divined but never deeply fathomed,"<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +he exerted the most decisive influence on his time as an artist; and it +remained to us to recognize his greatness as a naturalist which was +united in him with the artist. Although he left masterpieces of the art +of painting, while his scientific discoveries remained unpublished and +unused, the investigator in him has never quite left the artist, often +it has severely injured the artist and in the end it has perhaps +suppressed the artist altogether. According to Vasari, Leonardo +reproached himself during the last hour of his life for having insulted +God and men because he has not done his duty to his art.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> And even if +Vasari's story lacks all probability and belongs to those legends which +began to be woven about the mystic master while he was still living,<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> it +nevertheless retains indisputable value as a testimonial of the judgment +of those people and of those times.</p> + +<p>What was it that removed the personality of Leonardo from the +understanding of his contemporaries? Certainly not the many sidedness of +his capacities and knowledge, which allowed him to install himself as a +player of the lyre on an instrument invented by himself, in the court of +Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il Moro, the Duke of Milan, or which allowed +him to write to the same person that remarkable letter in which he +boasts of his abilities as a civil and military engineer. For the +combination of manifold talents in the same person was not unusual in +the times of the Renaissance; to be sure Leonardo himself furnished one +of the most splendid examples of such persons. Nor did he belong to that +type of genial persons who are outwardly poorly endowed by nature, and +who on their side place no value on the outer forms of life, and in the +painful gloominess of their feelings fly from human relations. On the +contrary he was tall and symmetrically built, of consummate beauty of<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> +countenance and of unusual physical strength, he was charming in his +manner, a master of speech, and jovial and affectionate to everybody. He +loved beauty in the objects of his surroundings, he was fond of wearing +magnificent garments and appreciated every refinement of conduct. In his +treatise<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> on the art of painting he compares in a significant passage +the art of painting with its sister arts and thus discusses the +difficulties of the sculptor: "Now his face is entirely smeared and +powdered with marble dust, so that he looks like a baker, he is covered +with small marble splinters, so that it seems as if it snowed on his +back, and his house is full of stone splinters, and dust. The case of +the painter is quite different from that; for the painter is well +dressed and sits with great comfort before his work, he gently and very +lightly brushes in the beautiful colors. He wears as decorative clothes +as he likes, and his house is filled with beautiful paintings and is +spotlessly clean. He often enjoys company, music, or some one may<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> read +for him various nice works, and all this can be listened to with great +pleasure, undisturbed by any pounding from the hammer and other noises."</p> + +<p>It is quite possible that the conception of a beaming jovial and happy +Leonardo was true only for the first and longer period of the master's +life. From now on, when the downfall of the rule of Lodovico Moro forced +him to leave Milan, his sphere of action and his assured position, to +lead an unsteady and unsuccessful life until his last asylum in France, +it is possible that the luster of his disposition became pale and some +odd features of his character became more prominent. The turning of his +interest from his art to science which increased with age must have also +been responsible for widening the gap between himself and his +contemporaries. All his efforts with which, according to their opinion, +he wasted his time instead of diligently filling orders and becoming +rich as perhaps his former classmate Perugino, seemed to his +contemporaries as capricious playing, or even caused them to suspect him +of being in the service of the "black<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> art." We who know him from his +sketches understand him better. In a time in which the authority of the +church began to be substituted by that of antiquity and in which only +theoretical investigation existed, he the forerunner, or better the +worthy competitor of Bacon and Copernicus, was necessarily isolated. +When he dissected cadavers of horses and human beings, and built flying +apparatus, or when he studied the nourishment of plants and their +behavior towards poisons, he naturally deviated much from the +commentators of Aristotle and came nearer the despised alchemists, in +whose laboratories the experimental investigations found some refuge +during these unfavorable times.</p> + +<p>The effect that this had on his paintings was that he disliked to handle +the brush, he painted less and what was more often the case, the things +he began were mostly left unfinished; he cared less and less for the +future fate of his works. It was this mode of working that was held up +to him as a reproach from his contemporaries to whom his behavior to his +art remained a riddle.<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<p>Many of Leonardo's later admirers have attempted to wipe off the stain +of unsteadiness from his character. They maintained that what is blamed +in Leonardo is a general characteristic of great artists. They said that +even the energetic Michelangelo who was absorbed in his work left many +incompleted works, which was as little due to his fault as to Leonardo's +in the same case. Besides some pictures were not as unfinished as he +claimed, and what the layman would call a masterpiece may still appear +to the creator of the work of art as an unsatisfied embodiment of his +intentions; he has a faint notion of a perfection which he despairs of +reproducing in likeness. Least of all should the artist be held +responsible for the fate which befalls his works.</p> + +<p>As plausible as some of these excuses may sound they nevertheless do not +explain the whole state of affairs which we find in Leonardo. The +painful struggle with the work, the final flight from it and the +indifference to its future fate may be seen in many other artists, but +this behavior is shown in Leonardo to highest<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> degree. Edm. Solmi<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +cites (p. 12) the expression of one of his pupils: "Pareva, che ad ogni +ora tremasse, quando si poneva a dipingere, e per no diede mai fine ad +alcuna cosa cominciata, considerando la grandezza dell'arte, tal che +egli scorgeva errori in quelle cose, che ad altri parevano miracoli." +His last pictures, Leda, the Madonna di Saint Onofrio, Bacchus and St. +John the Baptist, remained unfinished "come quasi intervenne di tutte le +cose sue." Lomazzo,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> who finished a copy of The Holy Supper, refers in +a sonnet to the familiar inability of Leonardo to finish his works:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Protogen che il penel di sue pitture</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Non levava, agguaglio il Vinci Divo,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Di cui opra non finita pure."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The slowness with which Leonardo worked was proverbial. After the most +thorough preliminary studies he painted The Holy Supper for three years +in the cloister of Santa Maria<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> delle Grazie in Milan. One of his +contemporaries, Matteo Bandelli, the writer of novels, who was then a +young monk in the cloister, relates that Leonardo often ascended the +scaffold very early in the morning and did not leave the brush out of +his hand until twilight, never thinking of eating or drinking. Then days +passed without putting his hand on it, sometimes he remained for hours +before the painting and derived satisfaction from studying it by +himself. At other times he came directly to the cloister from the palace +of the Milanese Castle where he formed the model of the equestrian +statue for Francesco Sforza, in order to add a few strokes with the +brush to one of the figures and then stopped immediately.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> According +to Vasari he worked for years on the portrait of Monna Lisa, the wife of +the Florentine de Gioconda, without being able to bring it to +completion. This circumstance may also account for the fact that it was +never delivered to the one who ordered it but remained with Leonardo who +took it with him to<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> France.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Having been procured by King Francis I, +it now forms one of the greatest treasures of the Louvre.</p> + +<p>When one compares these reports about Leonardo's way of working with the +evidence of the extraordinary amount of sketches and studies left by +him, one is bound altogether to reject the idea that traits of +flightiness and unsteadiness exerted the slightest influence on +Leonardo's relation to his art. On the contrary one notices a very +extraordinary absorption in work, a richness in possibilities in which a +decision could be reached only hestitatingly, claims which could hardly +be satisfied, and an inhibition in the execution which could not even be +explained by the inevitable backwardness of the artist behind his ideal +purpose. The slowness which was striking in Leonardo's works from the +very beginning proved to be a symptom of his inhibition, a forerunner of +his turning away from painting which manifested itself later.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> It was +this<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> slowness which decided the not undeserving fate of The Holy +Supper. Leonardo could not take kindly to the art of fresco painting +which demands quick work while the background is still moist, it was for +this reason that he chose oil colors, the drying of which permitted him +to complete the picture according to his mood and leisure. But these +colors separated themselves from the background upon which they were +painted and which isolated them from the brick wall; the blemishes of +this wall and the vicissitudes to which the room was subjected seemingly +contributed to the inevitable deterioration of the picture.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>The picture of the cavalry battle of Anghiari, which in competition with +Michelangelo he began to paint later on a wall of the Sala de Consiglio +in Florence and which he also left in an unfinished state, seemed to +have perished through the failure of a similar technical process. It +seems here as if a peculiar interest, that of the experimenter, at first +renforced the artistic, only later to damage the art production.<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></p> + +<p>The character of the man Leonardo evinces still some other unusual +traits and apparent contradictions. Thus a certain inactivity and +indifference seemed very evident in him. At a time when every individual +sought to gain the widest latitude for his activity, which could not +take place without the development of energetic aggression towards +others, he surprised every one through his quiet peacefulness, his +shunning of all competition and controversies. He was mild and kind to +all, he was said to have rejected a meat diet because he did not +consider it just to rob animals of their lives, and one of his special +pleasures was to buy caged birds in the market and set them free.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> He +condemned war and bloodshed and designated man not so much as the king +of the animal world, but rather as the worst of the wild beasts.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But +this effeminate delicacy of feeling did not prevent him from +accompanying<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> condemned criminals on their way to execution in order to +study and sketch in his notebook their features, distorted by fear, nor +did it prevent him from inventing the most cruel offensive weapons, and +from entering the service of Cesare Borgia as chief military engineer. +Often he seemed to be indifferent to good and evil, or he had to be +measured with a special standard. He held a high position in Cesare's +campaign which gained for this most inconsiderate and most faithless of +foes the possession of the Romagna. Not a single line of Leonardo's +sketches betrays any criticism or sympathy of the events of those days. +The comparison with Goethe during the French campaign cannot here be +altogether rejected.</p> + +<p>If a biographical effort really endeavors to penetrate the understanding +of the psychic life of its hero it must not, as happens in most +biographies through discretion or prudery, pass over in silence the +sexual activity or the sex peculiarity of the one examined. What we know +about it in Leonardo is very little but full of significance. In a +period where there was a constant struggle between riotous +licentiousness<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> and gloomy asceticism, Leonardo presented an example of +cool sexual rejection which one would not expect in an artist and a +portrayer of feminine beauty. Solmi<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> cites the following sentence +from Leonardo showing his frigidity: "The act of procreation and +everything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human +beings would soon die out if it were not a traditional custom and if +there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions." His posthumous +works which not only treat of the greatest scientific problems but also +comprise the most guileless objects which to us do not seem worthy of so +great a mind (an allegorical natural history, animal fables, witticisms, +prophecies),<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> are chaste to a degree—one might say abstinent—that +in a work of <i>belle lettres</i> would excite wonder even to-day. They evade +everything sexual so thoroughly, as if Eros alone who preserves +everything living was no worthy material for the scientific<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> impulse of +the investigator.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> It is known how frequently great artists found +pleasure in giving vent to their phantasies in erotic and even grossly +obscene representations; in contradistinction to this Leonardo left only +some anatomical drawings of the woman's internal genitals, the position +of the child in the womb, etc.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful whether Leonardo ever embraced a woman in love, nor is it +known that he ever entertained an intimate spiritual relation with a +woman as in the case of Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna. While he +still lived as an apprentice in the house of his master Verrocchio, he +with other young men were accused of forbidden homosexual relations +which ended in his acquittal. It seems that he came into this suspicion +because he employed as a model a boy of evil repute.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> When he was a +master he surrounded himself with handsome<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> boys and youths whom he took +as pupils. The last of these pupils Francesco Melzi, accompanied him to +France, remained with him until his death, and was named by him as his +heir. Without sharing the certainty of his modern biographers, who +naturally reject the possibility of a sexual relation between himself +and his pupils as a baseless insult to this great man, it may be thought +by far more probable that the affectionate relationships of Leonardo to +the young men did not result in sexual activity. Nor should one +attribute to him a high measure of sexual activity.</p> + +<p>The peculiarity of this emotional and sexual life viewed in connection +with Leonardo's double nature as an artist and investigator can be +grasped only in one way. Of the biographers to whom psychological +viewpoints are often very foreign, only one, Edm. Solmi, has to my +knowledge approached the solution of the riddle. But a writer, Dimitri +Sergewitsch Merejkowski, who selected Leonardo as the hero of a great +historical novel has based his delineation on such an understanding of +this unusual man, and if not in dry<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> words he gave unmistakable +utterance in plastic expression in the manner of a poet.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Solmi +judges Leonardo as follows: "But the unrequited desire to understand +everything surrounding him, and with cold reflection to discover the +deepest secret of everything that is perfect, has condemned Leonardo's +works to remain forever unfinished."<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> In an essay of the Conferenze +Fiorentine the utterances of Leonardo are cited, which show his +confession of faith and furnish the key to his character.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"<i>Nessuna cosa si pu amare n odiare, se</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .5em;"><i>prima no si ha cognition di quella.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>That is: One has no right to love or to hate anything if one has not +acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature. And the same is repeated by +Leonardo in a passage of the Treaties on the Art of Painting where he +seems<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> to defend himself against the accusation of irreligiousness:</p> + +<p>"But such censurers might better remain silent. For that action is the +manner of showing the workmaster so many wonderful things, and this is +the way to love so great a discoverer. For, verily great love springs +from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it +you will be able to love it only little or not at all."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>The value of these utterances of Leonardo cannot be found in that they +impart to us an important psychological fact, for what they maintain is +obviously false, and Leonardo must have known this as well as we do. It +is not true that people refrain from loving or hating until they have +studied and became familiar with the nature of the object to whom they +wish to give these affects, on the contrary they love impulsively and +are guided by emotional motives which have nothing to do with cognition +and whose affects are weakened, if anything, by thought and reflection. +Leonardo<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> only could have implied that the love practiced by people is +not of the proper and unobjectionable kind, one should so love as to +hold back the affect and to subject it to mental elaboration, and only +after it has stood the test of the intellect should free play be given +to it. And we thereby understand that he wishes to tell us that this was +the case with himself and that it would be worth the effort of everybody +else to treat love and hatred as he himself does.</p> + +<p>And it seems that in his case it was really so. His affects were +controlled and subjected to the investigation impulse, he neither loved +nor hated, but questioned himself whence does that arise, which he was +to love or hate, and what does it signify, and thus he was at first +forced to appear indifferent to good and evil, to beauty and ugliness. +During this work of investigation love and hatred threw off their +designs and uniformly changed into intellectual interest. As a matter of +fact Leonardo was not dispassionate, he did not lack the divine spark +which is the mediate or immediate motive power—<i>il primo motore</i>—of +all human activity. He only transmuted his passion into +inquisitiveness.<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> He then applied himself to study with that +persistence, steadiness, and profundity which comes from passion, and on +the height of the psychic work, after the cognition was won, he allowed +the long checked affect to break loose and to flow off freely like a +branch of a stream, after it has accomplished its work. At the height of +his cognition when he could examine a big part of the whole he was +seized with a feeling of pathos, and in ecstatic words he praised the +grandeur of that part of creation which he studied, or—in religious +cloak—the greatness of the creator. Solmi has correctly divined this +process of transformation in Leonardo. According to the quotation of +such a passage, in which Leonardo celebrated the higher impulse of +nature ("O mirabile necessita ... ") he said: "Tale trasfigurazione +della scienza della natura in emozione, quasi direi, religiosa, uno +dei tratti caratteristici de manoscritti vinciani, e si trova cento e +cento volte espressa...."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a></p> + +<p>Leonardo was called the Italian Faust on account of his insatiable and +indefatigable desire for investigation. But even if we disregard the +fact that it is the possible retransformation of the desire for +investigation into the joys of life which is presupposed in the Faust +tragedy, one might venture to remark that Leonardo's system recalls +Spinoza's mode of thinking.</p> + +<p>The transformation of psychic motive power into the different forms of +activity is perhaps as little convertible without loss, as in the case +of physical powers. Leonardo's example teaches how many other things one +must follow up in these processes. Not to love before one gains full +knowledge of the thing loved presupposes a delay which is harmful. When +one finally reaches cognition he neither loves nor hates properly; one +remains beyond love and hatred. One has investigated instead of having +loved. It is perhaps for this reason that Leonardo's life was so much +poorer in love than those of other great men and great artists. The +storming passions of the soul-stirring and consuming kind, in which +others experience the<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> best part of their lives, seem to have missed +him.</p> + +<p>There are still other consequences when one follows Leonardo's dictum. +Instead of acting and producing one just investigates. He who begins to +divine the grandeur of the universe and its needs readily forgets his +own insignificant self. When one is struck with admiration and becomes +truly humble he easily forgets that he himself is a part of that living +force, and that according to the measure of his own personality he has +the right to make an effort to change that destined course of the world, +the world in which the insignificant is no less wonderful and important +than the great.</p> + +<p>Solmi thinks that Leonardo's investigations started with his art,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> he +tried to investigate the attributes and laws of light, of color, of +shades and of perspective so as to be sure of becoming a master in the +imitation of nature and to be able to show the way to others. It<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> is +probable that already at that time he overestimated the value of this +knowledge for the artist. Following the guide-rope of the painter's +need, he was then driven further and further to investigate the objects +of the art of painting, such as animals and plants, and the proportions +of the human body, and to follow the path from their exterior to their +interior structure and biological functions, which really also express +themselves in their appearance and should be depicted in art. And +finally he was pulled along by this overwhelming desire until the +connection was torn from the demands of his art, so that he discovered +the general laws of mechanics and divined the history of the +stratification and fossilization of the Arno-valley, until he could +enter in his book with capital letters the cognition: <i>Il sole non si +move</i> (The sun does not move). His investigations were thus extended +over almost all realms of natural science, in every one of which he was +a discoverer or at least a prophet or forerunner.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> However, his +curiosity continued to be directed to the outer world, something<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> kept +him away from the investigation of the psychic life of men; there was +little room for psychology in the "Academia Vinciana," for which he drew +very artistic and very complicated emblems.</p> + +<p>When he later made the effort to return from his investigations to the +art from which he started he felt that he was disturbed by the new paths +of his interest and by the changed nature of his psychic work. In the +picture he was interested above all in a problem, and behind this one he +saw emerging numerous other problems just as he was accustomed in the +endless and indeterminable investigations of natural history. He was no +longer able to limit his demands, to isolate the work of art, and to +tear it out from that great connection of which he knew it formed part. +After the most exhausting efforts to bring to expression all that was in +him, all that was connected with it in his thoughts, he was forced to +leave it unfinished, or to declare it incomplete.</p> + +<p>The artist had once taken into his service<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> the investigator to assist +him, now the servant was stronger and suppressed his master.</p> + +<p>When we find in the portrait of a person one single impulse very +forcibly developed, as curiosity in the case of Leonardo, we look for +the explanation in a special constitution, concerning its probable +organic determination hardly anything is known. Our psychoanalytic +studies of nervous people lead us to look for two other expectations +which we would like to find verified in every case. We consider it +probable that this very forcible impulse was already active in the +earliest childhood of the person, and that its supreme sway was fixed by +infantile impressions; and we further assume that originally it drew +upon sexual motive powers for its renforcement so that it later can +take the place of a part of the sexual life. Such person would then, +e.g., investigate with that passionate devotion which another would give +to his love, and he could investigate instead of loving. We would +venture the conclusion of a sexual renforcement not only in the impulse +to investigate, but also in most other cases of special intensity of an +impulse.<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a></p> + +<p>Observation of daily life shows us that most persons have the capacity +to direct a very tangible part of their sexual motive powers to their +professional or business activities. The sexual impulse is particularly +suited to yield such contributions because it is endowed with the +capacity of sublimation, i.e., it has the power to exchange its nearest +aim for others of higher value which are not sexual. We consider this +process as proved, if the history of childhood or the psychic +developmental history of a person shows that in childhood this powerful +impulse was in the service of the sexual interest. We consider it a +further corroboration if this is substantiated by a striking stunting in +the sexual life of mature years, as if a part of the sexual activity had +now been replaced by the activity of the predominant impulse.</p> + +<p>The application of these assumptions to the case of the predominant +investigation-impulse seems to be subject to special difficulties, as +one is unwilling to admit that this serious impulse exists in children +or that children show any noteworthy sexual interest. However, these<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> +difficulties are easily obviated. The untiring pleasure in questioning +as seen in little children demonstrates their curiosity, which is +puzzling to the grown-up, as long as he does not understand that all +these questions are only circumlocutions, and that they cannot come to +an end because they replace only one question which the child does not +put. When the child becomes older and gains more understanding this +manifestation of curiosity suddenly disappears. But psychoanalytic +investigation gives us a full explanation in that it teaches us that +many, perhaps most children, at least the most gifted ones, go through a +period beginning with the third year, which may be designated as the +period of <i>infantile sexual investigation</i>. As far as we know, the +curiosity is not awakened spontaneously in children of this age, but is +aroused through the impression of an important experience, through the +birth of a little brother or sister, or through fear of the same +endangered by some outward experience, wherein the child sees a danger +to his egotistic interests. The investigation directs itself to the +question whence children come, as if the<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> child were looking for means +to guard against such undesired event. We were astonished to find that +the child refuses to give credence to the information imparted to it, +e.g., it energetically rejects the mythological and so ingenious +stork-fable, we were astonished to find that its psychic independence +dates from this act of disbelief, that it often feels itself at serious +variance with the grown-ups, and never forgives them for having been +deceived of the truth on this occasion. It investigates in its own way, +it divines that the child is in the mother's womb, and guided by the +feelings of its own sexuality, it formulates for itself theories about +the origin of children from food, about being born through the bowels, +about the rle of the father which is difficult to fathom, and even at +that time it has a vague conception of the sexual act which appears to +the child as something hostile, as something violent. But as its own +sexual constitution is not yet equal to the task of producing children, +his investigation whence come children must also run aground and must be +left in the lurch as unfinished. The impression of this failure at the +first attempt<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> of intellectual independence seems to be of a persevering +and profoundly depressing nature.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>If the period of infantile sexual investigation comes to an end through +an impetus of energetic sexual repression, the early association with +sexual interest may result in three different possibilities for the +future fate of the investigation impulse. The investigation either +shares the fate of the sexuality, the curiosity henceforth remains +inhibited and the free activity of intelligence may become narrowed for +life; this is especially made possible by the powerful religious +inhibition of thought, which is brought about shortly hereafter through +education. This is the type of neurotic inhibition. We know well that +the so acquired mental weakness furnishes effective support for the<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> +outbreak of a neurotic disease. In a second type the intellectual +development is sufficiently strong to withstand the sexual repression +pulling at it. Sometimes after the disappearance of the infantile sexual +investigation, it offers its support to the old association in order to +elude the sexual repression, and the suppressed sexual investigation +comes back from the unconscious as compulsive reasoning, it is naturally +distorted and not free, but forceful enough to sexualize even thought +itself and to accentuate the intellectual operations with the pleasure +and fear of the actual sexual processes. Here the investigation becomes +sexual activity and often exclusively so, the feeling of settling the +problem and of explaining things in the mind is put in place of sexual +gratification. But the indeterminate character of the infantile +investigation repeats itself also in the fact that this reasoning never +ends, and that the desired intellectual feeling of the solution +constantly recedes into the distance. By virtue of a special disposition +the third, which is the most rare and most perfect type, escapes the +inhibition of thought and the compulsive<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> reasoning. Also here sexual +repression takes place, it is unable, however, to direct a partial +impulse of the sexual pleasure into the unconscious, but the libido +withdraws from the fate of the repression by being sublimated from the +beginning into curiosity, and by renforcing the powerful investigation +impulse. Here, too, the investigation becomes more or less compulsive +and a substitute of the sexual activity, but owing to the absolute +difference of the psychic process behind it (sublimation in place of the +emergence from the unconscious) the character of the neurosis does not +manifest itself, the subjection to the original complexes of the +infantile sexual investigation disappears, and the impulse can freely +put itself in the service of the intellectual interest. It takes account +of the sexual repression which made it so strong in contributing to it +sublimated libido, by avoiding all occupation with sexual themes.</p> + +<p>In mentioning the concurrence in Leonardo of the powerful investigation +impulse with the stunting of his sexual life which was limited to the +so-called ideal homosexuality, we feel inclined<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> to consider him as a +model example of our third type. The most essential point of his +character and the secret of it seems to lie in the fact, that after +utilizing the infantile activity of curiosity in the service of sexual +interest he was able to sublimate the greater part of his libido into +the impulse of investigation. But to be sure the proof of this +conception is not easy to produce. To do this we would have to have an +insight into the psychic development of his first childhood years, and +it seems foolish to hope for such material when the reports concerning +his life are so meager and so uncertain; and moreover, when we deal with +information which even persons of our own generation withdraw from the +attention of the observer.</p> + +<p>We know very little concerning Leonardo's youth. He was born in 1452 in +the little city of Vinci between Florence and Empoli; he was an +illegitimate child which was surely not considered a great popular stain +in that time. His father was Ser Piero da Vinci, a notary and descendant +of notaries and farmers, who took their name from the place Vinci; his +mother,<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> a certain Caterina, probably a peasant girl, who later married +another native of Vinci. Nothing else about his mother appears in the +life history of Leonardo, only the writer Merejkowski believed to have +found some traces of her. The only definite information about Leonardo's +childhood is furnished by a legal document from the year 1457, a +register of assessment in which Vinci Leonardo is mentioned among the +members of the family as a five-year-old illegitimate child of Ser +Piero.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> As the marriage of Ser Piero with Donna Albiera remained +childless the little Leonardo could be brought up in his father's house. +He did not leave this house until he entered as apprentice—it is not +known what year—in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1472 +Leonardo's name could already be found in the register of the members of +the "Compagnia dei Pittori." That is all.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h3> + +<p>As far as I know Leonardo only once interspersed in his scientific +descriptions a communication from his childhood. In a passage where he +speaks about the flight of the vulture, he suddenly interrupts himself +in order to follow up a memory from very early years which came to his +mind.</p> + +<p>"<i>It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself +so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early +memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he +opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail +against my lips.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>We have here an infantile memory and to be sure of the strangest sort. +It is strange on account of its content and account of the time of life +in which it was fixed. That a person<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> could retain a memory of the +nursing period is perhaps not impossible, but it can in no way be taken +as certain. But what this memory of Leonardo states, namely, that a +vulture opened the child's mouth with its tail, sounds so improbable, so +fabulous, that another conception which puts an end to the two +difficulties with one stroke appeals much more to our judgment. The +scene of the vulture is not a memory of Leonardo, but a phantasy which +he formed later, and transferred into his childhood. The childhood +memories of persons often have no different origin, as a matter of fact, +they are not fixated from an experience like the conscious memories from +the time of maturity and then repeated, but they are not produced until +a later period when childhood is already past, they are then changed and +disguised and put in the service of later tendencies, so that in general +they cannot be strictly differentiated from phantasies. Their nature +will perhaps be best understood by recalling the manner in which history +writing originated among ancient nations. As long as the nation was +small and weak it gave no thought to the writing of its<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> history, it +tilled the soil of its land, defended its existence against its +neighbors by seeking to wrest land from them and endeavored to become +rich. It was a heroic but unhistoric time. Then came another age, a +period of self-realization in which one felt rich and powerful, and it +was then that one experienced the need to discover whence one originated +and how one developed. The history-writing which then continues to +register the present events throws also its backward glance to the past, +it gathers traditions and legends, it interprets what survived from +olden times into customs and uses, and thus creates a history of past +ages. It is quite natural that this history of the past ages is more the +expressions of opinions and desires of the present than a faithful +picture of the past, for many a thing escaped the people's memory, other +things became distorted, some trace of the past was misunderstood and +interpreted in the sense of the present; and besides one does not write +history through motives of objective curiosity, but because one desires +to impress his contemporaries, to stimulate and extol them, or to hold +the<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> mirror before them. The conscious memory of a person concerning the +experiences of his maturity may now be fully compared to that of history +writing, and his infantile memories, as far as their origin and +reliability are concerned will actually correspond to the history of the +primitive period of a people which was compiled later with purposive +intent.</p> + +<p>Now one may think that if Leonardo's story of the vulture which visited +him in his cradle is only a phantasy of later birth, it is hardly worth +while giving more time to it. One could easily explain it by his openly +avowed inclination to occupy himself with the problem of the flight of +the bird which would lend to this phantasy an air of predetermined fate. +But with this depreciation one commits as great an injustice as if one +would simply ignore the material of legends, traditions, and +interpretations in the primitive history of a people. Notwithstanding +all distortions and misunderstandings to the contrary they still +represent the reality of the past; they represent what the people formed +out of the experiences of its past age under the domination of once +powerful and<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> to-day still effective motives, and if these distortions +could be unraveled through the knowledge of all effective forces, one +would surely discover the historic truth under this legendary material. +The same holds true for the infantile reminiscences or for the +phantasies of individuals. What a person thinks he recalls from his +childhood, is not of an indifferent nature. As a rule the memory +remnants, which he himself does not understand, conceal invaluable +evidences of the most important features of his psychic development. As +the psychoanalytic technique affords us excellent means for bringing to +light this concealed material, we shall venture the attempt to fill the +gaps in the history of Leonardo's life through the analysis of his +infantile phantasy. And if we should not attain a satisfactory degree of +certainty, we will have to console ourselves with the fact that so many +other investigations about this great and mysterious man have met no +better fate.</p> + +<p>When we examine Leonardo's vulture-phantasy with the eyes of a +psychoanalyst then it does not seem strange very long; we recall that we +have often found similar structures in<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> dreams, so that we may venture +to translate this phantasy from its strange language into words that are +universally understood. The translation then follows an erotic +direction. Tail, "coda," is one of the most familiar symbols, as well as +a substitutive designation of the male member which is no less true in +Italian than in other languages. The situation contained in the +phantasy, that a vulture opened the mouth of the child and forcefully +belabored it with its tail, corresponds to the idea of fellatio, a +sexual act in which the member is placed into the mouth of the other +person. Strangely enough this phantasy is altogether of a passive +character; it resembles certain dreams and phantasies of women and of +passive homosexuals who play the feminine part in sexual relations.</p> + +<p>Let the reader be patient for a while and not flare up with indignation +and refuse to follow psychoanalysis because in its very first +applications it leads to an unpardonable slander of the memory of a +great and pure man. For it is quite certain that this indignation will +never solve for us the meaning of Leonardo's childhood<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> phantasy; on the +other hand, Leonardo has unequivocally acknowledged this phantasy, and +we shall therefore not relinquish the expectation—or if you prefer the +preconception—that like every psychic production such as dreams, +visions and deliria this phantasy, too, must have some meaning. Let us +therefore lend our unprejudiced ears for a while to psychoanalytic work +which after all has not yet uttered the last word.</p> + +<p>The desire to take the male member into the mouth and suck it, which is +considered as one of the most disgusting of sexual perversions, is +nevertheless a frequent occurrence among the women of our time—and as +shown in old sculptures was the same in earlier times—and in the state +of being in love seems to lose entirely its disgusting character. The +physician encounters phantasies based on this desire, even in women who +did not come to the knowledge of the possibility of such sexual +gratification by reading <small>V</small>. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis or +through other information. It seems that it is quite easy for the women +themselves to produce such wish-phantasies.<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a><a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Investigation then +teaches us that this situation, so forcibly condemned by custom, may be +traced to the most harmless origin. It is nothing but the elaboration of +another situation in which we all once felt comfort, namely, when we +were in the suckling-age ("when I was still in the cradle") and took the +nipple of our mother's or wet-nurse's breast into our mouth to suck it. +The organic impression of this first pleasure in our lives surely +remains indelibly impregnated; when the child later learns to know the +udder of the cow, which in function is a breast-nipple, but in shape and +in position on the abdomen resembles the penis, it obtains the primary +basis for the later formation of that disgusting sexual phantasy.</p> + +<p>We now understand why Leonardo displaced the memory of the supposed +experience with the vulture to his nursing period. This phantasy +conceals nothing more or less than a reminiscence of nursing—or being +nursed—at the mother's breast, a scene both human and beautiful, which +he as well as other artists undertook<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> to depict with the brush in the +form of the mother of God and her child. At all events, we also wish to +maintain, something we do not as yet understand, that this reminiscence, +equally significant for both sexes, was elaborated in the man Leonardo +into a passive homosexual phantasy. For the present we shall not take up +the question as to what connection there is between homosexuality and +suckling at the mother's breast, we merely wish to recall that tradition +actually designates Leonardo as a person of homosexual feelings. In +considering this, it makes no difference whether that accusation against +the youth Leonardo was justified or not. It is not the real activity but +the nature of the feeling which causes us to decide whether to attribute +to some one the characteristic of homosexuality.</p> + +<p>Another incomprehensible feature of Leonardo's infantile phantasy next +claims our interest. We interpret the phantasy of being wet-nursed by +the mother and find that the mother is replaced by a vulture. Where does +this vulture originate and how does he come into this place?<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a></p> + +<p>A thought now obtrudes itself which seems so remote that one is tempted +to ignore it. In the sacred hieroglyphics of the old Egyptians the +mother is represented by the picture of the vulture.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> These Egyptians +also worshiped a motherly deity, whose head was vulture like, or who had +many heads of which at least one or two was that of a vulture.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> The +name of this goddess was pronounced <i>Mut</i>; we may question whether the +sound similarity to our word mother (Mutter) is only accidental? So the +vulture really has some connection with the mother, but of what help is +that to us? Have we a right to attribute this knowledge to Leonardo when +Franois Champollion first succeeded in reading hieroglyphics between +1790-1832?<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>It would also be interesting to discover in what way the old Egyptians +came to choose the vulture as a symbol of motherhood. As a matter of +fact the religion and culture of Egyptians<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> were subjects of scientific +interest even to the Greeks and Romans, and long before we ourselves +were able to read the Egyptian monuments we had at our disposal some +communications about them from preserved works of classical antiquity. +Some of these writings belonged to familiar authors like Strabo, +Plutarch, Aminianus Marcellus, and some bear unfamiliar names and are +uncertain as to origin and time, like the hieroglyphica of Horapollo +Nilus, and like the traditional book of oriental priestly wisdom bearing +the godly name Hermes Trismegistos. From these sources we learn that the +vulture was a symbol of motherhood because it was thought that this +species of birds had only female vultures and no males.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The natural +history of the ancients shows a counterpart to this limitation among the +scarebus beetles which were revered by the Egyptians as godly, no +females were supposed to exist.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a></p> + +<p>But how does impregnation take place in vultures if only females exist? +This is fully answered in a passage of Horapollo.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> At a certain time +these birds stop in the midst of their flight, open their vagina and are +impregnated by the wind.</p> + +<p>Unexpectedly we have now reached a point where we can take something as +quite probable which only shortly before we had to reject as absurd. It +is quite possible that Leonardo was well acquainted with the scientific +fable, according to which the Egyptians represented the idea of mother +with the picture of the vulture. He was an omnivorous reader whose +interest comprised all spheres of literature and knowledge. In the Codex +Atlanticus we find an index of all books which he possessed at a certain +time,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> as well as numerous notices about other books which he +borrowed from friends, and according to the excerpts which Fr. +Richter<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> compiled from his drawings we can<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> hardly overestimate the +extent of his reading. Among these books there was no lack of older as +well as contemporary works treating of natural history. All these books +were already in print at that time, and it so happens that Milan was the +principal place of the young art of book printing in Italy.</p> + +<p>When we proceed further we come upon a communication which may raise to +a certainty the probability that Leonardo knew the vulture fable. The +erudite editor and commentator of Horapollo remarked in connection with +the text (p. 172) cited before: <i>Caeterum hanc fabulam de vulturibus +cupide amplexi sunt Patres Ecclesiastici, ut ita argumento ex rerum +natura petito refutarent eos, qui Virginis partum negabant; itaque apud +omnes fere hujus rei mentio occurit.</i></p> + +<p>Hence the fable of the monosexuality and the conception of the vulture +by no means remained as an indifferent anecdote as in the case of the +analogous fable of the scarebus beetles; that church fathers mastered +it in order to have it ready as an argument from natural history against +those who doubted the sacred history.<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> If according the best information +from antiquity the vultures were directed to let themselves be +impregnated by the wind, why should the same thing not have happened +even once in a human female? On account of this use the church fathers +were "almost all" in the habit of relating this vulture fable, and now +it can hardly remain doubtful that it also became known to Leonardo +through so powerful a source.</p> + +<p>The origin of Leonardo's vulture phantasy can be conceived in the +following manner: While reading in the writings of a church father or in +a book on natural science that the vultures are all females and that +they know to procreate without the coperation of a male, a memory +emerged in him which became transformed into that phantasy, but which +meant to say that he also had been such a vulture child, which had a +mother but no father. An echo of pleasure which he experienced at his +mother's breast was added to this in the manner as so old impressions +alone can manifest themselves. The allusion to the idea of the holy +virgin with the child, formed by the authors,<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> which is so dear to every +artist, must have contributed to it to make this phantasy seem to him +valuable and important. For this helped him to identify himself with the +Christ child, the comforter and savior of not alone this one woman.</p> + +<p>When we break up an infantile phantasy we strive to separate the real +memory content from the later motives which modify and distort the same. +In the case of Leonardo we now think that we know the real content of +the phantasy. The replacement of the mother by the vulture indicates +that the child missed the father and felt himself alone with his mother. +The fact of Leonardo's illegitimate birth fits in with his vulture +phantasy; only on account of it was he able to compare himself with a +vulture child. But we have discovered as the next definite fact from his +youth that at the age of five years he had already been received in his +father's home; when this took place, whether a few months following his +birth, or a few weeks before the taking of the assessment of taxes, is +entirely unknown to us. The interpretation of the vulture phantasy then +steps in and wants<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> to tell us that Leonardo did not spend the first +decisive years of his life with his father and his step-mother but with +his poor, forsaken, real mother, so that he had time to miss his father. +This still seems to be a rather meager and rather daring result of the +psychoanalytic effort, but on further reflection it will gain in +significance. Certainty will be promoted by mentioning the actual +relations in Leonardo's childhood. According to the reports, his father +Ser Piero da Vinci married the prominent Donna Albiera during the year +of Leonardo's birth; it was to the childlessness of this marriage that +the boy owed his legalized reception into his father's or rather +grandfather's house during his fifth year. However, it is not customary +to offer an illegitimate offspring to a young woman's care at the +beginning of marriage when she is still expecting to be blessed with +children. Years of disappointment must have elapsed before it was +decided to adopt the probably handsomely developed illegitimate child as +a compensation for legitimate children who were vainly hoped for. It +harmonizes best with the interpretation of the vulture-phantasy,<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> if at +least three years or perhaps five years of Leonardo's life had elapsed +before he changed from his lonely mother to his father's home. But then +it had already become too late. In the first three or four years of life +impressions are fixed and modes of reactions are formed towards the +outer world which can never be robbed of their importance by any later +experiences.</p> + +<p>If it is true that the incomprehensible childhood reminiscences and the +person's phantasies based on them always bring out the most significant +of his psychic development, then the fact corroborated by the vulture +phantasy, that Leonardo passed the first years of his life alone with +his mother must have been a most decisive influence on the formation of +his inner life. Under the effect of this constellation it could not have +been otherwise than that the child which in his young life encountered +one problem more than other children, should have begun to ponder very +passionately over this riddle and thus should have become an +investigator early in life. For he was tortured by the great questions +where do children come from<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> and what has the father to do with their +origin. The vague knowledge of this connection between his investigation +and his childhood history has later drawn from him the exclamation that +it was destined that he should deeply occupy himself with the problem of +the bird's flight, for already in his cradle he had been visited by a +vulture. To trace the curiosity which is directed to the flight of the +bird to the infantile sexual investigation will be a later task which +will not be difficult to accomplish.<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h3> + +<p>The element of the vulture represents to us the real memory content in +Leonardo's childhood phantasy; the association into which Leonardo +himself placed his phantasy threw a bright light on the importance of +this content for his later life. In continuing the work of +interpretation we now encounter the strange problem why this memory +content was elaborated into a homosexual situation. The mother who +nursed the child, or rather from whom the child suckled was transformed +into a vulture which stuck its tail into the child's mouth. We maintain +that the "coda" (tail) of the vulture, following the common substituting +usages of language, cannot signify anything else but a male genital or +penis. But we do not understand how the phantastic activity came to +furnish precisely this maternal bird with the mark of masculinity, and +in view of<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> this absurdity we become confused at the possibility of +reducing this phantastic structure to rational sense.</p> + +<p>However, we must not despair. How many seemingly absurd dreams have we +not forced to give up their sense! Why should it become more difficult +to accomplish this in a childhood phantasy than in a dream!</p> + +<p>Let us remember the fact that it is not good to find one isolated +peculiarity, and let us hasten to add another to it which is still more +striking.</p> + +<p>The vulture-headed goddess <i>Mut</i> of the Egyptians, a figure of +altogether impersonal character, as expressed by Drexel in Roscher's +lexicon, was often fused with other maternal deities of living +individuality like Isis and Hathor, but she retained besides her +separate existence and reverence. It was especially characteristic of +the Egyptian pantheon that the individual gods did not perish in this +amalgamation. Besides the composition of deities the simple divine image +remained in her independence. In most representations the vulture-headed +maternal deity was formed by the<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> Egyptians in a phallic manner,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> her +body which was distinguished as feminine by its breasts also bore the +masculine member in a state of erection.</p> + +<p>The goddess Mut thus evinced the same union of maternal and paternal +characteristics as in Leonardo's vulture phantasy. Should we explain +this concurrence by the assumption that Leonardo knew from studying his +book the androgynous nature of the maternal vulture? Such possibility is +more than questionable; it seems that the sources accessible to him +contained nothing of remarkable determination. It is more likely that +here as there the agreement is to be traced to a common, effective and +unknown motive.</p> + +<p>Mythology can teach us that the androgynous formation, the union of +masculine and feminine sex characteristics, did not belong to the +goddess Mut alone but also to other deities such as Isis and Hathor, but +in the latter perhaps only insofar as they possessed also a motherly +nature and became fused with the goddess Mut.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> It teaches us further +that<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> other Egyptian deities such as Neith of Sais out of whom the Greek +Athene was later formed, were originally conceived as androgynous or +dihermaphroditic, and that the same held true for many of the Greek +gods, especially of the Dionysian circle, as well as for Aphrodite who +was later restricted to a feminine love deity. Mythology may also offer +the explanation that the phallus which was added to the feminine body +was meant to denote the creative primitive force of nature, and that all +these hermaphroditic deistic formations express the idea that only a +union of the masculine and feminine elements can result in a worthy +representation of divine perfection. But none of these observations +explain the psychological riddle, namely, that the phantasy of men takes +no offense at the fact that a figure which was to embody the essence of +the mother should be provided with the mark of the masculine power which +is the opposite of motherhood.</p> + +<p>The explanation comes from the infantile sexual theories. There really +was a time in which the male genital was found to be compatible<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> with +the representation of the mother. When the male child first directs his +curiosity to the riddle of the sexual life, he is dominated by the +interest for his own genitals. He finds this part of the body too +valuable and too important to believe that it would be missing in other +persons to whom he feels such a resemblance. As he cannot divine that +there is still another equally valuable type of genital formation he +must grasp the assumption that all persons, also women, possess such a +member as he. This preconception is so firm in the youthful investigator +that it is not destroyed even by the first observation of the genitals +in little girls. His perception naturally tells him that there is +something different here than in him, but he is unable to admit to +himself as the content of this perception that he cannot find this +member in girls. That this member may be missing is to him a dismal and +unbearable thought, and he therefore seeks to reconcile it by deciding +that it also exists in girls but it is still very small and that it will +grow later.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> If this expectation does not appear to be fulfilled on +later observation he has at his disposal another way of escape. The +member also existed in the little girl but it was cut off and on its +place there remained a wound. This progress of the theory already makes +use of his own painful experience; he was threatened in the meantime +that this important organ will be taken away from him if it will form +too much of an interest for his occupation. Under the influence of this +threat of castration he now interprets his conception of the female +genital, henceforth he will tremble for his masculinity, but at the same +time he will look with contempt upon those unhappy creatures upon whom, +in his opinion, this cruel punishment had already been visited.</p> + +<p>Before the child came under the domination of the castration complex, at +the time when he still held the woman at her full value, he began to +manifest an intensive desire to look as an erotic activity of his +impulse. He wished to see the genitals of other persons, originally +probably because he wished to compare them with his own. The erotic +attraction which<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> emanated from the person of his mother soon reached +its height in the longing to see her genital which he believed to be a +penis. With the cognition acquired only later that the woman has no +penis, this longing often becomes transformed into its opposite and +gives place to disgust, which in the years of puberty may become the +cause of psychic impotence, of misogyny and of lasting homosexuality. +But the fixation on the once so vividly desired object, the penis of the +woman, leaves ineradicable traces in the psychic life of the child, +which has gone through that fragment of infantile sexual investigation +with particular thoroughness. The fetich-like reverence for the feminine +foot and shoe seems to take the foot only as a substitutive symbol for +the once revered and since then missed member of the woman. The +"braid-slashers" without knowing it play the part of persons who perform +the act of castration on the female genital.</p> + +<p>One will not gain any correct understanding of the activities of the +infantile sexuality and probably will consider these communications +unworthy of belief, as long as one does not relinquish<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> the attitude of +our cultural depreciation of the genitals and of the sexual functions in +general. To understand the infantile psychic life one has to look to +analogies from primitive times. For a long series of generations we have +been in the habit of considering the genitals or <i>pudenda</i> as objects of +shame, and in the case of more successful sexual repression as objects +of disgust. The majority of those living to-day only reluctantly obey +the laws of propagation, feeling thereby that their human dignity is +being offended and degraded. What exists among us of the other +conception of the sexual life is found only in the uncultivated and in +the lower social strata; among the higher and more refined types it is +concealed as culturally inferior, and its activity is ventured only +under the embittered admonition of a guilty conscience. It was quite +different in the primitive times of the human race. From the laborious +collections of students of civilization one gains the conviction that +the genitals were originally the pride and hope of living beings, they +enjoyed divine worship, and the divine nature of their functions was +transported<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> to all newly acquired activities of mankind. Through +sublimation of its essential elements there arose innumerable +god-figures, and at the time when the relation of official religions +with sexual activity was already hidden from the general consciousness, +secret cults labored to preserve it alive among a number of the +initiated. In the course of cultural development it finally happened +that so much godliness and holiness had been extracted from sexuality +that the exhausted remnant fell into contempt. But considering the +indestructibility which is in the nature of all psychic impressions one +need not wonder that even the most primitive forms of genital worship +could be demonstrated until quite recent times, and that language, +customs and superstitions of present day humanity contain the remnants +of all phases of this course of development.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<p>Important biological analogies have taught us that the psychic +development of the individual is a short repetition of the course of +development of the race, and we shall therefore not find improbable what +the psychoanalytic investigation<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> of the child's psyche asserts +concerning the infantile estimation of the genitals. The infantile +assumption of the maternal penis is thus the common source of origin for +the androgynous formation of the maternal deities like the Egyptian +goddess Mut and the vulture's "coda" (tail) in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. As a matter of fact, it is only through misunderstanding that +these deistic representations are designated hermaphroditic in the +medical sense of the word. In none of them is there a union of the true +genitals of both sexes as they are united in some deformed beings to the +disgust of every human eye; but besides the breast as a mark of +motherhood there is also the male member, just as it existed in the +first imagination of the child about his mother's body. Mythology has +retained for the faithful this revered and very early fancied bodily +formation of the mother. The prominence given to the vulture-tail in +Leonardo's phantasy we can now translate as follows: At that time when I +directed my tender curiosity to my mother I still adjudged to her a +genital like my own. A further testimonial<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> of Leonardo's precocious +sexual investigation, which in our opinion became decisive for his +entire life.</p> + +<p>A brief reflection now admonishes us that we should not be satisfied +with the explanation of the vulture-tail in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. It seems as if it contained more than we as yet understand. +For its more striking feature really consisted in the fact that the +nursing at the mother's breast was transformed into being nursed, that +is into a passive act which thus gives the situation an undoubted +homosexual character. Mindful of the historical probability that +Leonardo behaved in life as a homosexual in feeling, the question +obtrudes itself whether this phantasy does not point to a causal +connection between Leonardo's childhood relations to his mother and the +later manifest, if only ideal, homosexuality. We would not venture to +draw such conclusion from Leonardo's disfigured reminiscence were it not +for the fact that we know from our psychoanalytic investigation of +homosexual patients that such a relation exists, indeed it really is an +intimate and necessary relation.<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a></p> + +<p>Homosexual men who have started in our times an energetic action against +the legal limitations of their sexual activity are fond of representing +themselves through theoretical spokesmen as evincing a sexual variation, +which may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate +stage of sex or as "a third sex." In other words, they maintain that +they are men who are forced by organic determinants originating in the +germ to find that pleasure in the man which they cannot feel in the +woman. As much as one would wish to subscribe to their demands out of +humane considerations, one must nevertheless exercise reserve regarding +their theories which were formulated without regard for the psychic +genesis of homosexuality. Psychoanalysis offers the means to fill this +gap and to put to test the assertions of the homosexuals. It is true +that psychoanalysis fulfilled this task in only a small number of +people, but all investigation thus far undertaken brought the same +surprising results.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> In all our male homosexuals<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> there was a very +intensive erotic attachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the +mother, which was manifest in the very first period of childhood and +later entirely forgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced +or favored by too much love from the mother herself, but was also +furthered by the retirement or absence of the father during the +childhood period. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers of his +homosexual patients were often man-women, or women with energetic traits +of character who were able to crowd out the father from the place +allotted to him in the family. I have sometimes observed the same thing, +but I was more impressed by those cases in which the father was absent +from the beginning or disappeared early so that the boy was altogether +under feminine influence. It almost seems that the presence of a strong +father would assure for the son the proper decision in the selection of +his object from the opposite sex.<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a></p> + +<p>Following this primary stage, a transformation takes place whose +mechanisms we know but whose motive forces we have not yet grasped. The +love of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it +merges into repression. The boy represses the love for the mother by +putting himself in her place, by identifying himself with her, and by +taking his own person as a model through the similarity of which he is +guided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual; +as a matter of fact he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the boys +whom the growing adult now loves are only substitutive persons or +revivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as +his mother loved him. We say that he finds his love object on the road +to narcism, for the Greek legend called a boy Narcissus to whom nothing +was more pleasing than his own mirrored image, and who became +transformed into a beautiful flower of this name.</p> + +<p>Deeper psychological discussions justify the assertion that the person +who becomes homosexual in this manner remains fixed in his unconscious<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> +on the memory picture or his mother, By repressing the love for his +mother he conserves the same in his unconscious and henceforth remains +faithful to her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus +runs away from women who could cause him to become faithless to his +mother. Through direct observation of individual cases we could +demonstrate that he who is seemingly receptive only of masculine stimuli +is in reality influenced by the charms emanating from women just like a +normal person, but each and every time he hastens to transfer the +stimulus he received from the woman to a male object and in this manner +he repeats again and again the mechanism through which he acquired his +homosexuality.</p> + +<p>It is far from us to exaggerate the importance of these explanations +concerning the psychic genesis of homosexuality. It is quite clear that +they are in crass opposition to the official theories of the homosexual +spokesmen, but we are aware that these explanations are not sufficiently +comprehensive to render possible a final explanation of the problem. +What<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> one calls homosexual for practical purposes may have its origin in +a variety of psychosexual inhibiting processes, and the process +recognized by us is perhaps only one among many, and has reference only +to one type of "homosexuality." We must also admit, that the number of +cases in our homosexual type which shows the conditions required by us, +exceeds by far those cases in which the resulting effect really appears, +so that even we cannot reject the supposed coperation of unknown +constitutional factors from which one was otherwise wont to deduce the +whole of homosexuality. As a matter of fact there would be no occasion +for entering into the psychic genesis of the form of homosexuality +studied by us if there were not a strong presumption that Leonardo, from +whose vulture-phantasy we started, really belonged to this one type of +homosexuality.</p> + +<p>As little as is known concerning the sexual behavior of the great artist +and investigator, we must still trust to the probability that the +testimonies of his contemporaries did not go far astray. In the light of +this tradition he appears to us as a man whose sexual need and<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> activity +were extraordinarily low, as if a higher striving had raised him above +the common animal need of mankind. It may be open to doubt whether he +ever sought direct sexual gratification, and in what manner, or whether +he could dispense with it altogether. We are justified, however, to look +also in him for those emotional streams which imperatively force others +to the sexual act, for we cannot imagine a human psychic life in whose +development the sexual desire in the broadest sense, the libido, has not +had its share, whether the latter has withdrawn itself far from the +original aim or whether it was detained from being put into execution.</p> + +<p>Anything but traces of unchanged sexual desire we need not expect in +Leonardo. These point however to one direction and allow us to count him +among homosexuals. It has always been emphasized that he took as his +pupils only strikingly handsome boys and youths. He was kind and +considerate towards them, he cared for them and nursed them himself when +they were ill, just like a mother nurses her children, as his own mother +might have cared for<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> him. As he selected them on account of their +beauty rather than their talent, none of them—Cesare da Sesto, G. +Boltraffio, Andrea Salaino, Francesco Melzi and the others—ever became +a prominent artist. Most of them could not make themselves independent +of their master and disappeared after his death without leaving a more +definite physiognomy to the history of art. The others who by their +productions earned the right to call themselves his pupils, as Luini and +Bazzi, nicknamed Sodoma, he probably did not know personally.</p> + +<p>We realize that we will have to face the objection that Leonardo's +behavior towards his pupils surely had nothing to do with sexual +motives, and permits no conclusion as to his sexual peculiarity. Against +this we wish to assert with all caution that our conception explains +some strange features in the master's behavior which otherwise would +have remained enigmatical. Leonardo kept a diary; he made entries in his +small hand, written from right to left which were meant only for +himself. It is to be noted that in this diary he addressed himself with +"thou": "Learn from master Lucca<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> the multiplication of roots."<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> "Let +master d'Abacco show thee the square of the circle."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Or on the +occasion of a journey he entered in his diary:</p> + +<p>"I am going to Milan to look after the affairs of my garden ... order +two pack-sacks to be made. Ask Boltraffio to show thee his turning-lathe +and let him polish a stone on it.—Leave the book to master Andrea il +Todesco."<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Or he wrote a resolution of quite different significance: +"Thou must show in thy treatise that the earth is a star, like the moon +or resembling it, and thus prove the nobility of our world."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>In this diary, which like the diaries of other mortals often skim over +the most important events of the day with only few words or ignore them +altogether, one finds a few entries which on account of their +peculiarity are cited<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> by all of Leonardo's biographers. They show +notations referring to the master's petty expenses, which are recorded +with painful exactitude as if coming from a pedantic and strictly +parsimonious family father, while there is nothing to show that he spent +greater sums, or that the artist was well versed in household +management. One of these notes refers to a new cloak which he bought for +his pupil Andrea Salaino:<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">Silver brocade</td><td align="left">Lira</td><td align="right">15</td><td align="left">Soldi</td><td align="right">4</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Crimson velvet for trimming</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right">9</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right">0</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Braid</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right">0</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right">9</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Buttons</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right">0</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right">12</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Another very detailed notice gives all the expenses which he incurred +through the bad qualities and the thieving tendencies of another pupil +or model: "On 21st day of April, 1490, I started this book and started +again the horse.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> Jacomo came to me on Magdalene day, 1490, at the +age of ten years (marginal note: thievish, mendacious, willful, +gluttonous). On the second day I ordered for him<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> two shirts, a pair of +pants, and a jacket, and as I put the money away to pay for the things +named he stole the money from my purse, and it was never possible to +make him confess, although I was absolutely sure of it (marginal note: 4 +Lira ...)." So the report continues concerning the misdeeds of the +little boy and concludes with the expense account: "In the first year, a +cloak, Lira 2: 6 shirts, Lira 4: 3 jackets, Lira 6: 4 pair of socks, +Lira 7, etc."<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> + +<p>Leonardo's biographers, to whom nothing was further than to solve the +riddle in the psychic life of their hero from these slight weaknesses +and peculiarities, were wont to remark in connection with these peculiar +accounts that they emphasized the kindness and consideration of the +master for his pupils. They forget thereby that it is not Leonardo's +behavior that needs an explanation, but the fact that he left us these +testimonies of it. As it is impossible to ascribe to him the motive of +smuggling into our hands proofs of his kindness, we must assume that +another affective motive caused him to write this down. It is not easy +to conjecture<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> what this motive was, and we could not give any if not +for another account found among Leonardo's papers which throws a +brilliant light on these peculiarly petty notices about his pupils' +clothes, and others of a kind:<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="accounts"> +<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">Burial expenses following the death of Caterina</td><td align="right">27</td><td align="left">florins</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">2 pounds wax</td><td align="right">18</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">Cataphalc</td><td align="right">12</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">For the transportation and erection of the cross</td><td align="right">4</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">Pall bearers</td><td align="right">8</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">To 4 priests and 4 clerics</td><td align="right">20</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">Ringing of bells</td><td align="right">2</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">To grave diggers</td><td align="right">16</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">For the approval—to the officials</td><td align="right">1</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="center">To sum up</td><td align="right" +style="border-top:1px solid black;">108</td><td align="center" style="border-top:1px solid black;">florins</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">Previous expenses:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">To the doctor</td><td align="right">4</td><td align="center">florins</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left">For sugar and candles</td><td align="right">12</td><td align="center">"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" colspan="2"> </td><td align="right">16</td><td align="center">florins</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">Sum total</td><td align="right" +style="border-top:1px solid black;">124</td><td align="center" +style="border-top:1px solid black;">florins</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The writer Merejkowski is the only one who can tell us who this Caterina +was. From two different short notices he concludes that she was the +mother of Leonardo, the poor peasant woman from Vinci, who came to Milan +in 1493 to visit her son then 41 years old. While on this visit she fell +ill and was taken to the hospital by Leonardo, and following her death +she was buried by her son with such sumptuous funeral.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<p>This deduction of the psychological writer of romances is not capable of +proof, but it can lay claim to so many inner probabilities, it agrees so +well with everything we know besides about Leonardo's emotional activity +that I cannot refrain from accepting it as correct. Leonardo succeeded +in forcing his feelings under the yoke<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> of investigation and in +inhibiting their free utterance, but even in him there were episodes in +which the suppression obtained expression, and one of these was the +death of his mother whom he once loved so ardently. Through this account +of the burial expenses he represents to us the mourning of his mother in +an almost unrecognizable distortion. We wonder how such a distortion +could have come about, and we certainly cannot grasp it when viewed +under normal mental processes. But similar mechanisms are familiar to us +under the abnormal conditions of neuroses, and especially in the +so-called <i>compulsion neurosis</i>. Here one can observe how the +expressions of more intensive feelings have been displaced to trivial +and even foolish performances. The opposing forces succeeded in debasing +the expression of these repressed feelings to such an extent that one is +forced to estimate the intensity of these feelings as extremely +unimportant, but the imperative compulsion with which these +insignificant acts express themselves betrays the real force of the +feelings which are rooted in the unconscious, which consciousness would +wish to disavow.<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> Only by bearing in mind the mechanisms of compulsion +neurosis can one explain Leonardo's account of the funeral expenses of +his mother. In his unconscious he was still tied to her as in childhood, +by erotically tinged feelings; the opposition of the repression of this +childhood love which appeared later stood in the way of erecting to her +in his diary a different and more dignified monument, but what resulted +as a compromise of this neurotic conflict had to be put in operation and +hence the account was entered in the diary which thus came to the +knowledge of posterity as something incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>It is not venturing far to transfer the interpretation obtained from the +funeral expenses to the accounts dealing with his pupils. Accordingly we +would say that here also we deal with a case in which Leonardo's meager +remnants of libidinous feelings compulsively obtained a distorted +expression. The mother and the pupils, the very images of his own boyish +beauty, would be his sexual objects—as far as his sexual repression +dominating his nature would allow such manifestations—and the<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> +compulsion to note with painful circumstantiality his expenses on their +behalf, would designate the strange betrayal of his rudimentary +conflicts. From this we would conclude that Leonardo's love-life really +belonged to that type of homosexuality, the psychic development of which +we were able to disclose, and the appearance of the homosexual situation +in his vulture-phantasy would become comprehensible to us, for it states +nothing more or less than what we have asserted before concerning that +type. It requires the following interpretation: Through the erotic +relations to my mother I became a homosexual.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h3> + +<p>The vulture phantasy of Leonardo still absorbs our interest. In words +which only too plainly recall a sexual act ("and has many times struck +against my lips with his tail"), Leonardo emphasizes the intensity of +the erotic relations between the mother and the child. A second memory +content of the phantasy can readily be conjectured from the association +of the activity of the mother (of the vulture) with the accentuation of +the mouth zone. We can translate it as follows: My mother has pressed on +my mouth innumerable passionate kisses. The phantasy is composed of the +memories of being nursed and of being kissed by the mother.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"> +<img src="images/ill_monalisa.jpg" width="368" height="550" alt="MONA LISA" title="" /> +<p class="caption">MONA LISA</p> +</div> + +<p>A kindly nature has bestowed upon the artist the capacity to express in +artistic productions his most secret psychic feelings hidden even to +himself, which powerfully affect outsiders who<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> are strangers to the +artist without their being able to state whence this emotivity comes. +Should there be no evidence in Leonardo's work of that which his memory +retained as the strongest impression of his childhood? One would have to +expect it. However, when one considers what profound transformations an +impression of an artist has to experience before it can add its +contribution to the work of art, one is obliged to moderate considerably +his expectation of demonstrating something definite. This is especially +true in the case of Leonardo.</p> + +<p>He who thinks of Leonardo's paintings will be reminded by the remarkably +fascinating and puzzling smile which he enchanted on the lips of all his +feminine figures. It is a fixed smile on elongated, sinuous lips which +is considered characteristic of him and is preferentially designated as +"Leonardesque." In the singular and beautiful visage of the Florentine +Monna Lisa del Giocondo it has produced the greatest effect on the +spectators and even perplexed them. This smile was in need of an +interpretation, and received many of the most varied kind but none of +them was considered satisfactory.<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> As Gruyer puts it: "It is almost four +centuries since Monna Lisa causes all those to lose their heads who have +looked upon her for some time."<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>Muther states:<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> "What fascinates the spectator is the demoniacal +charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about +this woman, who now seems to smile upon us seductively and now to stare +coldly and lifelessly into space, but nobody has solved the riddle of +her smile, nobody has interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the +scenery is mysterious and dream-like, trembling as if in the sultriness +of sensuality."</p> + +<p>The idea that two diverse elements were united in the smile of Monna +Lisa has been felt by many critics. They therefore recognize in the play +of features of the beautiful Florentine lady the most perfect +representation of the contrasts dominating the love-life of the woman +which is foreign to man, as that of reserve and seduction, and of most +devoted tenderness and inconsiderateness in urgent and<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> consuming +sensuality. Mntz<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> expresses himself in this manner: "One knows what +indecipherable and fascinating enigma Monna Lisa Gioconda has been +putting for nearly four centuries to the admirers who crowd around her. +No artist (I borrow the expression of the delicate writer who hides +himself under the pseudonym of Pierre de Corlay) has ever translated in +this manner the very essence of femininity: the tenderness and coquetry, +the modesty and quiet voluptuousness, the whole mystery of the heart +which holds itself aloof, of a brain which reflects, and of a +personality who watches itself and yields nothing from herself except +radiance...." The Italian Angelo Conti<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> saw the picture in the Louvre +illumined by a ray of the sun and expressed himself as follows: "The +woman smiled with a royal calmness, her instincts of conquest, of +ferocity, the entire heredity of the species, the will of seduction and +ensnaring, the charm of the deceiver, the kindness which conceals a<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> +cruel purpose, all that appears and disappears alternately behind the +laughing veil and melts into the poem of her smile.... Good and evil, +cruelty and compassion, graceful and cat-like, she laughed...."</p> + +<p>Leonardo painted this picture four years, perhaps from 1503 until 1507, +during his second sojourn in Florence when he was about the age of fifty +years. According to Vasari he applied the choicest artifices in order to +divert the lady during the sittings and to hold that smile firmly on her +features. Of all the gracefulness that his brush reproduced on the +canvas at that time the picture preserves but very little in its present +state. During its production it was considered the highest that art +could accomplish; it is certain, however, that it did not satisfy +Leonardo himself, that he pronounced it as unfinished and did not +deliver it to the one who ordered it, but took it with him to France +where his benefactor Francis I, acquired it for the Louvre.</p> + +<p>Let us leave the physiognomic riddle of Monna Lisa unsolved, and let us +note the unequivocal fact that her smile fascinated the artist<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> no less +than all the spectators for these 400 years. This captivating smile had +thereafter returned in all of his pictures and in those of his pupils. +As Leonardo's Monna Lisa was a portrait we cannot assume that he has +added to her face a trait of his own so difficult to express which she +herself did not possess. It seems, we cannot help but believe, that he +found this smile in his model and became so charmed by it that from now +on he endowed it on all the free creations of his phantasy. This obvious +conception is, e.g., expressed by A. Konstantinowa in the following +manner:<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> + +<p>"During the long period in which the master occupied himself with the +portrait of Monna Lisa del Gioconda, he entered into the physiognomic +delicacies of this feminine face with such sympathy of feeling that he +transferred these creatures, especially the mysterious smile and the +peculiar glance, to all faces which he later painted or drew. The mimic +peculiarity of Gioconda can even be perceived in the picture of John the +Baptist in the Louvre. But above all they are distinctly recognized in +the<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> features of Mary in the picture of St. Anne of the Louvre."</p> + +<p>But the case could have been different. The need for a deeper reason for +the fascination which the smile of Gioconda exerted on the artist from +which he could not rid himself has been felt by more than one of his +biographers. W. Pater, who sees in the picture of Monna Lisa the +embodiment of the entire erotic experience of modern man, and discourses +so excellently on "that unfathomable smile always with a touch of +something sinister in it, which plays over all Leonardo's work," leads +us to another track when he says:<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p>"Besides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image +defining itself on the fabric of his dream; and but for express +historical testimony, we might fancy that this was but his ideal lady, +embodied and beheld at last."</p> + +<p>Herzfeld surely must have had something similar in mind when stating +that in Monna Lisa Leonardo encountered himself and therefore<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> found it +possible to put so much of his own nature into the picture, "whose +features from time immemorial have been imbedded with mysterious +sympathy in Leonardo's soul."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>Let us endeavor to clear up these intimations. It was quite possible +that Leonardo was fascinated by the smile of Monna Lisa, because it had +awakened something in him which had slumbered in his soul for a long +time, in all probability an old memory. This memory was of sufficient +importance to stick to him once it had been aroused; he was forced +continually to provide it with new expression. The assurance of Pater +that we can see an image like that of Monna Lisa defining itself from +Leonardo's childhood on the fabric of his dreams, seems worthy of belief +and deserves to be taken literally.</p> + +<p>Vasari mentions as Leonardo's first artistic endeavors, "heads of women +who laugh."<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The passage, which is beyond suspicion, as it is not +meant to prove anything, reads more precisely as follows:<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> "He formed +in his youth<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> some laughing feminine heads out of lime, which have been +reproduced in plaster, and some heads of children, which were as +beautiful as if modeled by the hands of a master...."</p> + +<p>Thus we discover that his practice of art began with the representation +of two kinds of objects, which would perforce remind us of the two kinds +of sexual objects which we have inferred from the analysis of his +vulture phantasy. If the beautiful children's heads were reproductions +of his own childish person, then the laughing women were nothing else +but reproductions of Caterina, his mother, and we are beginning to have +an inkling of the possibility that his mother possessed that mysterious +smile which he lost, and which fascinated him so much when he found it +again in the Florentine lady.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 363px;"> +<img src="images/ill_st-anne.jpg" width="363" height="550" alt="SAINT ANNE" title="" /> +<p class="caption">SAINT ANNE</p> +</div> + +<p>The painting of Leonardo which in point of time stands nearest to the +Monna Lisa is<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> the so-called Saint Anne of the Louvre, representing +Saint Anne, Mary and the Christ child. It shows the Leonardesque smile +most beautifully portrayed in the two feminine heads. It is impossible +to find out how much earlier or later than the portrait of Monna Lisa +Leonardo began to paint this picture. As both works extended over years, +we may well assume that they occupied the master simultaneously. But it +would best harmonize with our expectation if precisely the absorption in +the features of Monna Lisa would have instigated Leonardo to form the +composition of Saint Anne from his phantasy. For if the smile of +Gioconda had conjured up in him the memory of his mother, we would +naturally understand that he was first urged to produce a glorification +of motherhood, and to give back to her the smile he found in that +prominent lady. We may thus allow our interest to glide over from the +portrait of Monna Lisa to this other hardly less beautiful picture, now +also in the Louvre.</p> + +<p>Saint Anne with the daughter and grandchild is a subject seldom treated +in the Italian art of painting; at all events Leonardo's representation<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> +differs widely from all that is otherwise known. Muther states:<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>"Some masters like Hans Fries, the older Holbein, and Girolamo dei +Libri, made Anne sit near Mary and placed the child between the two. +Others like Jakob Cornelicz in his Berlin pictures, represented Saint +Anne as holding in her arm the small figure of Mary upon which sits the +still smaller figure of the Christ child." In Leonardo's picture Mary +sits on her mother's lap, bent forward and is stretching out both arms +after the boy who plays with a little lamb, and must have slightly +maltreated it. The grandmother has one of her unconcealed arms propped +on her hip and looks down on both with a blissful smile. The grouping is +certainly not quite unconstrained. But the smile which is playing on the +lips of both women, although unmistakably the same as in the picture of +Monna Lisa, has lost its sinister and mysterious character; it expresses +a calm blissfulness.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<p>On becoming somewhat engrossed in this picture it suddenly dawns upon +the spectator that only Leonardo could have painted this picture, as +only he could have formed the vulture phantasy. This picture contains +the synthesis of the history of Leonardo's childhood, the details of +which are explainable by the most intimate impressions of his life. In +his father's home he found not only the kind step-mother Donna Albiera, +but also the grandmother, his father's mother, Monna Lucia, who we will +assume was not less tender to him than grandmothers are wont to be. This +circumstance must have furnished him with the facts for the +representation of a childhood guarded by a mother and grandmother. +Another striking feature of the picture assumes still greater +significance. Saint Anne, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of the +boy who must have been a matron, is formed here perhaps somewhat more +mature and more serious than Saint Mary, but still as a young woman of +unfaded beauty. As a matter of fact Leonardo gave<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> the boy two mothers, +the one who stretched out her arms after him and another who is seen in +the background, both are represented with the blissful smile of maternal +happiness. This peculiarity of the picture has not failed to excite the +wonder of the authors. Muther, for instance, believes that Leonardo +could not bring himself to paint old age, folds and wrinkles, and +therefore formed also Anne as a woman of radiant beauty. Whether one can +be satisfied with this explanation is a question. Other writers have +taken occasion to deny generally the sameness of age of mother and +daughter.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> However, Muther's tentative explanation is sufficient +proof for the fact that the impression of Saint Anne's youthful +appearance was furnished by the picture and is not an imagination +produced by a tendency.</p> + +<p>Leonardo's childhood was precisely as remarkable as this picture. He has +had two mothers, the first his true mother, Caterina, from whom he was +torn away between the age of three and five years, and a young tender +step-mother, Donna Albiera, his father's wife.<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> By connecting this fact +of his childhood with the one mentioned above and condensing them into a +uniform fusion, the composition of Saint Anne, Mary and the Child, +formed itself in him. The maternal form further away from the boy +designated as grandmother, corresponds in appearance and in spatial +relation to the boy, with the real first mother, Caterina. With the +blissful smile of Saint Anne the artist actually disavowed and concealed +the envy which the unfortunate mother felt when she was forced to give +up her son to her more aristocratic rival, as once before her lover.</p> + +<p>Our feeling that the smile of Monna Lisa del Gioconda awakened in the +man the memory of the mother of his first years of childhood would thus +be confirmed from another work of Leonardo. Following the production of +Monna Lisa, Italian artists depicted in Madonnas and prominent ladies +the humble dipping of the head and the peculiar blissful smile of the +poor peasant girl Caterina, who brought to the world the noble son who +was destined to paint, investigate, and suffer.</p> + +<p>When Leonardo succeeded in reproducing in<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> the face of Monna Lisa the +double sense comprised in this smile, namely, the promise of unlimited +tenderness, and sinister threat (in the words of Pater), he remained +true even in this to the content of his earliest reminiscence. For the +love of the mother became his destiny, it determined his fate and the +privations which were in store for him. The impetuosity of the caressing +to which the vulture phantasy points was only too natural. The poor +forsaken mother had to give vent through mother's love to all her +memories of love enjoyed as well as to all her yearnings for more +affection; she was forced to it, not only in order to compensate herself +for not having a husband, but also the child for not having a father who +wanted to love it. In the manner of all ungratified mothers she thus +took her little son in place of her husband, and robbed him of a part of +his virility by the too early maturing of his eroticism. The love of the +mother for the suckling whom she nourishes and cares for is something +far deeper reaching than her later affection for the growing child. It +is of the nature of a fully gratified love affair, which<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> fulfills not +only all the psychic wishes but also all physical needs, and when it +represents one of the forms of happiness attainable by man it is due, in +no little measure, to the possibility of gratifying without reproach +also wish feelings which were long repressed and designated as +perverse.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Even in the happiest recent marriage the father feels that +his child, especially the little boy has become his rival, and this +gives origin to an antagonism against the favorite one which is deeply +rooted in the unconscious.</p> + +<p>When in the prime of his life Leonardo re-encountered that blissful and +ecstatic smile as it had once encircled his mother's mouth in caressing, +he had long been under the ban of an inhibition, forbidding him ever +again to desire such tenderness from women's lips. But as he had become +a painter he endeavored to reproduce this smile with his brush and +furnish all his pictures with it, whether he executed them himself or +whether they were done by his pupils under his direction, as in Leda,<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> +John, and Bacchus. The latter two are variations of the same type. +Muther says: "From the locust eater of the Bible Leonardo made a +Bacchus, an Apollo, who with a mysterious smile on his lips, and with +his soft thighs crossed, looks on us with infatuated eyes." These +pictures breathe a mysticism into the secret of which one dares not +penetrate; at most one can make the effort to construct the connection +to Leonardo's earlier productions. The figures are again androgynous but +no longer in the sense of the vulture phantasy, they are pretty boys of +feminine tenderness with feminine forms; they do not cast down their +eyes but gaze mysteriously triumphant, as if they knew of a great happy +issue concerning which one must remain quiet; the familiar fascinating +smile leads us to infer that it is a love secret. It is possible that in +these forms Leonardo disavowed and artistically conquered the +unhappiness of his love life, in that he represented the wish +fulfillment of the boy infatuated with his mother in such blissful union +of the male and female nature.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 431px;"> +<img src="images/ill_stjohnthebaptist.jpg" width="431" height="550" alt="JOHN THE BAPTIST" title="" /> +<p class="caption">JOHN THE BAPTIST</p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h3> + +<p>Among the entries in Leonardo's diaries there is one which absorbs the +reader's attention through its important content and on account of a +small formal error. In July, 1504, he wrote:</p> + +<p>"Adi 9 Luglio, 1504, mercoledi, a ore 7 mori Ser Piero da Vinci notalio +al palazzo del Potest, mio padre, a ore 7. Era d'et d'anni 80, lasci +10 figlioli maschi e 2 feminine."<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> + +<p>The notice as we see deals with the death of Leonardo's father. The +slight error in its form consists in the fact that in the computation of +the time "at 7 o'clock" is repeated two times, as if Leonardo had +forgotten at the end of the sentence that he had already written it at +the beginning. It is only a triviality to<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> which any one but a +psychoanalyst would pay no attention. Perhaps he would not even notice +it, or if his attention would be called to it he would say "that can +happen to anybody during absent-mindedness or in an affective state and +has no further meaning."</p> + +<p>The psychoanalyst thinks differently; to him nothing is too trifling as +a manifestation of hidden psychic processes; he has long learned that +such forgetting or repetition is full of meaning, and that one is +indebted to the "absent-mindedness" when it makes possible the betrayal +of otherwise concealed feelings.</p> + +<p>We would say that, like the funeral account of Caterina and the expense +account of the pupils, this notice, too, corresponds to a case in which +Leonardo was unsuccessful in suppressing his affects, and the long +hidden feeling forcibly obtained a distorted expression. Also the form +is similar, it shows the same pedantic precision, the same pushing +forward of numbers.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p>We call such a repetition a perseveration.<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> It is an excellent means to +indicate the affective accentuation. One recalls for example Saint +Peter's angry speech against his unworthy representative on earth, as +given in Dante's Paradiso:<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Quegli ch'usurpa in terra il luoga mio</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Il luoga mio, il luogo mio, che vaca</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Fatto ha del cimiterio mio cloaca."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Without Leonardo's affective inhibition the entry into the diary could +perhaps have read as follows: To-day at 7 o'clock died my father, Ser +Piero da Vinci, my poor father! But the displacement of the +perseveration to the most indifferent determination of the obituary to +dying-hour robs the notice of all pathos and lets us recognize that +there was something here to conceal and to suppress.</p> + +<p>Ser Piero da Vinci, notary and descendant of notaries, was a man of +great energy who attained respect and affluence. He was married four +times, the two first wives died childless,<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> and not till the third +marriage has he gotten the first legitimate son, in 1476, when Leonardo +was 24 years old, and had long ago changed his father's home for the +studio of his master Verrocchio. With the fourth and last wife whom he +married when he was already in the fifties he begot nine sons and two +daughters.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p> + +<p>To be sure the father also assumed importance in Leonardo's psychosexual +development, and what is more, it was not only in a negative sense, +through his absence during the boy's first childhood years, but also +directly through his presence in his later childhood. He who as a child +desires his mother, cannot help wishing to put himself in his father's +place, to identify himself with him in his phantasy and later make it +his life's task to triumph over him. As Leonardo was not yet five years +old when he was received into his paternal home, the young step-mother, +Albiera, certainly must have taken the place of his mother in his +feeling, and this brought him into that relation of<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> rivalry to his +father which may be designated as normal. As is known, the preference +for homosexuality did not manifest itself till near the years of +puberty. When Leonardo accepted this preference the identification with +the father lost all significance for his sexual life, but continued in +other spheres of non-erotic activity. We hear that he was fond of luxury +and pretty raiments, and kept servants and horses, although according to +Vasari's words "he hardly possessed anything and worked little." We +shall not hold his artistic taste entirely responsible for all these +special likings; we recognize in them also the compulsion to copy his +father and to excel him. He played the part of the great gentleman to +the poor peasant girl, hence the son retained the incentive that he also +play the great gentleman, he had the strong feeling "to out-herod +Herod," and to show his father exactly how the real high rank looks.</p> + +<p>Whoever works as an artist certainly feels as a father to his works. The +identification with his father had a fateful result in Leonardo's works +of art. He created them and<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> then troubled himself no longer about them, +just as his father did not trouble himself about him. The later +worriments of his father could change nothing in this compulsion, as the +latter originated from the impressions of the first years of childhood, +and the repression having remained unconscious was incorrigible through +later experiences.</p> + +<p>At the time of the Renaissance, and even much later, every artist was in +need of a gentleman of rank to act as his benefactor. This patron was +wont to give the artist commissions for work and entirely controlled his +destiny. Leonardo found his patron in Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il +Moro, a man of high aspirations, ostentations, diplomatically astute, +but of an unstable and unreliable character. In his court in Milan, +Leonardo spent the best period of his life, while in his service he +evinced his most uninhibited productive activity as is evidenced in The +Last Supper, and in the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. He left +Milan before the catastrophe struck Lodovico Moro, who died a prisoner +in a French prison. When the news of his benefactor's fate reached<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> +Leonardo he made the following entry in his diary: "The duke has lost +state, wealth, and liberty, not one of his works will be finished by +himself."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> It is remarkable and surely not without significance that +he here raises the same reproach to his benefactor that posterity was to +apply to him, as if he wanted to lay the responsibility to a person who +substituted his father-series, for the fact that he himself left his +works unfinished. As a matter of fact he was not wrong in what he said +about the Duke.</p> + +<p>However, if the imitation of his father hurt him as an artist, his +resistance against the father was the infantile determinant of his +perhaps equally vast accomplishment as an artist. According to +Merejkowski's beautiful comparison he was like a man who awoke too early +in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep. He dared utter +this bold principle which contains the justification for all independent +investigation: <i>"Chi dispute allegando l'autorit non adopra l'ingegno +ma piuttosto la memoria"</i> (Whoever refers to authorities in disputing +ideas, works with his memory rather<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> than with his reason).<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Thus he +became the first modern natural philosopher, and his courage was +rewarded by an abundance of cognitions and suggestions; since the Greek +period he was the first to investigate the secrets of nature, relying +entirely on his observation and his own judgment. But when he learned to +depreciate authority and to reject the imitation of the "ancients" and +constantly pointed to the study of nature as the source of all wisdom, +he only repeated in the highest sublimation attainable to man, which had +already obtruded itself on the little boy who surveyed the world with +wonder. To retranslate the scientific abstractions into concrete +individual experiences, we would say that the "ancients" and authority +only corresponded to the father, and nature again became the tender +mother who nourished him. While in most human beings to-day, as in +primitive times, the need for a support of some authority is so +imperative that their world becomes shaky when their authority is +menaced, Leonardo alone was able to exist without such support; but that +would not have been<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> possible had he not been deprived of his father in +the first years of his life. The boldness and independence of his later +scientific investigation presupposes that his infantile sexual +investigation was not inhibited by his father, and this same spirit of +scientific independence was continued by his withdrawing from sex.</p> + +<p>If any one like Leonardo escapes in his childhood his father's +intimidation and later throws off the shackles of authority in his +scientific investigation, it would be in gross contradiction to our +expectation if we found that this same man remained a believer and +unable to withdraw from dogmatic religion. Psychoanalysis has taught us +the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, +and daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious +belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down. In the +parental complex we thus recognize the roots of religious need; the +almighty, just God, and kindly nature appear to us as grand sublimations +of father and mother, or rather as revivals and restorations of the +infantile conceptions of both parents.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> Religiousness is biologically +traced to the long period of helplessness and need of help of the little +child. When the child grows up and realizes his loneliness and weakness +in the presence of the great forces of life, he perceives his condition +as in childhood and seeks to disavow his despair through a regressive +revival of the protecting forces of childhood.</p> + +<p>It does not seem that Leonardo's life disproves this conception of +religious belief. Accusations charging him with irreligiousness, which +in those times was equivalent to renouncing Christianity, were brought +against him already in his lifetime, and were clearly described in the +first biography given by Vasari.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> In the second edition of his Vite +(1568) Vasari left out this observation. In view of the extraordinary +sensitiveness of his age in matters of religion it is perfectly +comprehensible to us why Leonardo refrained from directly expressing his +position to Christianity in his notes. As investigator he did not permit +himself to be misled by the account of the creation of the holy +scriptures; for instance,<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> he disputed the possibility of a universal +flood, and in geology he was as unscrupulous in calculating with hundred +thousands of years as modern investigators.</p> + +<p>Among his "prophecies" one finds some things that would perforce offend +the sensitive feelings of a religious Christian, e.g. Praying to the +images of Saints, reads as follows:<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p>"People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see +nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore +those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those +who do not see."</p> + +<p>Or: Concerning mourning on Good Friday (p. 297):</p> + +<p>"In all parts of Europe great peoples will bewail the death of one man +who died in the Orient."</p> + +<p>It was asserted of Leonardo's art that he took away the last remnant of +religious attachment from the holy figures and put them into human form +in order to depict in them great<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> and beautiful human feelings. Muther +praises him for having overcome the feeling of decadence, and for having +returned to man the right of sensuality and pleasurable enjoyment. The +notices which show Leonardo absorbed in fathoming the great riddles of +nature do not lack any expressions of admiration for the creator, the +last cause of all these wonderful secrets, but nothing indicates that he +wished to hold any personal relation to this divine force. The sentences +which contain the deep wisdom of his last years breathe the resignation +of the man who subjects himself to the laws of nature and expects no +alleviation from the kindness or grace of God. There is hardly any doubt +that Leonardo had vanquished dogmatic as well as personal religion, and +through his work of investigation he had withdrawn far from the world +aspect of the religious Christian.</p> + +<p>From our views mentioned before in the development of the infantile +psychic life, it becomes clear that also Leonardo's first investigations +in childhood occupied themselves with the problems of sexuality. But he +himself<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> betrays it to us through a transparent veil, in that he +connects his impulse to investigate with the vulture phantasy, and in +emphasizing the problem of the flight of the bird as one whose +elaboration devolved upon him through special concatenations of fate. A +very obscure as well as a prophetically sounding passage in his notes +dealing with the flight of the bird demonstrates in the nicest way with +how much affective interest he clung to the wish that he himself should +be able to imitate, the art of flying: "The human bird shall take his +first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his +fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang." He +probably hoped that he himself would sometimes be able to fly, and we +know from the wish fulfilling dreams of people what bliss one expects +from the fulfillment of this hope.</p> + +<p>But why do so many people dream that they are able to fly? +Psychoanalysis answers this question by stating that to fly or to be a +bird in the dream is only a concealment of another wish, to the +recognition of which one can reach by more than one linguistic or +objective bridge.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> When the inquisitive child is told that a big bird +like the stork brings the little children, when the ancients have formed +the phallus winged, when the popular designation of the sexual activity +of man is expressed in German by the word "to bird" (vgeln), when the +male member is directly called <i>l'uccello</i> (bird) by the Italians, all +these facts are only small fragments from a large collection which +teaches us that the wish to be able to fly signifies in the dream +nothing more or less than the longing for the ability of sexual +accomplishment. This is an early infantile wish. When the grown-up +recalls his childhood it appears to him as a happy time in which one is +happy for the moment and looks to the future without any wishes, it is +for this reason that he envies children. But if children themselves +could inform us about it they would probably give different reports. It +seems that childhood is not that blissful Idyl into which we later +distort it, that on the contrary children are lashed through the years +of childhood by the wish to become big, and to imitate the grown ups. +This wish instigates all their playing. If in<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> the course of their +sexual investigation children feel that the grown up knows something +wonderful in the mysterious and yet so important realm, what they are +prohibited from knowing or doing, they are seized with a violent wish to +know it, and dream of it in the form of flying, or prepare this disguise +of the wish for their later flying dreams. Thus aviation, which has +attained its aim in our times, has also its infantile erotic roots.</p> + +<p>By admitting that he entertained a special personal relation to the +problem of flying since his childhood, Leonardo bears out what we must +assume from our investigation of children of our times, namely, that his +childhood investigation was directed to sexual matters. At least this +one problem escaped the repression which has later estranged him from +sexuality. From childhood until the age of perfect intellectual maturity +this subject, slightly varied, continued to hold his interest, and it is +quite possible that he was as little successful in his cherished art in +the primary sexual sense as in his desires for mechanical matters, that +both wishes were denied to him.<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a></p> + +<p>As a matter of fact the great Leonardo remained infantile in some ways +throughout his whole life; it is said that all great men retain +something of the infantile. As a grown up he still continued playing, +which sometimes made him appear strange and incomprehensible to his +contemporaries. When he constructed the most artistic mechanical toys +for court festivities and receptions we are dissatisfied thereby because +we dislike to see the master waste his power on such petty stuff. He +himself did not seem averse to giving his time to such things. Vasari +reports that he did similar things even when not urged to it by request: +"There (in Rome) he made a doughy mass out of wax, and when it softened +he formed thereof very delicate animals filled with air; when he blew +into them they flew in the air, and when the air was exhausted they fell +to the ground. For a peculiar lizard caught by the wine-grower of +Belvedere Leonardo made wings from skin pulled off from other lizards, +which he filled with mercury so that they moved and trembled when it +walked; he then made for it eyes, a beard and horns, tamed it and put it +in a little<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> box and terrified all his friends with it."<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> Such +playing often served him as an expression of serious thoughts: "He had +often cleaned the intestines of a sheep so well that one could hold them +in the hollow of the hand; he brought them into a big room, and attached +them to a blacksmith's bellows which he kept in an adjacent room, he +then blew them up until they filled up the whole room so that everybody +had to crowd into a corner. In this manner he showed how they gradually +became transparent and filled up with air, and as they were at first +limited to very little space and gradually became more and more extended +in the big room, he compared them to a genius."<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> His fables and +riddles evince the same playful pleasure in harmless concealment and +artistic investment, the riddles were put into the form of prophecies; +almost all are rich in ideas and to a remarkable degree devoid of wit.</p> + +<p>The plays and jumps which Leonardo allowed his phantasy have in some +cases quite misled his biographers who misunderstood this<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> part of his +nature. In Leonardo's Milanese manuscripts one finds, for example, +outlines of letters to the "Diodario of Sorio (Syria), viceroy of the +holy Sultan of Babylon," in which Leonardo presents himself as an +engineer sent to these regions of the Orient in order to construct some +works. In these letters he defends himself against the reproach of +laziness, he furnishes geographical descriptions of cities and +mountains, and finally discusses a big elementary event which occurred +while he was there.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> + +<p>In 1881, J. P. Richter had endeavored to prove from these documents that +Leonardo made these traveler's observations when he really was in the +service of the Sultan of Egypt, and that while in the Orient he embraced +the Mohammedan religion. This sojourn in the Orient should have taken +place in the time of 1483, that is, before he removed to the court of +the Duke of Milan. However, it was not difficult for other authors to +recognize the illustrations<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> of this supposed journey to the Orient as +what they really were, namely, phantastic productions of the youthful +artist which he created for his own amusement, and in which he probably +brought to expression his wishes to see the world and experience +adventures.</p> + +<p>A phantastic formation is probably also the "Academia Vinciana," the +acceptance of which is due to the existence of five or six most clever +and intricate emblems with the inscription of the Academy. Vasari +mentions these drawings but not the Academy.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Mntz who placed such +ornament on the cover of his big work on Leonardo belongs to the few who +believe in the reality of an "Academia Vinciana."</p> + +<p>It is probable that this impulse to play disappeared in Leonardo's +maturer years, that it became discharged in the investigating activity<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> +which signified the highest development of his personality. But the fact +that it continued so long may teach us how slowly one tears himself away +from his infantilism after having enjoyed in his childhood supreme +erotic happiness which is later unattainable.<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h3> + +<p>It would be futile to delude ourselves that at present, readers find +every pathography unsavory. This attitude is excused with the reproach +that from a pathographic elaboration of a great man one never obtains an +understanding of his importance and his attainments, that it is +therefore useless mischief to study in him things which could just as +well be found in the first comer. However, this criticism is so clearly +unjust that it can only be grasped when viewed as a pretext and a +disguise for something. As a matter of fact pathography does not aim at +making comprehensible the attainments of the great man; no one should +really be blamed for not doing something which one never promised. The +real motives for the opposition are quite different. One finds them when +one bears in mind that biographers are fixed on their heroes in quite a +peculiar manner.<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> Frequently they take the hero as the object of study +because, for reasons of their personal emotional life, they bear him a +special affection from the very outset. They then devote themselves to a +work of idealization which strives to enroll the great men among their +infantile models, and to revive through him, as it were, the infantile +conception of the father. For the sake of this wish they wipe out the +individual features in his physiognomy, they rub out the traces of his +life's struggle with inner and outer resistances, and do not tolerate in +him anything of human weakness or imperfection; they then give us a +cold, strange, ideal form instead of the man to whom we could feel +distantly related. It is to be regretted that they do this, for they +thereby sacrifice the truth to an illusion, and for the sake of their +infantile phantasies they let slip the opportunity to penetrate into the +most attractive secrets of human nature.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> + +<p>Leonardo himself, judging from his love for the truth and his +inquisitiveness, would have<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> interposed no objections to the effort of +discovering the determinations of his psychic and intellectual +development from the trivial peculiarities and riddles of his nature. We +respect him by learning from him. It does no injury to his greatness to +study the sacrifices which his development from the child must have +entailed, and to the compile factors which have stamped on his person +the tragic feature of failure.</p> + +<p>Let us expressly emphasize that we have never considered Leonardo as a +neurotic or as a "nervous person" in the sense of this awkward term. +Whoever takes it amiss that we should even dare apply to him viewpoints +gained from pathology, still clings to prejudices which we have at +present justly given up. We no longer believe that health and disease, +normal and nervous, are sharply distinguished from each other, and that +neurotic traits must be judged as proof of general inferiority. We know +to-day that neurotic symptoms are substitutive formations for certain +repressive acts which have to be brought about in the course of our +development from the child to the cultural<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> man, that we all produce +such substitutive formations, and that only the amount, intensity, and +distribution of these substitutive formations justify the practical +conception of illness and the conclusion of constitutional inferiority. +Following the slight signs in Leonardo's personality we would place him +near that neurotic type which we designate as the "compulsive type," and +we would compare his investigation with the "reasoning mania" of +neurotics, and his inhibitions with the so-called "abulias" of the +latter.</p> + +<p>The object of our work was to explain the inhibitions in Leonardo's +sexual life and in his artistic activity. For this purpose we shall now +sum up what we could discover concerning the course of his psychic +development.</p> + +<p>We were unable to gain any knowledge about his hereditary factors, on +the other hand we recognize that the accidental circumstances of his +childhood produced a far reaching disturbing effect. His illegitimate +birth deprived him of the influence of a father until perhaps his fifth +year, and left him to the tender seduction of a mother whose only +consolation he was.<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> Having been kissed by her into sexual prematurity, +he surely must have entered into a phase of infantile sexual activity of +which only one single manifestation was definitely evinced, namely, the +intensity of his infantile sexual investigation. The impulse for looking +and inquisitiveness were most strongly stimulated by his impressions +from early childhood; the enormous mouth-zone received its accentuation +which it had never given up. From his later contrasting behavior, as the +exaggerated sympathy for animals, we can conclude that this infantile +period did not lack in strong sadistic traits.</p> + +<p>An energetic shift of repression put an end to this infantile excess, +and established the dispositions which became manifest in the years of +puberty. The most striking result of this transformation was a turning +away from all gross sensual activities. Leonardo was able to lead a life +of abstinence and made the impression of an asexual person. When the +floods of pubescent excitement came over the boy they did not make him +ill by forcing him to costly and harmful substitutive formations; owing +to<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> the early preference for sexual inquisitiveness, the greater part of +the sexual needs could be sublimated into a general thirst after +knowledge and so elude repression. A much smaller portion of the libido +was applied to sexual aims, and represented the stunted sexual life of +the grown up. In consequence of the repression of the love for the +mother this portion assumed a homosexual attitude and manifested itself +as ideal love for boys. The fixation on the mother, as well as the happy +reminiscences of his relations with her, was preserved in his +unconscious but remained for the time in an inactive state. In this +manner the repression, fixation, and sublimation participated in the +disposal of the contributions which the sexual impulse furnished to +Leonardo's psychic life.</p> + +<p>From the obscure age of boyhood Leonardo appears to us as an artist, a +painter, and sculptor, thanks to a specific talent which was probably +enforced by the early awakening of the impulse for looking in the first +years of childhood. We would gladly report in what way the artistic +activity depends on the psychic primitive<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> forces were it not that our +material is inadequate just here. We content ourselves by emphasizing +the fact, concerning which hardly any doubt still exists, that the +productions of the artist give outlet also to his sexual desire, and in +the case of Leonardo we can refer to the information imparted by Vasari, +namely, that heads of laughing women and pretty boys, or representations +of his sexual objects, attracted attention among his first artistic +attempts. It seems that during his flourishing youth Leonardo at first +worked in an uninhibited manner. As he took his father as a model for +his outer conduct in life, he passed through a period of manly creative +power and artistic productivity in Milan, where favored by fate he found +a substitute for his father in the duke Lodovico Moro. But the +experience of others was soon confirmed in him, to wit, that the almost +complete suppression of the real sexual life does not furnish the most +favorable conditions for the activity of the sublimated sexual +strivings. The figurativeness of his sexual life asserted itself, his +activity and ability to quick decisions began to weaken, the tendency to +reflection and<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> delay was already noticeable as a disturbance in The +Holy Supper, and with the influence of the technique determined the fate +of this magnificent work. Slowly a process developed in him which can be +put parallel only to the regressions of neurotics. His development at +puberty into the artist was outstripped by the early infantile +determinant of the investigator, the second sublimation of his erotic +impulses turned back to the primitive one which was prepared at the +first repression. He became an investigator, first in service of his +art, later independently and away from his art. With the loss of his +patron, the substitute for his father, and with the increasing +difficulties in his life, the regressive displacement extended in +dimension. He became <i>"impacientissimo al pennello"</i> (most impatient +with the brush) as reported by a correspondent of the countess Isabella +d'Este who desired to possess at any cost a painting from his hand.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> +His infantile past had obtained control over him. The investigation, +however, which now took the place of his artistic production, seems to +have born<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> certain traits which betrayed the activity of unconscious +impulses; this was seen in his insatiability, his regardless obstinacy, +and in his lack of ability to adjust himself to actual conditions.</p> + +<p>At the summit of his life, in the age of the first fifties, at a time +when the sex characteristics of the woman have already undergone a +regressive change, and when the libido in the man not infrequently +ventures into an energetic advance, a new transformation came over him. +Still deeper strata of his psychic content became active again, but this +further regression was of benefit to his art which was in a state of +deterioration. He met the woman who awakened in him the memory of the +happy and sensuously enraptured smile of his mother, and under the +influence of this awakening he acquired back the stimulus which guided +him in the beginning of his artistic efforts when he formed the smiling +woman. He painted Monna Lisa, Saint Anne, and a number of mystic +pictures which were characterized by the enigmatic smile. With the help +of his oldest erotic feelings he triumphed in conquering<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> once more the +inhibition in his art. This last development faded away in the obscurity +of the approaching old age. But before this his intellect rose to the +highest capacity of a view of life, which was far in advance of his +time.</p> + +<p>In the preceding chapters I have shown what justification one may have +for such representation of Leonardo's course of development, for this +manner of arranging his life and explaining his wavering between art and +science. If after accomplishing these things I should provoke the +criticism from even friends and adepts of psychoanalysis, that I have +only written a psychoanalytic romance, I should answer that I certainly +did not overestimate the reliability of these results. Like others I +succumbed to the attraction emanating from this great and mysterious +man, in whose being one seems to feel powerful propelling passions, +which after all can only evince themselves so remarkably subdued.</p> + +<p>But whatever may be the truth about Leonardo's life we cannot relinquish +our effort to investigate it psychoanalytically before we have finished +another task. In general we must<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> mark out the limits which are set up +for the working capacity of psychoanalysis in biography so that every +omitted explanation should not be held up to us as a failure. +Psychoanalytic investigation has at its disposal the data of the history +of the person's life, which on the one hand consists of accidental +events and environmental influences, and on the other hand of the +reported reactions of the individual. Based on the knowledge of psychic +mechanisms it now seeks to investigate dynamically the character of the +individual from his reactions, and to lay bare his earliest psychic +motive forces as well as their later transformations and developments. +If this succeeds then the reaction of the personality is explained +through the coperation of constitutional and accidental factors or +through inner and outer forces. If such an undertaking, as perhaps in +the case of Leonardo, does not yield definite results then the blame for +it is not to be laid to the faulty or inadequate psychoanalytic method, +but to the vague and fragmentary material left by tradition about this +person. It is, therefore, only the author who forced psychoanalysis to<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> +furnish an expert opinion on such insufficient material, who is to be +held responsible for the failure.</p> + +<p>However, even if one had at his disposal a very rich historical material +and could manage the psychic mechanism with the greatest certainty, a +psychoanalytic investigation could not possibly furnish the definite +view, if it concerns two important questions, that the individual could +turn out only so and not differently. Concerning Leonardo we had to +represent the view that the accident of his illegitimate birth and the +pampering of his mother exerted the most decisive influence on his +character formation and his later fate, through the fact that the sexual +repression following this infantile phase caused him to sublimate his +libido into a thirst after knowledge, and thus determined his sexual +inactivity for his entire later life. The repression, however, which +followed the first erotic gratification of childhood did not have to +take place, in another individual it would perhaps not have taken place +or it would have turned out not nearly as profuse. We must recognize +here a degree of freedom which<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> can no longer be solved +psychoanalytically. One is as little justified in representing the issue +of this shift of repression as the only possible issue. It is quite +probable that another person would not have succeeded in withdrawing the +main part of his libido from the repression through sublimation into a +desire for knowledge; under the same influences as Leonardo another +person might have sustained a permanent injury to his intellectual work +or an uncontrollable disposition to compulsion neurosis. The two +characteristics of Leonardo which remained unexplained through +psychoanalytic effort are first, his particular tendency to repress his +impulses, and second, his extraordinary ability to sublimate the +primitive impulses.</p> + +<p>The impulses and their transformations are the last things that +psychoanalysis can discern. Henceforth it leaves the place to biological +investigation. The tendency to repression, as well as the ability to +sublimate, must be traced back to the organic bases of the character, +upon which alone the psychic structure springs up. As artistic talent +and productive ability are<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> intimately connected with sublimation we +have to admit that also the nature of artistic attainment is +psychoanalytically inaccessible to us. Biological investigation of our +time endeavors to explain the chief traits of the organic constitution +of a person through the fusion of male and female predispositions in the +material sense; Leonardo's physical beauty as well as his +left-handedness furnish here some support. However, we do not wish to +leave the ground of pure psychologic investigation. Our aim remains to +demonstrate the connection between outer experiences and reactions of +the person over the path of the activity of the impulses. Even if +psychoanalysis does not explain to us the fact of Leonardo's artistic +accomplishment, it still gives us an understanding of the expressions +and limitations of the same. It does seem as if only a man with +Leonardo's childhood experiences could have painted Monna Lisa and Saint +Anne, and could have supplied his works with that sad fate and so obtain +unheard of fame as a natural historian; it seems as if the key to all +his attainments and failures<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> was hidden in the childhood phantasy of +the vulture.</p> + +<p>But may one not take offense at the results of an investigation which +concede to the accidents of the parental constellation so decisive an +influence on the fate of a person, which, for example, subordinates +Leonardo's fate to his illegitimate birth and to the sterility of his +first step-mother Donna Albiera? I believe that one has no right to feel +so; if one considers accident as unworthy of determining our fate, it is +only a relapse to the pious aspect of life, the overcoming of which +Leonardo himself prepared when he put down in writing that the sun does +not move. We are naturally grieved over the fact that a just God and a +kindly providence do not guard us better against such influences in our +most defenseless age. We thereby gladly forget that as a matter of fact +everything in our life is accident from our very origin through the +meeting of spermatozoa and ovum, accident, which nevertheless +participates in the lawfulness and fatalities of nature, and lacks only +the connection to our wishes and<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> illusions. The division of life's +determinants into the "fatalities" of our constitution and the +"accidents" of our childhood may still be indefinite in individual +cases, but taken altogether one can no longer entertain any doubt about +the importance of precisely our first years of childhood. We all still +show too little respect for nature, which in Leonardo's deep words +recalling Hamlet's speech <i>"is full of infinite reasons which never +appeared in experience."</i><a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Every one of us human beings corresponds +to one of the infinite experiments in which these "reasons of nature" +force themselves into experience.</p> + +<p>THE END</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> In the words of J. Burckhard, cited by Alexandra +Konstantinowa, Die Entwicklung des Madonnentypus by Leonardo da Vinci, +Strassburg, 1907.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Vite, etc. LXXXIII. 1550-1584.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Traktat von der Malerei, new edition and introduction by +Marie Herzfeld, E. Diederichs, Jena, 1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Solmi. La resurrezione dell' opera di Leonardo in the +collected work; Leonardo da Vinci. Conferenze Florentine, Milan, 1910.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Scognamiglio Ricerche e Documenti sulla giovinezza di +Leonardo da Vinci. Napoli, 1900.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> W. v. Seidlitz. Leonardo da Vinci, der Wendepunkt der +Renaissance, 1909, Bd. I, p. 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> W. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 48</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> W. Pater. The Renaissance, p. 107, The Macmillan Co., 1910. +"But it is certain that at one period of his life he had almost ceased +to be an artist."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Cf. v. Seidlitz, Bd. I die Geschichte der +Restaurations—und Rettungsversuche.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Mntz. Lonard de Vinci, Paris, 1899, p. 18. (A letter of +a contemporary from India to a Medici alludes to this peculiarity of +Leonardo. Given by Richter: The literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> F. Botazzi. Leonardo biologo e anatomico. Conferenze +Florentine, p. 186, 1910.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> E. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci. German Translation by Emmi +Hirschberg. Berlin, 1908.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci der Denker, Forscher und +Poet. Second edition. Jena, 1906.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> His collected witticisms—belle facezie,—which are not +translated, may be an exception. Cf. Herzfeld, Leonardo da Vinci, p. +151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> According to Scognamiglio (l. c. p. 49) reference is made +to this episode in an obscure and even variously interpreted passage of +the Codex Atlanticus: "Quando io feci Domeneddio putto voi mi metteste +in prigione, ora s'io lo fo grande, voi mi farete peggio."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Merejkowski: The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, translated +by Herbert Trench, G. P. Putnam Sons, New York. It forms the second of +the historical Trilogy entitled Christ and Anti-Christ, of which the +first volume is Julian Apostata, and the third volume is Peter the Great +and Alexei.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Solmi l. c. p. 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Filippo Botazzi, l. c. p. 193.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, Traktat von der +Malerei, Jena, 1909 (Chap. I, 64).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "Such transfiguration of science and of nature into +emotions, or one might say, religion, is one of the characteristic +traits of da Vinci's manuscripts, which one finds expressed hundreds of +times." Solmi: La resurrezione, etc, p. 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> La resurrezione, etc., p. 8: "Leonardo placed the study of +nature as a precept to painting ... later the passion for study became +dominating, he no longer wished to acquire science for art, but science +for science' sake."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> For an enumeration of his scientific attainments see Marie +Herzfeld's interesting introduction (Jena, 1906) to the essays of the +Conference Florentine, 1910, and elsewhere.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> For a corroboration of this improbable sounding assertion +see the "Analysis of the Phobia of a Five-year-old Boy," Jahrbuch fr +Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, Bd. I, 1909, and +the similar observation in Bd. II, 1910. In an essay concerning +"Infantile Theories of Sex" (Sammlungen kleiner Schriften zur +Neurosenlehre, p. 167, Second Series, 1909), I wrote: "But this +reasoning and doubting serves as a model for all later intellectual work +in problems, and the first failure acts as a paralyzer for all times."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Scognamiglio 1. c., p. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Cited by Scognamiglio from the Codex Atlanticus, p. 65.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Cf. here the "Bruchstck einer Hysterieanalyse," in +Neurosenlehre, Second series, 1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Horapollo: Hieroglyphica I, II. +<span title="Greek: Mtera de +graphontex ... gupa zographonsin.">Μητἑρα δἑ γρἁφοντες +... γὑπα ζωγραφοὑσιυ</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Roscher: Ausf. Lexicon der griechischen und rmischen +Mythologie. Artikel Mut, II Bd., 1894-1897.—Lanzone. Dizionario di +Mitologia egizia. Torino, 1882.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> H. Hartleben, Champollion. Sein Leben und sein Werk, +1906.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> +<span title="Greek: gypa de arrena ou phasigenesthai pote, aila +phleias apasas,">"γὑπα δἑ ἁρρενα οὑ φασνγἑνεσθαι ποτε, +ἁιλἁ φηλεἱας ἁπἁσας,"</span> cited by v. Rmer. ber die androgynische Idee des +Lebens, Jahrb. f. Sexuelle Zwischenstufen, V, 1903, p. 732.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Plutarch: Veluti scarabaeos mares tantum esse putarunt +Aegyptii sic inter vultures mares non inveniri statuerunt</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica edidit Conradus Leemans +Amstelodami, 1835. The words referring to the sex of the vulture read as +follows (p. 14): <span title="Greek: ptera men hepeid arren en tout genei tn +zn ouch hyparchei.">"μητἑρα μἑν ἑπειδἡ ἁρρεν ἑν τοὑτω γἑνει τὡων οὑχ +ὑπἁρχει."</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> E. Mntz, 1. c., p. 282.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> E. Mntz, 1. c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> See the illustrations in Lanzone l. c. T. CXXXVI-VIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> v. Rmer l. c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Cf. the observations in the Jahrbuch fr Psychoanalytische +und Psychopathologische Forschungen, Vol. I, 1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Cf. Richard Payne Knight: The Cult of Priapus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Prominently among those who undertook these investigations +are I. Sadger, whose results I can essentially corroborate from my own +experience. I am also aware that Stekel of Vienna, Ferenczi of Budapest, +and Brill of New York, came to the same conclusions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Edm. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci, German translation, p. +152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Solmi, 1. c. p. 203.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Leonardo thus behaves like one who was in the habit of +making a daily confession to another person whom he now replaced by his +diary. For an assumption as to who this person may have been see +Merejkowski, p. 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, 1906, p. 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> The wording is that of Merejkowski, 1. c. p. 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> The full wording is found in M. Herzfeld, 1. c. p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Merejkowski 1. c.—As a disappointing illustration of the +vagueness of the information concerning Leonardo's intimate life, meager +as it is, I mention the fact that the same expense account is given by +Solmi with considerable variation (German translation, p. 104). The most +serious difference is the substitution of florins by soldi. One may +assume that in this account florins do not mean the old "gold florins," +but those used at a later period which amounted to 1-2/3 lira or 33½ +soldi.—Solmi represents Caterina as a servant who had taken care of +Leonardo's household for a certain time. The source from which the two +representations of this account were taken was not accessible to me.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> "Caterina came in July, 1493."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> The manner of expression through which the repressed +libidio could manifest itself in Leonardo, such as circumstantiality and +marked interest in money, belongs to those traits of character which +emanate from anal eroticism. Cf. Character und Analerotik in the second +series of my Sammlung zur Neurosenlehre, 1909, also Brill's +Psychoanalysis, its Theories and Practical Applications, Chap. XIII, +Anal Eroticism and Character, Saunders, Philadelphia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Seidlitz: Leonardo da Vinci, II Bd., p. 280.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Geschichte der Malerei, Bd. I, p. 314.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> l. c. p. 417.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> A. Conti: Leonardo pittore, Conferenze Fiorentine, l. c. +p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> l. c. p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> W. Pater: The Renaissance, p. 124, The Macmillan Co., +1910.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, p. 88.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Scognamiglio, l. c. p. 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> L. Schorn, Bd. III, 1843, p. 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> The same is assumed by Merejkowski, who imagined a +childhood for Leonardo which deviates in the essential points from ours, +drawn from the results of the vulture phantasy. But if Leonardo himself +had displayed this smile, tradition hardly would have failed to report +to us this coincidence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> l. c. p. 309.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> A. Konstantinowa, l. c., says: "Mary looks tenderly down +on her beloved child with a smile that recalls the mysterious expression +of la Gioconda." Elsewhere speaking of Mary she says: "The smile of +Gioconda floats upon her features."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Cf. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, translated +by A. A. Brill, 2nd edition, 1916, Monograph series.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> "On the 9th of July, 1504, Wednesday at 7 o'clock died Ser +Piero da Vinci, notary at the palace of the Podesta, my father, at 7 +o'clock. He was 80 years old, left 10 sons and 2 daughters." (E. Mntz, +l. c. p. 13.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> I shall overlook a greater error committed by Leonardo in +his notice in that he gives his 77-year-old father 80 years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> "He who usurps on earth my place, my place, my place, +which is void in the presence of the Son of God, has made out of my +cemetery a sewer." Canto XXXVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> It seems that in that passage of the diary Leonardo also +erred in the number of his sisters and brothers, which stands in +remarkable contrast to the apparent exactness of the same.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> v. Seidlitz, l. c., II, p. 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Solmi, Conf. fior, p. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Mntz, l. c., La Religion de Leonardo, p. 292, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Herzfeld, p. 292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Vasari, translated by Schorn, 1843.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Ebenda, p. 39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Concerning these letters and the combinations connected +with them see Mntz, l. c., p. 82; for the wording of the same and for +the notices connected with them see Herzfeld, l. c., p. 223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Besides, he lost some time in that he even made a drawing +of a braided cord in which one could follow the thread from one end to +the other, until it formed a perfectly circular figure; a very difficult +and beautiful drawing of this kind is engraved on copper, in the center +of it one can read the words: "Leonardus Vinci Academia" (p. 8).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> This criticism holds quite generally and is not aimed at +Leonardo's biographers in particular.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Seidlitz II, p. 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> La natura piena d'infinite ragion che non furono mai in +isperienza, M. Herzfeld, l. c. p. <small>II</small>.</p></div> + +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leonardo da Vinci, by Sigmund Freud + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEONARDO DA VINCI *** + +***** This file should be named 34300-h.htm or 34300-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/0/34300/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leonardo da Vinci + A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence + +Author: Sigmund Freud + +Translator: A. A. Brill + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34300] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEONARDO DA VINCI *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI] + + + + +Leonardo da Vinci + +A PSYCHOSEXUAL STUDY OF AN +INFANTILE REMINISCENCE + +BY +PROFESSOR DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. +(UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA) + +TRANSLATED BY + +A. A. BRILL, PH.B., M.D. + +Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal +Psychology, New York University + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY +1916 + +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY + +MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Leonardo Da Vinci _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + +Mona Lisa 78 + +Saint Anne 86 + +John the Baptist 94 + + + + +LEONARDO DA VINCI + + + + +I + + +When psychoanalytic investigation, which usually contents itself with +frail human material, approaches the great personages of humanity, it is +not impelled to it by motives which are often attributed to it by +laymen. It does not strive "to blacken the radiant and to drag the +sublime into the mire"; it finds no satisfaction in diminishing the +distance between the perfection of the great and the inadequacy of the +ordinary objects. But it cannot help finding that everything is worthy +of understanding that can be perceived through those prototypes, and it +also believes that none is so big as to be ashamed of being subject to +the laws which control the normal and morbid actions with the same +strictness. + +Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was admired even by his contemporaries as +one of the greatest men of the Italian Renaissance, still even then he +appeared as mysterious to them as he now appears to us. An all-sided +genius, "whose form can only be divined but never deeply fathomed,"[1] +he exerted the most decisive influence on his time as an artist; and it +remained to us to recognize his greatness as a naturalist which was +united in him with the artist. Although he left masterpieces of the art +of painting, while his scientific discoveries remained unpublished and +unused, the investigator in him has never quite left the artist, often +it has severely injured the artist and in the end it has perhaps +suppressed the artist altogether. According to Vasari, Leonardo +reproached himself during the last hour of his life for having insulted +God and men because he has not done his duty to his art.[2] And even if +Vasari's story lacks all probability and belongs to those legends which +began to be woven about the mystic master while he was still living, it +nevertheless retains indisputable value as a testimonial of the judgment +of those people and of those times. + +What was it that removed the personality of Leonardo from the +understanding of his contemporaries? Certainly not the many sidedness of +his capacities and knowledge, which allowed him to install himself as a +player of the lyre on an instrument invented by himself, in the court of +Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il Moro, the Duke of Milan, or which allowed +him to write to the same person that remarkable letter in which he +boasts of his abilities as a civil and military engineer. For the +combination of manifold talents in the same person was not unusual in +the times of the Renaissance; to be sure Leonardo himself furnished one +of the most splendid examples of such persons. Nor did he belong to that +type of genial persons who are outwardly poorly endowed by nature, and +who on their side place no value on the outer forms of life, and in the +painful gloominess of their feelings fly from human relations. On the +contrary he was tall and symmetrically built, of consummate beauty of +countenance and of unusual physical strength, he was charming in his +manner, a master of speech, and jovial and affectionate to everybody. He +loved beauty in the objects of his surroundings, he was fond of wearing +magnificent garments and appreciated every refinement of conduct. In his +treatise[3] on the art of painting he compares in a significant passage +the art of painting with its sister arts and thus discusses the +difficulties of the sculptor: "Now his face is entirely smeared and +powdered with marble dust, so that he looks like a baker, he is covered +with small marble splinters, so that it seems as if it snowed on his +back, and his house is full of stone splinters, and dust. The case of +the painter is quite different from that; for the painter is well +dressed and sits with great comfort before his work, he gently and very +lightly brushes in the beautiful colors. He wears as decorative clothes +as he likes, and his house is filled with beautiful paintings and is +spotlessly clean. He often enjoys company, music, or some one may read +for him various nice works, and all this can be listened to with great +pleasure, undisturbed by any pounding from the hammer and other noises." + +It is quite possible that the conception of a beaming jovial and happy +Leonardo was true only for the first and longer period of the master's +life. From now on, when the downfall of the rule of Lodovico Moro forced +him to leave Milan, his sphere of action and his assured position, to +lead an unsteady and unsuccessful life until his last asylum in France, +it is possible that the luster of his disposition became pale and some +odd features of his character became more prominent. The turning of his +interest from his art to science which increased with age must have also +been responsible for widening the gap between himself and his +contemporaries. All his efforts with which, according to their opinion, +he wasted his time instead of diligently filling orders and becoming +rich as perhaps his former classmate Perugino, seemed to his +contemporaries as capricious playing, or even caused them to suspect him +of being in the service of the "black art." We who know him from his +sketches understand him better. In a time in which the authority of the +church began to be substituted by that of antiquity and in which only +theoretical investigation existed, he the forerunner, or better the +worthy competitor of Bacon and Copernicus, was necessarily isolated. +When he dissected cadavers of horses and human beings, and built flying +apparatus, or when he studied the nourishment of plants and their +behavior towards poisons, he naturally deviated much from the +commentators of Aristotle and came nearer the despised alchemists, in +whose laboratories the experimental investigations found some refuge +during these unfavorable times. + +The effect that this had on his paintings was that he disliked to handle +the brush, he painted less and what was more often the case, the things +he began were mostly left unfinished; he cared less and less for the +future fate of his works. It was this mode of working that was held up +to him as a reproach from his contemporaries to whom his behavior to his +art remained a riddle. + +Many of Leonardo's later admirers have attempted to wipe off the stain +of unsteadiness from his character. They maintained that what is blamed +in Leonardo is a general characteristic of great artists. They said that +even the energetic Michelangelo who was absorbed in his work left many +incompleted works, which was as little due to his fault as to Leonardo's +in the same case. Besides some pictures were not as unfinished as he +claimed, and what the layman would call a masterpiece may still appear +to the creator of the work of art as an unsatisfied embodiment of his +intentions; he has a faint notion of a perfection which he despairs of +reproducing in likeness. Least of all should the artist be held +responsible for the fate which befalls his works. + +As plausible as some of these excuses may sound they nevertheless do not +explain the whole state of affairs which we find in Leonardo. The +painful struggle with the work, the final flight from it and the +indifference to its future fate may be seen in many other artists, but +this behavior is shown in Leonardo to highest degree. Edm. Solmi[4] +cites (p. 12) the expression of one of his pupils: "Pareva, che ad ogni +ora tremasse, quando si poneva a dipingere, e pero no diede mai fine ad +alcuna cosa cominciata, considerando la grandezza dell'arte, tal che +egli scorgeva errori in quelle cose, che ad altri parevano miracoli." +His last pictures, Leda, the Madonna di Saint Onofrio, Bacchus and St. +John the Baptist, remained unfinished "come quasi intervenne di tutte le +cose sue." Lomazzo,[5] who finished a copy of The Holy Supper, refers in +a sonnet to the familiar inability of Leonardo to finish his works: + + "Protogen che il penel di sue pitture + Non levava, agguaglio il Vinci Divo, + Di cui opra non e finita pure." + +The slowness with which Leonardo worked was proverbial. After the most +thorough preliminary studies he painted The Holy Supper for three years +in the cloister of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. One of his +contemporaries, Matteo Bandelli, the writer of novels, who was then a +young monk in the cloister, relates that Leonardo often ascended the +scaffold very early in the morning and did not leave the brush out of +his hand until twilight, never thinking of eating or drinking. Then days +passed without putting his hand on it, sometimes he remained for hours +before the painting and derived satisfaction from studying it by +himself. At other times he came directly to the cloister from the palace +of the Milanese Castle where he formed the model of the equestrian +statue for Francesco Sforza, in order to add a few strokes with the +brush to one of the figures and then stopped immediately.[6] According +to Vasari he worked for years on the portrait of Monna Lisa, the wife of +the Florentine de Gioconda, without being able to bring it to +completion. This circumstance may also account for the fact that it was +never delivered to the one who ordered it but remained with Leonardo who +took it with him to France.[7] Having been procured by King Francis I, +it now forms one of the greatest treasures of the Louvre. + +When one compares these reports about Leonardo's way of working with the +evidence of the extraordinary amount of sketches and studies left by +him, one is bound altogether to reject the idea that traits of +flightiness and unsteadiness exerted the slightest influence on +Leonardo's relation to his art. On the contrary one notices a very +extraordinary absorption in work, a richness in possibilities in which a +decision could be reached only hestitatingly, claims which could hardly +be satisfied, and an inhibition in the execution which could not even be +explained by the inevitable backwardness of the artist behind his ideal +purpose. The slowness which was striking in Leonardo's works from the +very beginning proved to be a symptom of his inhibition, a forerunner of +his turning away from painting which manifested itself later.[8] It was +this slowness which decided the not undeserving fate of The Holy +Supper. Leonardo could not take kindly to the art of fresco painting +which demands quick work while the background is still moist, it was for +this reason that he chose oil colors, the drying of which permitted him +to complete the picture according to his mood and leisure. But these +colors separated themselves from the background upon which they were +painted and which isolated them from the brick wall; the blemishes of +this wall and the vicissitudes to which the room was subjected seemingly +contributed to the inevitable deterioration of the picture.[9] + +The picture of the cavalry battle of Anghiari, which in competition with +Michelangelo he began to paint later on a wall of the Sala de Consiglio +in Florence and which he also left in an unfinished state, seemed to +have perished through the failure of a similar technical process. It +seems here as if a peculiar interest, that of the experimenter, at first +reenforced the artistic, only later to damage the art production. + +The character of the man Leonardo evinces still some other unusual +traits and apparent contradictions. Thus a certain inactivity and +indifference seemed very evident in him. At a time when every individual +sought to gain the widest latitude for his activity, which could not +take place without the development of energetic aggression towards +others, he surprised every one through his quiet peacefulness, his +shunning of all competition and controversies. He was mild and kind to +all, he was said to have rejected a meat diet because he did not +consider it just to rob animals of their lives, and one of his special +pleasures was to buy caged birds in the market and set them free.[10] He +condemned war and bloodshed and designated man not so much as the king +of the animal world, but rather as the worst of the wild beasts.[11] But +this effeminate delicacy of feeling did not prevent him from +accompanying condemned criminals on their way to execution in order to +study and sketch in his notebook their features, distorted by fear, nor +did it prevent him from inventing the most cruel offensive weapons, and +from entering the service of Cesare Borgia as chief military engineer. +Often he seemed to be indifferent to good and evil, or he had to be +measured with a special standard. He held a high position in Cesare's +campaign which gained for this most inconsiderate and most faithless of +foes the possession of the Romagna. Not a single line of Leonardo's +sketches betrays any criticism or sympathy of the events of those days. +The comparison with Goethe during the French campaign cannot here be +altogether rejected. + +If a biographical effort really endeavors to penetrate the understanding +of the psychic life of its hero it must not, as happens in most +biographies through discretion or prudery, pass over in silence the +sexual activity or the sex peculiarity of the one examined. What we know +about it in Leonardo is very little but full of significance. In a +period where there was a constant struggle between riotous +licentiousness and gloomy asceticism, Leonardo presented an example of +cool sexual rejection which one would not expect in an artist and a +portrayer of feminine beauty. Solmi[12] cites the following sentence +from Leonardo showing his frigidity: "The act of procreation and +everything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human +beings would soon die out if it were not a traditional custom and if +there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions." His posthumous +works which not only treat of the greatest scientific problems but also +comprise the most guileless objects which to us do not seem worthy of so +great a mind (an allegorical natural history, animal fables, witticisms, +prophecies),[13] are chaste to a degree--one might say abstinent--that +in a work of _belle lettres_ would excite wonder even to-day. They evade +everything sexual so thoroughly, as if Eros alone who preserves +everything living was no worthy material for the scientific impulse of +the investigator.[14] It is known how frequently great artists found +pleasure in giving vent to their phantasies in erotic and even grossly +obscene representations; in contradistinction to this Leonardo left only +some anatomical drawings of the woman's internal genitals, the position +of the child in the womb, etc. + +It is doubtful whether Leonardo ever embraced a woman in love, nor is it +known that he ever entertained an intimate spiritual relation with a +woman as in the case of Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna. While he +still lived as an apprentice in the house of his master Verrocchio, he +with other young men were accused of forbidden homosexual relations +which ended in his acquittal. It seems that he came into this suspicion +because he employed as a model a boy of evil repute.[15] When he was a +master he surrounded himself with handsome boys and youths whom he took +as pupils. The last of these pupils Francesco Melzi, accompanied him to +France, remained with him until his death, and was named by him as his +heir. Without sharing the certainty of his modern biographers, who +naturally reject the possibility of a sexual relation between himself +and his pupils as a baseless insult to this great man, it may be thought +by far more probable that the affectionate relationships of Leonardo to +the young men did not result in sexual activity. Nor should one +attribute to him a high measure of sexual activity. + +The peculiarity of this emotional and sexual life viewed in connection +with Leonardo's double nature as an artist and investigator can be +grasped only in one way. Of the biographers to whom psychological +viewpoints are often very foreign, only one, Edm. Solmi, has to my +knowledge approached the solution of the riddle. But a writer, Dimitri +Sergewitsch Merejkowski, who selected Leonardo as the hero of a great +historical novel has based his delineation on such an understanding of +this unusual man, and if not in dry words he gave unmistakable +utterance in plastic expression in the manner of a poet.[16] Solmi +judges Leonardo as follows: "But the unrequited desire to understand +everything surrounding him, and with cold reflection to discover the +deepest secret of everything that is perfect, has condemned Leonardo's +works to remain forever unfinished."[17] In an essay of the Conferenze +Fiorentine the utterances of Leonardo are cited, which show his +confession of faith and furnish the key to his character. + + "_Nessuna cosa si puo amare ne odiare, se_ + _prima no si ha cognition di quella._"[18] + +That is: One has no right to love or to hate anything if one has not +acquired a thorough knowledge of its nature. And the same is repeated by +Leonardo in a passage of the Treaties on the Art of Painting where he +seems to defend himself against the accusation of irreligiousness: + +"But such censurers might better remain silent. For that action is the +manner of showing the workmaster so many wonderful things, and this is +the way to love so great a discoverer. For, verily great love springs +from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it +you will be able to love it only little or not at all."[19] + +The value of these utterances of Leonardo cannot be found in that they +impart to us an important psychological fact, for what they maintain is +obviously false, and Leonardo must have known this as well as we do. It +is not true that people refrain from loving or hating until they have +studied and became familiar with the nature of the object to whom they +wish to give these affects, on the contrary they love impulsively and +are guided by emotional motives which have nothing to do with cognition +and whose affects are weakened, if anything, by thought and reflection. +Leonardo only could have implied that the love practiced by people is +not of the proper and unobjectionable kind, one should so love as to +hold back the affect and to subject it to mental elaboration, and only +after it has stood the test of the intellect should free play be given +to it. And we thereby understand that he wishes to tell us that this was +the case with himself and that it would be worth the effort of everybody +else to treat love and hatred as he himself does. + +And it seems that in his case it was really so. His affects were +controlled and subjected to the investigation impulse, he neither loved +nor hated, but questioned himself whence does that arise, which he was +to love or hate, and what does it signify, and thus he was at first +forced to appear indifferent to good and evil, to beauty and ugliness. +During this work of investigation love and hatred threw off their +designs and uniformly changed into intellectual interest. As a matter of +fact Leonardo was not dispassionate, he did not lack the divine spark +which is the mediate or immediate motive power--_il primo motore_--of +all human activity. He only transmuted his passion into +inquisitiveness. He then applied himself to study with that +persistence, steadiness, and profundity which comes from passion, and on +the height of the psychic work, after the cognition was won, he allowed +the long checked affect to break loose and to flow off freely like a +branch of a stream, after it has accomplished its work. At the height of +his cognition when he could examine a big part of the whole he was +seized with a feeling of pathos, and in ecstatic words he praised the +grandeur of that part of creation which he studied, or--in religious +cloak--the greatness of the creator. Solmi has correctly divined this +process of transformation in Leonardo. According to the quotation of +such a passage, in which Leonardo celebrated the higher impulse of +nature ("O mirabile necessita ... ") he said: "Tale trasfigurazione +della scienza della natura in emozione, quasi direi, religiosa, e uno +dei tratti caratteristici de manoscritti vinciani, e si trova cento e +cento volte espressa...."[20] + +Leonardo was called the Italian Faust on account of his insatiable and +indefatigable desire for investigation. But even if we disregard the +fact that it is the possible retransformation of the desire for +investigation into the joys of life which is presupposed in the Faust +tragedy, one might venture to remark that Leonardo's system recalls +Spinoza's mode of thinking. + +The transformation of psychic motive power into the different forms of +activity is perhaps as little convertible without loss, as in the case +of physical powers. Leonardo's example teaches how many other things one +must follow up in these processes. Not to love before one gains full +knowledge of the thing loved presupposes a delay which is harmful. When +one finally reaches cognition he neither loves nor hates properly; one +remains beyond love and hatred. One has investigated instead of having +loved. It is perhaps for this reason that Leonardo's life was so much +poorer in love than those of other great men and great artists. The +storming passions of the soul-stirring and consuming kind, in which +others experience the best part of their lives, seem to have missed +him. + +There are still other consequences when one follows Leonardo's dictum. +Instead of acting and producing one just investigates. He who begins to +divine the grandeur of the universe and its needs readily forgets his +own insignificant self. When one is struck with admiration and becomes +truly humble he easily forgets that he himself is a part of that living +force, and that according to the measure of his own personality he has +the right to make an effort to change that destined course of the world, +the world in which the insignificant is no less wonderful and important +than the great. + +Solmi thinks that Leonardo's investigations started with his art,[21] he +tried to investigate the attributes and laws of light, of color, of +shades and of perspective so as to be sure of becoming a master in the +imitation of nature and to be able to show the way to others. It is +probable that already at that time he overestimated the value of this +knowledge for the artist. Following the guide-rope of the painter's +need, he was then driven further and further to investigate the objects +of the art of painting, such as animals and plants, and the proportions +of the human body, and to follow the path from their exterior to their +interior structure and biological functions, which really also express +themselves in their appearance and should be depicted in art. And +finally he was pulled along by this overwhelming desire until the +connection was torn from the demands of his art, so that he discovered +the general laws of mechanics and divined the history of the +stratification and fossilization of the Arno-valley, until he could +enter in his book with capital letters the cognition: _Il sole non si +move_ (The sun does not move). His investigations were thus extended +over almost all realms of natural science, in every one of which he was +a discoverer or at least a prophet or forerunner.[22] However, his +curiosity continued to be directed to the outer world, something kept +him away from the investigation of the psychic life of men; there was +little room for psychology in the "Academia Vinciana," for which he drew +very artistic and very complicated emblems. + +When he later made the effort to return from his investigations to the +art from which he started he felt that he was disturbed by the new paths +of his interest and by the changed nature of his psychic work. In the +picture he was interested above all in a problem, and behind this one he +saw emerging numerous other problems just as he was accustomed in the +endless and indeterminable investigations of natural history. He was no +longer able to limit his demands, to isolate the work of art, and to +tear it out from that great connection of which he knew it formed part. +After the most exhausting efforts to bring to expression all that was in +him, all that was connected with it in his thoughts, he was forced to +leave it unfinished, or to declare it incomplete. + +The artist had once taken into his service the investigator to assist +him, now the servant was stronger and suppressed his master. + +When we find in the portrait of a person one single impulse very +forcibly developed, as curiosity in the case of Leonardo, we look for +the explanation in a special constitution, concerning its probable +organic determination hardly anything is known. Our psychoanalytic +studies of nervous people lead us to look for two other expectations +which we would like to find verified in every case. We consider it +probable that this very forcible impulse was already active in the +earliest childhood of the person, and that its supreme sway was fixed by +infantile impressions; and we further assume that originally it drew +upon sexual motive powers for its reenforcement so that it later can +take the place of a part of the sexual life. Such person would then, +e.g., investigate with that passionate devotion which another would give +to his love, and he could investigate instead of loving. We would +venture the conclusion of a sexual reenforcement not only in the impulse +to investigate, but also in most other cases of special intensity of an +impulse. + +Observation of daily life shows us that most persons have the capacity +to direct a very tangible part of their sexual motive powers to their +professional or business activities. The sexual impulse is particularly +suited to yield such contributions because it is endowed with the +capacity of sublimation, i.e., it has the power to exchange its nearest +aim for others of higher value which are not sexual. We consider this +process as proved, if the history of childhood or the psychic +developmental history of a person shows that in childhood this powerful +impulse was in the service of the sexual interest. We consider it a +further corroboration if this is substantiated by a striking stunting in +the sexual life of mature years, as if a part of the sexual activity had +now been replaced by the activity of the predominant impulse. + +The application of these assumptions to the case of the predominant +investigation-impulse seems to be subject to special difficulties, as +one is unwilling to admit that this serious impulse exists in children +or that children show any noteworthy sexual interest. However, these +difficulties are easily obviated. The untiring pleasure in questioning +as seen in little children demonstrates their curiosity, which is +puzzling to the grown-up, as long as he does not understand that all +these questions are only circumlocutions, and that they cannot come to +an end because they replace only one question which the child does not +put. When the child becomes older and gains more understanding this +manifestation of curiosity suddenly disappears. But psychoanalytic +investigation gives us a full explanation in that it teaches us that +many, perhaps most children, at least the most gifted ones, go through a +period beginning with the third year, which may be designated as the +period of _infantile sexual investigation_. As far as we know, the +curiosity is not awakened spontaneously in children of this age, but is +aroused through the impression of an important experience, through the +birth of a little brother or sister, or through fear of the same +endangered by some outward experience, wherein the child sees a danger +to his egotistic interests. The investigation directs itself to the +question whence children come, as if the child were looking for means +to guard against such undesired event. We were astonished to find that +the child refuses to give credence to the information imparted to it, +e.g., it energetically rejects the mythological and so ingenious +stork-fable, we were astonished to find that its psychic independence +dates from this act of disbelief, that it often feels itself at serious +variance with the grown-ups, and never forgives them for having been +deceived of the truth on this occasion. It investigates in its own way, +it divines that the child is in the mother's womb, and guided by the +feelings of its own sexuality, it formulates for itself theories about +the origin of children from food, about being born through the bowels, +about the role of the father which is difficult to fathom, and even at +that time it has a vague conception of the sexual act which appears to +the child as something hostile, as something violent. But as its own +sexual constitution is not yet equal to the task of producing children, +his investigation whence come children must also run aground and must be +left in the lurch as unfinished. The impression of this failure at the +first attempt of intellectual independence seems to be of a persevering +and profoundly depressing nature.[23] + +If the period of infantile sexual investigation comes to an end through +an impetus of energetic sexual repression, the early association with +sexual interest may result in three different possibilities for the +future fate of the investigation impulse. The investigation either +shares the fate of the sexuality, the curiosity henceforth remains +inhibited and the free activity of intelligence may become narrowed for +life; this is especially made possible by the powerful religious +inhibition of thought, which is brought about shortly hereafter through +education. This is the type of neurotic inhibition. We know well that +the so acquired mental weakness furnishes effective support for the +outbreak of a neurotic disease. In a second type the intellectual +development is sufficiently strong to withstand the sexual repression +pulling at it. Sometimes after the disappearance of the infantile sexual +investigation, it offers its support to the old association in order to +elude the sexual repression, and the suppressed sexual investigation +comes back from the unconscious as compulsive reasoning, it is naturally +distorted and not free, but forceful enough to sexualize even thought +itself and to accentuate the intellectual operations with the pleasure +and fear of the actual sexual processes. Here the investigation becomes +sexual activity and often exclusively so, the feeling of settling the +problem and of explaining things in the mind is put in place of sexual +gratification. But the indeterminate character of the infantile +investigation repeats itself also in the fact that this reasoning never +ends, and that the desired intellectual feeling of the solution +constantly recedes into the distance. By virtue of a special disposition +the third, which is the most rare and most perfect type, escapes the +inhibition of thought and the compulsive reasoning. Also here sexual +repression takes place, it is unable, however, to direct a partial +impulse of the sexual pleasure into the unconscious, but the libido +withdraws from the fate of the repression by being sublimated from the +beginning into curiosity, and by reenforcing the powerful investigation +impulse. Here, too, the investigation becomes more or less compulsive +and a substitute of the sexual activity, but owing to the absolute +difference of the psychic process behind it (sublimation in place of the +emergence from the unconscious) the character of the neurosis does not +manifest itself, the subjection to the original complexes of the +infantile sexual investigation disappears, and the impulse can freely +put itself in the service of the intellectual interest. It takes account +of the sexual repression which made it so strong in contributing to it +sublimated libido, by avoiding all occupation with sexual themes. + +In mentioning the concurrence in Leonardo of the powerful investigation +impulse with the stunting of his sexual life which was limited to the +so-called ideal homosexuality, we feel inclined to consider him as a +model example of our third type. The most essential point of his +character and the secret of it seems to lie in the fact, that after +utilizing the infantile activity of curiosity in the service of sexual +interest he was able to sublimate the greater part of his libido into +the impulse of investigation. But to be sure the proof of this +conception is not easy to produce. To do this we would have to have an +insight into the psychic development of his first childhood years, and +it seems foolish to hope for such material when the reports concerning +his life are so meager and so uncertain; and moreover, when we deal with +information which even persons of our own generation withdraw from the +attention of the observer. + +We know very little concerning Leonardo's youth. He was born in 1452 in +the little city of Vinci between Florence and Empoli; he was an +illegitimate child which was surely not considered a great popular stain +in that time. His father was Ser Piero da Vinci, a notary and descendant +of notaries and farmers, who took their name from the place Vinci; his +mother, a certain Caterina, probably a peasant girl, who later married +another native of Vinci. Nothing else about his mother appears in the +life history of Leonardo, only the writer Merejkowski believed to have +found some traces of her. The only definite information about Leonardo's +childhood is furnished by a legal document from the year 1457, a +register of assessment in which Vinci Leonardo is mentioned among the +members of the family as a five-year-old illegitimate child of Ser +Piero.[24] As the marriage of Ser Piero with Donna Albiera remained +childless the little Leonardo could be brought up in his father's house. +He did not leave this house until he entered as apprentice--it is not +known what year--in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1472 +Leonardo's name could already be found in the register of the members of +the "Compagnia dei Pittori." That is all. + + + + +II + + +As far as I know Leonardo only once interspersed in his scientific +descriptions a communication from his childhood. In a passage where he +speaks about the flight of the vulture, he suddenly interrupts himself +in order to follow up a memory from very early years which came to his +mind. + +"_It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself +so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early +memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he +opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail +against my lips._"[25] + +We have here an infantile memory and to be sure of the strangest sort. +It is strange on account of its content and account of the time of life +in which it was fixed. That a person could retain a memory of the +nursing period is perhaps not impossible, but it can in no way be taken +as certain. But what this memory of Leonardo states, namely, that a +vulture opened the child's mouth with its tail, sounds so improbable, so +fabulous, that another conception which puts an end to the two +difficulties with one stroke appeals much more to our judgment. The +scene of the vulture is not a memory of Leonardo, but a phantasy which +he formed later, and transferred into his childhood. The childhood +memories of persons often have no different origin, as a matter of fact, +they are not fixated from an experience like the conscious memories from +the time of maturity and then repeated, but they are not produced until +a later period when childhood is already past, they are then changed and +disguised and put in the service of later tendencies, so that in general +they cannot be strictly differentiated from phantasies. Their nature +will perhaps be best understood by recalling the manner in which history +writing originated among ancient nations. As long as the nation was +small and weak it gave no thought to the writing of its history, it +tilled the soil of its land, defended its existence against its +neighbors by seeking to wrest land from them and endeavored to become +rich. It was a heroic but unhistoric time. Then came another age, a +period of self-realization in which one felt rich and powerful, and it +was then that one experienced the need to discover whence one originated +and how one developed. The history-writing which then continues to +register the present events throws also its backward glance to the past, +it gathers traditions and legends, it interprets what survived from +olden times into customs and uses, and thus creates a history of past +ages. It is quite natural that this history of the past ages is more the +expressions of opinions and desires of the present than a faithful +picture of the past, for many a thing escaped the people's memory, other +things became distorted, some trace of the past was misunderstood and +interpreted in the sense of the present; and besides one does not write +history through motives of objective curiosity, but because one desires +to impress his contemporaries, to stimulate and extol them, or to hold +the mirror before them. The conscious memory of a person concerning the +experiences of his maturity may now be fully compared to that of history +writing, and his infantile memories, as far as their origin and +reliability are concerned will actually correspond to the history of the +primitive period of a people which was compiled later with purposive +intent. + +Now one may think that if Leonardo's story of the vulture which visited +him in his cradle is only a phantasy of later birth, it is hardly worth +while giving more time to it. One could easily explain it by his openly +avowed inclination to occupy himself with the problem of the flight of +the bird which would lend to this phantasy an air of predetermined fate. +But with this depreciation one commits as great an injustice as if one +would simply ignore the material of legends, traditions, and +interpretations in the primitive history of a people. Notwithstanding +all distortions and misunderstandings to the contrary they still +represent the reality of the past; they represent what the people formed +out of the experiences of its past age under the domination of once +powerful and to-day still effective motives, and if these distortions +could be unraveled through the knowledge of all effective forces, one +would surely discover the historic truth under this legendary material. +The same holds true for the infantile reminiscences or for the +phantasies of individuals. What a person thinks he recalls from his +childhood, is not of an indifferent nature. As a rule the memory +remnants, which he himself does not understand, conceal invaluable +evidences of the most important features of his psychic development. As +the psychoanalytic technique affords us excellent means for bringing to +light this concealed material, we shall venture the attempt to fill the +gaps in the history of Leonardo's life through the analysis of his +infantile phantasy. And if we should not attain a satisfactory degree of +certainty, we will have to console ourselves with the fact that so many +other investigations about this great and mysterious man have met no +better fate. + +When we examine Leonardo's vulture-phantasy with the eyes of a +psychoanalyst then it does not seem strange very long; we recall that we +have often found similar structures in dreams, so that we may venture +to translate this phantasy from its strange language into words that are +universally understood. The translation then follows an erotic +direction. Tail, "coda," is one of the most familiar symbols, as well as +a substitutive designation of the male member which is no less true in +Italian than in other languages. The situation contained in the +phantasy, that a vulture opened the mouth of the child and forcefully +belabored it with its tail, corresponds to the idea of fellatio, a +sexual act in which the member is placed into the mouth of the other +person. Strangely enough this phantasy is altogether of a passive +character; it resembles certain dreams and phantasies of women and of +passive homosexuals who play the feminine part in sexual relations. + +Let the reader be patient for a while and not flare up with indignation +and refuse to follow psychoanalysis because in its very first +applications it leads to an unpardonable slander of the memory of a +great and pure man. For it is quite certain that this indignation will +never solve for us the meaning of Leonardo's childhood phantasy; on the +other hand, Leonardo has unequivocally acknowledged this phantasy, and +we shall therefore not relinquish the expectation--or if you prefer the +preconception--that like every psychic production such as dreams, +visions and deliria this phantasy, too, must have some meaning. Let us +therefore lend our unprejudiced ears for a while to psychoanalytic work +which after all has not yet uttered the last word. + +The desire to take the male member into the mouth and suck it, which is +considered as one of the most disgusting of sexual perversions, is +nevertheless a frequent occurrence among the women of our time--and as +shown in old sculptures was the same in earlier times--and in the state +of being in love seems to lose entirely its disgusting character. The +physician encounters phantasies based on this desire, even in women who +did not come to the knowledge of the possibility of such sexual +gratification by reading V. Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis or +through other information. It seems that it is quite easy for the women +themselves to produce such wish-phantasies.[26] Investigation then +teaches us that this situation, so forcibly condemned by custom, may be +traced to the most harmless origin. It is nothing but the elaboration of +another situation in which we all once felt comfort, namely, when we +were in the suckling-age ("when I was still in the cradle") and took the +nipple of our mother's or wet-nurse's breast into our mouth to suck it. +The organic impression of this first pleasure in our lives surely +remains indelibly impregnated; when the child later learns to know the +udder of the cow, which in function is a breast-nipple, but in shape and +in position on the abdomen resembles the penis, it obtains the primary +basis for the later formation of that disgusting sexual phantasy. + +We now understand why Leonardo displaced the memory of the supposed +experience with the vulture to his nursing period. This phantasy +conceals nothing more or less than a reminiscence of nursing--or being +nursed--at the mother's breast, a scene both human and beautiful, which +he as well as other artists undertook to depict with the brush in the +form of the mother of God and her child. At all events, we also wish to +maintain, something we do not as yet understand, that this reminiscence, +equally significant for both sexes, was elaborated in the man Leonardo +into a passive homosexual phantasy. For the present we shall not take up +the question as to what connection there is between homosexuality and +suckling at the mother's breast, we merely wish to recall that tradition +actually designates Leonardo as a person of homosexual feelings. In +considering this, it makes no difference whether that accusation against +the youth Leonardo was justified or not. It is not the real activity but +the nature of the feeling which causes us to decide whether to attribute +to some one the characteristic of homosexuality. + +Another incomprehensible feature of Leonardo's infantile phantasy next +claims our interest. We interpret the phantasy of being wet-nursed by +the mother and find that the mother is replaced by a vulture. Where does +this vulture originate and how does he come into this place? + +A thought now obtrudes itself which seems so remote that one is tempted +to ignore it. In the sacred hieroglyphics of the old Egyptians the +mother is represented by the picture of the vulture.[27] These Egyptians +also worshiped a motherly deity, whose head was vulture like, or who had +many heads of which at least one or two was that of a vulture.[28] The +name of this goddess was pronounced _Mut_; we may question whether the +sound similarity to our word mother (Mutter) is only accidental? So the +vulture really has some connection with the mother, but of what help is +that to us? Have we a right to attribute this knowledge to Leonardo when +Francois Champollion first succeeded in reading hieroglyphics between +1790-1832?[29] + +It would also be interesting to discover in what way the old Egyptians +came to choose the vulture as a symbol of motherhood. As a matter of +fact the religion and culture of Egyptians were subjects of scientific +interest even to the Greeks and Romans, and long before we ourselves +were able to read the Egyptian monuments we had at our disposal some +communications about them from preserved works of classical antiquity. +Some of these writings belonged to familiar authors like Strabo, +Plutarch, Aminianus Marcellus, and some bear unfamiliar names and are +uncertain as to origin and time, like the hieroglyphica of Horapollo +Nilus, and like the traditional book of oriental priestly wisdom bearing +the godly name Hermes Trismegistos. From these sources we learn that the +vulture was a symbol of motherhood because it was thought that this +species of birds had only female vultures and no males.[30] The natural +history of the ancients shows a counterpart to this limitation among the +scarebaeus beetles which were revered by the Egyptians as godly, no +females were supposed to exist.[31] + +But how does impregnation take place in vultures if only females exist? +This is fully answered in a passage of Horapollo.[32] At a certain time +these birds stop in the midst of their flight, open their vagina and are +impregnated by the wind. + +Unexpectedly we have now reached a point where we can take something as +quite probable which only shortly before we had to reject as absurd. It +is quite possible that Leonardo was well acquainted with the scientific +fable, according to which the Egyptians represented the idea of mother +with the picture of the vulture. He was an omnivorous reader whose +interest comprised all spheres of literature and knowledge. In the Codex +Atlanticus we find an index of all books which he possessed at a certain +time,[33] as well as numerous notices about other books which he +borrowed from friends, and according to the excerpts which Fr. +Richter[34] compiled from his drawings we can hardly overestimate the +extent of his reading. Among these books there was no lack of older as +well as contemporary works treating of natural history. All these books +were already in print at that time, and it so happens that Milan was the +principal place of the young art of book printing in Italy. + +When we proceed further we come upon a communication which may raise to +a certainty the probability that Leonardo knew the vulture fable. The +erudite editor and commentator of Horapollo remarked in connection with +the text (p. 172) cited before: _Caeterum hanc fabulam de vulturibus +cupide amplexi sunt Patres Ecclesiastici, ut ita argumento ex rerum +natura petito refutarent eos, qui Virginis partum negabant; itaque apud +omnes fere hujus rei mentio occurit._ + +Hence the fable of the monosexuality and the conception of the vulture +by no means remained as an indifferent anecdote as in the case of the +analogous fable of the scarebaeus beetles; that church fathers mastered +it in order to have it ready as an argument from natural history against +those who doubted the sacred history. If according the best information +from antiquity the vultures were directed to let themselves be +impregnated by the wind, why should the same thing not have happened +even once in a human female? On account of this use the church fathers +were "almost all" in the habit of relating this vulture fable, and now +it can hardly remain doubtful that it also became known to Leonardo +through so powerful a source. + +The origin of Leonardo's vulture phantasy can be conceived in the +following manner: While reading in the writings of a church father or in +a book on natural science that the vultures are all females and that +they know to procreate without the cooeperation of a male, a memory +emerged in him which became transformed into that phantasy, but which +meant to say that he also had been such a vulture child, which had a +mother but no father. An echo of pleasure which he experienced at his +mother's breast was added to this in the manner as so old impressions +alone can manifest themselves. The allusion to the idea of the holy +virgin with the child, formed by the authors, which is so dear to every +artist, must have contributed to it to make this phantasy seem to him +valuable and important. For this helped him to identify himself with the +Christ child, the comforter and savior of not alone this one woman. + +When we break up an infantile phantasy we strive to separate the real +memory content from the later motives which modify and distort the same. +In the case of Leonardo we now think that we know the real content of +the phantasy. The replacement of the mother by the vulture indicates +that the child missed the father and felt himself alone with his mother. +The fact of Leonardo's illegitimate birth fits in with his vulture +phantasy; only on account of it was he able to compare himself with a +vulture child. But we have discovered as the next definite fact from his +youth that at the age of five years he had already been received in his +father's home; when this took place, whether a few months following his +birth, or a few weeks before the taking of the assessment of taxes, is +entirely unknown to us. The interpretation of the vulture phantasy then +steps in and wants to tell us that Leonardo did not spend the first +decisive years of his life with his father and his step-mother but with +his poor, forsaken, real mother, so that he had time to miss his father. +This still seems to be a rather meager and rather daring result of the +psychoanalytic effort, but on further reflection it will gain in +significance. Certainty will be promoted by mentioning the actual +relations in Leonardo's childhood. According to the reports, his father +Ser Piero da Vinci married the prominent Donna Albiera during the year +of Leonardo's birth; it was to the childlessness of this marriage that +the boy owed his legalized reception into his father's or rather +grandfather's house during his fifth year. However, it is not customary +to offer an illegitimate offspring to a young woman's care at the +beginning of marriage when she is still expecting to be blessed with +children. Years of disappointment must have elapsed before it was +decided to adopt the probably handsomely developed illegitimate child as +a compensation for legitimate children who were vainly hoped for. It +harmonizes best with the interpretation of the vulture-phantasy, if at +least three years or perhaps five years of Leonardo's life had elapsed +before he changed from his lonely mother to his father's home. But then +it had already become too late. In the first three or four years of life +impressions are fixed and modes of reactions are formed towards the +outer world which can never be robbed of their importance by any later +experiences. + +If it is true that the incomprehensible childhood reminiscences and the +person's phantasies based on them always bring out the most significant +of his psychic development, then the fact corroborated by the vulture +phantasy, that Leonardo passed the first years of his life alone with +his mother must have been a most decisive influence on the formation of +his inner life. Under the effect of this constellation it could not have +been otherwise than that the child which in his young life encountered +one problem more than other children, should have begun to ponder very +passionately over this riddle and thus should have become an +investigator early in life. For he was tortured by the great questions +where do children come from and what has the father to do with their +origin. The vague knowledge of this connection between his investigation +and his childhood history has later drawn from him the exclamation that +it was destined that he should deeply occupy himself with the problem of +the bird's flight, for already in his cradle he had been visited by a +vulture. To trace the curiosity which is directed to the flight of the +bird to the infantile sexual investigation will be a later task which +will not be difficult to accomplish. + + + + +III + + +The element of the vulture represents to us the real memory content in +Leonardo's childhood phantasy; the association into which Leonardo +himself placed his phantasy threw a bright light on the importance of +this content for his later life. In continuing the work of +interpretation we now encounter the strange problem why this memory +content was elaborated into a homosexual situation. The mother who +nursed the child, or rather from whom the child suckled was transformed +into a vulture which stuck its tail into the child's mouth. We maintain +that the "coda" (tail) of the vulture, following the common substituting +usages of language, cannot signify anything else but a male genital or +penis. But we do not understand how the phantastic activity came to +furnish precisely this maternal bird with the mark of masculinity, and +in view of this absurdity we become confused at the possibility of +reducing this phantastic structure to rational sense. + +However, we must not despair. How many seemingly absurd dreams have we +not forced to give up their sense! Why should it become more difficult +to accomplish this in a childhood phantasy than in a dream! + +Let us remember the fact that it is not good to find one isolated +peculiarity, and let us hasten to add another to it which is still more +striking. + +The vulture-headed goddess _Mut_ of the Egyptians, a figure of +altogether impersonal character, as expressed by Drexel in Roscher's +lexicon, was often fused with other maternal deities of living +individuality like Isis and Hathor, but she retained besides her +separate existence and reverence. It was especially characteristic of +the Egyptian pantheon that the individual gods did not perish in this +amalgamation. Besides the composition of deities the simple divine image +remained in her independence. In most representations the vulture-headed +maternal deity was formed by the Egyptians in a phallic manner,[35] her +body which was distinguished as feminine by its breasts also bore the +masculine member in a state of erection. + +The goddess Mut thus evinced the same union of maternal and paternal +characteristics as in Leonardo's vulture phantasy. Should we explain +this concurrence by the assumption that Leonardo knew from studying his +book the androgynous nature of the maternal vulture? Such possibility is +more than questionable; it seems that the sources accessible to him +contained nothing of remarkable determination. It is more likely that +here as there the agreement is to be traced to a common, effective and +unknown motive. + +Mythology can teach us that the androgynous formation, the union of +masculine and feminine sex characteristics, did not belong to the +goddess Mut alone but also to other deities such as Isis and Hathor, but +in the latter perhaps only insofar as they possessed also a motherly +nature and became fused with the goddess Mut.[36] It teaches us further +that other Egyptian deities such as Neith of Sais out of whom the Greek +Athene was later formed, were originally conceived as androgynous or +dihermaphroditic, and that the same held true for many of the Greek +gods, especially of the Dionysian circle, as well as for Aphrodite who +was later restricted to a feminine love deity. Mythology may also offer +the explanation that the phallus which was added to the feminine body +was meant to denote the creative primitive force of nature, and that all +these hermaphroditic deistic formations express the idea that only a +union of the masculine and feminine elements can result in a worthy +representation of divine perfection. But none of these observations +explain the psychological riddle, namely, that the phantasy of men takes +no offense at the fact that a figure which was to embody the essence of +the mother should be provided with the mark of the masculine power which +is the opposite of motherhood. + +The explanation comes from the infantile sexual theories. There really +was a time in which the male genital was found to be compatible with +the representation of the mother. When the male child first directs his +curiosity to the riddle of the sexual life, he is dominated by the +interest for his own genitals. He finds this part of the body too +valuable and too important to believe that it would be missing in other +persons to whom he feels such a resemblance. As he cannot divine that +there is still another equally valuable type of genital formation he +must grasp the assumption that all persons, also women, possess such a +member as he. This preconception is so firm in the youthful investigator +that it is not destroyed even by the first observation of the genitals +in little girls. His perception naturally tells him that there is +something different here than in him, but he is unable to admit to +himself as the content of this perception that he cannot find this +member in girls. That this member may be missing is to him a dismal and +unbearable thought, and he therefore seeks to reconcile it by deciding +that it also exists in girls but it is still very small and that it will +grow later.[37] If this expectation does not appear to be fulfilled on +later observation he has at his disposal another way of escape. The +member also existed in the little girl but it was cut off and on its +place there remained a wound. This progress of the theory already makes +use of his own painful experience; he was threatened in the meantime +that this important organ will be taken away from him if it will form +too much of an interest for his occupation. Under the influence of this +threat of castration he now interprets his conception of the female +genital, henceforth he will tremble for his masculinity, but at the same +time he will look with contempt upon those unhappy creatures upon whom, +in his opinion, this cruel punishment had already been visited. + +Before the child came under the domination of the castration complex, at +the time when he still held the woman at her full value, he began to +manifest an intensive desire to look as an erotic activity of his +impulse. He wished to see the genitals of other persons, originally +probably because he wished to compare them with his own. The erotic +attraction which emanated from the person of his mother soon reached +its height in the longing to see her genital which he believed to be a +penis. With the cognition acquired only later that the woman has no +penis, this longing often becomes transformed into its opposite and +gives place to disgust, which in the years of puberty may become the +cause of psychic impotence, of misogyny and of lasting homosexuality. +But the fixation on the once so vividly desired object, the penis of the +woman, leaves ineradicable traces in the psychic life of the child, +which has gone through that fragment of infantile sexual investigation +with particular thoroughness. The fetich-like reverence for the feminine +foot and shoe seems to take the foot only as a substitutive symbol for +the once revered and since then missed member of the woman. The +"braid-slashers" without knowing it play the part of persons who perform +the act of castration on the female genital. + +One will not gain any correct understanding of the activities of the +infantile sexuality and probably will consider these communications +unworthy of belief, as long as one does not relinquish the attitude of +our cultural depreciation of the genitals and of the sexual functions in +general. To understand the infantile psychic life one has to look to +analogies from primitive times. For a long series of generations we have +been in the habit of considering the genitals or _pudenda_ as objects of +shame, and in the case of more successful sexual repression as objects +of disgust. The majority of those living to-day only reluctantly obey +the laws of propagation, feeling thereby that their human dignity is +being offended and degraded. What exists among us of the other +conception of the sexual life is found only in the uncultivated and in +the lower social strata; among the higher and more refined types it is +concealed as culturally inferior, and its activity is ventured only +under the embittered admonition of a guilty conscience. It was quite +different in the primitive times of the human race. From the laborious +collections of students of civilization one gains the conviction that +the genitals were originally the pride and hope of living beings, they +enjoyed divine worship, and the divine nature of their functions was +transported to all newly acquired activities of mankind. Through +sublimation of its essential elements there arose innumerable +god-figures, and at the time when the relation of official religions +with sexual activity was already hidden from the general consciousness, +secret cults labored to preserve it alive among a number of the +initiated. In the course of cultural development it finally happened +that so much godliness and holiness had been extracted from sexuality +that the exhausted remnant fell into contempt. But considering the +indestructibility which is in the nature of all psychic impressions one +need not wonder that even the most primitive forms of genital worship +could be demonstrated until quite recent times, and that language, +customs and superstitions of present day humanity contain the remnants +of all phases of this course of development.[38] + +Important biological analogies have taught us that the psychic +development of the individual is a short repetition of the course of +development of the race, and we shall therefore not find improbable what +the psychoanalytic investigation of the child's psyche asserts +concerning the infantile estimation of the genitals. The infantile +assumption of the maternal penis is thus the common source of origin for +the androgynous formation of the maternal deities like the Egyptian +goddess Mut and the vulture's "coda" (tail) in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. As a matter of fact, it is only through misunderstanding that +these deistic representations are designated hermaphroditic in the +medical sense of the word. In none of them is there a union of the true +genitals of both sexes as they are united in some deformed beings to the +disgust of every human eye; but besides the breast as a mark of +motherhood there is also the male member, just as it existed in the +first imagination of the child about his mother's body. Mythology has +retained for the faithful this revered and very early fancied bodily +formation of the mother. The prominence given to the vulture-tail in +Leonardo's phantasy we can now translate as follows: At that time when I +directed my tender curiosity to my mother I still adjudged to her a +genital like my own. A further testimonial of Leonardo's precocious +sexual investigation, which in our opinion became decisive for his +entire life. + +A brief reflection now admonishes us that we should not be satisfied +with the explanation of the vulture-tail in Leonardo's childhood +phantasy. It seems as if it contained more than we as yet understand. +For its more striking feature really consisted in the fact that the +nursing at the mother's breast was transformed into being nursed, that +is into a passive act which thus gives the situation an undoubted +homosexual character. Mindful of the historical probability that +Leonardo behaved in life as a homosexual in feeling, the question +obtrudes itself whether this phantasy does not point to a causal +connection between Leonardo's childhood relations to his mother and the +later manifest, if only ideal, homosexuality. We would not venture to +draw such conclusion from Leonardo's disfigured reminiscence were it not +for the fact that we know from our psychoanalytic investigation of +homosexual patients that such a relation exists, indeed it really is an +intimate and necessary relation. + +Homosexual men who have started in our times an energetic action against +the legal limitations of their sexual activity are fond of representing +themselves through theoretical spokesmen as evincing a sexual variation, +which may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate +stage of sex or as "a third sex." In other words, they maintain that +they are men who are forced by organic determinants originating in the +germ to find that pleasure in the man which they cannot feel in the +woman. As much as one would wish to subscribe to their demands out of +humane considerations, one must nevertheless exercise reserve regarding +their theories which were formulated without regard for the psychic +genesis of homosexuality. Psychoanalysis offers the means to fill this +gap and to put to test the assertions of the homosexuals. It is true +that psychoanalysis fulfilled this task in only a small number of +people, but all investigation thus far undertaken brought the same +surprising results.[39] In all our male homosexuals there was a very +intensive erotic attachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the +mother, which was manifest in the very first period of childhood and +later entirely forgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced +or favored by too much love from the mother herself, but was also +furthered by the retirement or absence of the father during the +childhood period. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers of his +homosexual patients were often man-women, or women with energetic traits +of character who were able to crowd out the father from the place +allotted to him in the family. I have sometimes observed the same thing, +but I was more impressed by those cases in which the father was absent +from the beginning or disappeared early so that the boy was altogether +under feminine influence. It almost seems that the presence of a strong +father would assure for the son the proper decision in the selection of +his object from the opposite sex. + +Following this primary stage, a transformation takes place whose +mechanisms we know but whose motive forces we have not yet grasped. The +love of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it +merges into repression. The boy represses the love for the mother by +putting himself in her place, by identifying himself with her, and by +taking his own person as a model through the similarity of which he is +guided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual; +as a matter of fact he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the boys +whom the growing adult now loves are only substitutive persons or +revivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as +his mother loved him. We say that he finds his love object on the road +to narcism, for the Greek legend called a boy Narcissus to whom nothing +was more pleasing than his own mirrored image, and who became +transformed into a beautiful flower of this name. + +Deeper psychological discussions justify the assertion that the person +who becomes homosexual in this manner remains fixed in his unconscious +on the memory picture or his mother, By repressing the love for his +mother he conserves the same in his unconscious and henceforth remains +faithful to her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus +runs away from women who could cause him to become faithless to his +mother. Through direct observation of individual cases we could +demonstrate that he who is seemingly receptive only of masculine stimuli +is in reality influenced by the charms emanating from women just like a +normal person, but each and every time he hastens to transfer the +stimulus he received from the woman to a male object and in this manner +he repeats again and again the mechanism through which he acquired his +homosexuality. + +It is far from us to exaggerate the importance of these explanations +concerning the psychic genesis of homosexuality. It is quite clear that +they are in crass opposition to the official theories of the homosexual +spokesmen, but we are aware that these explanations are not sufficiently +comprehensive to render possible a final explanation of the problem. +What one calls homosexual for practical purposes may have its origin in +a variety of psychosexual inhibiting processes, and the process +recognized by us is perhaps only one among many, and has reference only +to one type of "homosexuality." We must also admit, that the number of +cases in our homosexual type which shows the conditions required by us, +exceeds by far those cases in which the resulting effect really appears, +so that even we cannot reject the supposed cooeperation of unknown +constitutional factors from which one was otherwise wont to deduce the +whole of homosexuality. As a matter of fact there would be no occasion +for entering into the psychic genesis of the form of homosexuality +studied by us if there were not a strong presumption that Leonardo, from +whose vulture-phantasy we started, really belonged to this one type of +homosexuality. + +As little as is known concerning the sexual behavior of the great artist +and investigator, we must still trust to the probability that the +testimonies of his contemporaries did not go far astray. In the light of +this tradition he appears to us as a man whose sexual need and activity +were extraordinarily low, as if a higher striving had raised him above +the common animal need of mankind. It may be open to doubt whether he +ever sought direct sexual gratification, and in what manner, or whether +he could dispense with it altogether. We are justified, however, to look +also in him for those emotional streams which imperatively force others +to the sexual act, for we cannot imagine a human psychic life in whose +development the sexual desire in the broadest sense, the libido, has not +had its share, whether the latter has withdrawn itself far from the +original aim or whether it was detained from being put into execution. + +Anything but traces of unchanged sexual desire we need not expect in +Leonardo. These point however to one direction and allow us to count him +among homosexuals. It has always been emphasized that he took as his +pupils only strikingly handsome boys and youths. He was kind and +considerate towards them, he cared for them and nursed them himself when +they were ill, just like a mother nurses her children, as his own mother +might have cared for him. As he selected them on account of their +beauty rather than their talent, none of them--Cesare da Sesto, G. +Boltraffio, Andrea Salaino, Francesco Melzi and the others--ever became +a prominent artist. Most of them could not make themselves independent +of their master and disappeared after his death without leaving a more +definite physiognomy to the history of art. The others who by their +productions earned the right to call themselves his pupils, as Luini and +Bazzi, nicknamed Sodoma, he probably did not know personally. + +We realize that we will have to face the objection that Leonardo's +behavior towards his pupils surely had nothing to do with sexual +motives, and permits no conclusion as to his sexual peculiarity. Against +this we wish to assert with all caution that our conception explains +some strange features in the master's behavior which otherwise would +have remained enigmatical. Leonardo kept a diary; he made entries in his +small hand, written from right to left which were meant only for +himself. It is to be noted that in this diary he addressed himself with +"thou": "Learn from master Lucca the multiplication of roots."[40] "Let +master d'Abacco show thee the square of the circle."[41] Or on the +occasion of a journey he entered in his diary: + +"I am going to Milan to look after the affairs of my garden ... order +two pack-sacks to be made. Ask Boltraffio to show thee his turning-lathe +and let him polish a stone on it.--Leave the book to master Andrea il +Todesco."[42] Or he wrote a resolution of quite different significance: +"Thou must show in thy treatise that the earth is a star, like the moon +or resembling it, and thus prove the nobility of our world."[43] + +In this diary, which like the diaries of other mortals often skim over +the most important events of the day with only few words or ignore them +altogether, one finds a few entries which on account of their +peculiarity are cited by all of Leonardo's biographers. They show +notations referring to the master's petty expenses, which are recorded +with painful exactitude as if coming from a pedantic and strictly +parsimonious family father, while there is nothing to show that he spent +greater sums, or that the artist was well versed in household +management. One of these notes refers to a new cloak which he bought for +his pupil Andrea Salaino:[44] + + Silver brocade Lira 15 Soldi 4 + Crimson velvet for trimming " 9 " 0 + Braid " 0 " 9 + Buttons " 0 " 12 + +Another very detailed notice gives all the expenses which he incurred +through the bad qualities and the thieving tendencies of another pupil +or model: "On 21st day of April, 1490, I started this book and started +again the horse.[45] Jacomo came to me on Magdalene day, 1490, at the +age of ten years (marginal note: thievish, mendacious, willful, +gluttonous). On the second day I ordered for him two shirts, a pair of +pants, and a jacket, and as I put the money away to pay for the things +named he stole the money from my purse, and it was never possible to +make him confess, although I was absolutely sure of it (marginal note: 4 +Lira ...)." So the report continues concerning the misdeeds of the +little boy and concludes with the expense account: "In the first year, a +cloak, Lira 2: 6 shirts, Lira 4: 3 jackets, Lira 6: 4 pair of socks, +Lira 7, etc."[46] + +Leonardo's biographers, to whom nothing was further than to solve the +riddle in the psychic life of their hero from these slight weaknesses +and peculiarities, were wont to remark in connection with these peculiar +accounts that they emphasized the kindness and consideration of the +master for his pupils. They forget thereby that it is not Leonardo's +behavior that needs an explanation, but the fact that he left us these +testimonies of it. As it is impossible to ascribe to him the motive of +smuggling into our hands proofs of his kindness, we must assume that +another affective motive caused him to write this down. It is not easy +to conjecture what this motive was, and we could not give any if not +for another account found among Leonardo's papers which throws a +brilliant light on these peculiarly petty notices about his pupils' +clothes, and others of a kind:[47] + + Burial expenses following the death of Caterina 27 florins + 2 pounds wax 18 " + Cataphalc 12 " + For the transportation and erection of the cross 4 " + Pall bearers 8 " + To 4 priests and 4 clerics 20 " + Ringing of bells 2 " + To grave diggers 16 " + For the approval--to the officials 1 " + ------------ + To sum up 108 florins + + Previous expenses: + To the doctor 4 florins + For sugar and candles 12 " + 16 florins + ------------ + Sum total 124 florins + +The writer Merejkowski is the only one who can tell us who this Caterina +was. From two different short notices he concludes that she was the +mother of Leonardo, the poor peasant woman from Vinci, who came to Milan +in 1493 to visit her son then 41 years old. While on this visit she fell +ill and was taken to the hospital by Leonardo, and following her death +she was buried by her son with such sumptuous funeral.[48] + +This deduction of the psychological writer of romances is not capable of +proof, but it can lay claim to so many inner probabilities, it agrees so +well with everything we know besides about Leonardo's emotional activity +that I cannot refrain from accepting it as correct. Leonardo succeeded +in forcing his feelings under the yoke of investigation and in +inhibiting their free utterance, but even in him there were episodes in +which the suppression obtained expression, and one of these was the +death of his mother whom he once loved so ardently. Through this account +of the burial expenses he represents to us the mourning of his mother in +an almost unrecognizable distortion. We wonder how such a distortion +could have come about, and we certainly cannot grasp it when viewed +under normal mental processes. But similar mechanisms are familiar to us +under the abnormal conditions of neuroses, and especially in the +so-called _compulsion neurosis_. Here one can observe how the +expressions of more intensive feelings have been displaced to trivial +and even foolish performances. The opposing forces succeeded in debasing +the expression of these repressed feelings to such an extent that one is +forced to estimate the intensity of these feelings as extremely +unimportant, but the imperative compulsion with which these +insignificant acts express themselves betrays the real force of the +feelings which are rooted in the unconscious, which consciousness would +wish to disavow. Only by bearing in mind the mechanisms of compulsion +neurosis can one explain Leonardo's account of the funeral expenses of +his mother. In his unconscious he was still tied to her as in childhood, +by erotically tinged feelings; the opposition of the repression of this +childhood love which appeared later stood in the way of erecting to her +in his diary a different and more dignified monument, but what resulted +as a compromise of this neurotic conflict had to be put in operation and +hence the account was entered in the diary which thus came to the +knowledge of posterity as something incomprehensible. + +It is not venturing far to transfer the interpretation obtained from the +funeral expenses to the accounts dealing with his pupils. Accordingly we +would say that here also we deal with a case in which Leonardo's meager +remnants of libidinous feelings compulsively obtained a distorted +expression. The mother and the pupils, the very images of his own boyish +beauty, would be his sexual objects--as far as his sexual repression +dominating his nature would allow such manifestations--and the +compulsion to note with painful circumstantiality his expenses on their +behalf, would designate the strange betrayal of his rudimentary +conflicts. From this we would conclude that Leonardo's love-life really +belonged to that type of homosexuality, the psychic development of which +we were able to disclose, and the appearance of the homosexual situation +in his vulture-phantasy would become comprehensible to us, for it states +nothing more or less than what we have asserted before concerning that +type. It requires the following interpretation: Through the erotic +relations to my mother I became a homosexual.[49] + + + + +IV + + +The vulture phantasy of Leonardo still absorbs our interest. In words +which only too plainly recall a sexual act ("and has many times struck +against my lips with his tail"), Leonardo emphasizes the intensity of +the erotic relations between the mother and the child. A second memory +content of the phantasy can readily be conjectured from the association +of the activity of the mother (of the vulture) with the accentuation of +the mouth zone. We can translate it as follows: My mother has pressed on +my mouth innumerable passionate kisses. The phantasy is composed of the +memories of being nursed and of being kissed by the mother. + +[Illustration: MONA LISA] + +A kindly nature has bestowed upon the artist the capacity to express in +artistic productions his most secret psychic feelings hidden even to +himself, which powerfully affect outsiders who are strangers to the +artist without their being able to state whence this emotivity comes. +Should there be no evidence in Leonardo's work of that which his memory +retained as the strongest impression of his childhood? One would have to +expect it. However, when one considers what profound transformations an +impression of an artist has to experience before it can add its +contribution to the work of art, one is obliged to moderate considerably +his expectation of demonstrating something definite. This is especially +true in the case of Leonardo. + +He who thinks of Leonardo's paintings will be reminded by the remarkably +fascinating and puzzling smile which he enchanted on the lips of all his +feminine figures. It is a fixed smile on elongated, sinuous lips which +is considered characteristic of him and is preferentially designated as +"Leonardesque." In the singular and beautiful visage of the Florentine +Monna Lisa del Giocondo it has produced the greatest effect on the +spectators and even perplexed them. This smile was in need of an +interpretation, and received many of the most varied kind but none of +them was considered satisfactory. As Gruyer puts it: "It is almost four +centuries since Monna Lisa causes all those to lose their heads who have +looked upon her for some time."[50] + +Muther states:[51] "What fascinates the spectator is the demoniacal +charm of this smile. Hundreds of poets and writers have written about +this woman, who now seems to smile upon us seductively and now to stare +coldly and lifelessly into space, but nobody has solved the riddle of +her smile, nobody has interpreted her thoughts. Everything, even the +scenery is mysterious and dream-like, trembling as if in the sultriness +of sensuality." + +The idea that two diverse elements were united in the smile of Monna +Lisa has been felt by many critics. They therefore recognize in the play +of features of the beautiful Florentine lady the most perfect +representation of the contrasts dominating the love-life of the woman +which is foreign to man, as that of reserve and seduction, and of most +devoted tenderness and inconsiderateness in urgent and consuming +sensuality. Muentz[52] expresses himself in this manner: "One knows what +indecipherable and fascinating enigma Monna Lisa Gioconda has been +putting for nearly four centuries to the admirers who crowd around her. +No artist (I borrow the expression of the delicate writer who hides +himself under the pseudonym of Pierre de Corlay) has ever translated in +this manner the very essence of femininity: the tenderness and coquetry, +the modesty and quiet voluptuousness, the whole mystery of the heart +which holds itself aloof, of a brain which reflects, and of a +personality who watches itself and yields nothing from herself except +radiance...." The Italian Angelo Conti[53] saw the picture in the Louvre +illumined by a ray of the sun and expressed himself as follows: "The +woman smiled with a royal calmness, her instincts of conquest, of +ferocity, the entire heredity of the species, the will of seduction and +ensnaring, the charm of the deceiver, the kindness which conceals a +cruel purpose, all that appears and disappears alternately behind the +laughing veil and melts into the poem of her smile.... Good and evil, +cruelty and compassion, graceful and cat-like, she laughed...." + +Leonardo painted this picture four years, perhaps from 1503 until 1507, +during his second sojourn in Florence when he was about the age of fifty +years. According to Vasari he applied the choicest artifices in order to +divert the lady during the sittings and to hold that smile firmly on her +features. Of all the gracefulness that his brush reproduced on the +canvas at that time the picture preserves but very little in its present +state. During its production it was considered the highest that art +could accomplish; it is certain, however, that it did not satisfy +Leonardo himself, that he pronounced it as unfinished and did not +deliver it to the one who ordered it, but took it with him to France +where his benefactor Francis I, acquired it for the Louvre. + +Let us leave the physiognomic riddle of Monna Lisa unsolved, and let us +note the unequivocal fact that her smile fascinated the artist no less +than all the spectators for these 400 years. This captivating smile had +thereafter returned in all of his pictures and in those of his pupils. +As Leonardo's Monna Lisa was a portrait we cannot assume that he has +added to her face a trait of his own so difficult to express which she +herself did not possess. It seems, we cannot help but believe, that he +found this smile in his model and became so charmed by it that from now +on he endowed it on all the free creations of his phantasy. This obvious +conception is, e.g., expressed by A. Konstantinowa in the following +manner:[54] + +"During the long period in which the master occupied himself with the +portrait of Monna Lisa del Gioconda, he entered into the physiognomic +delicacies of this feminine face with such sympathy of feeling that he +transferred these creatures, especially the mysterious smile and the +peculiar glance, to all faces which he later painted or drew. The mimic +peculiarity of Gioconda can even be perceived in the picture of John the +Baptist in the Louvre. But above all they are distinctly recognized in +the features of Mary in the picture of St. Anne of the Louvre." + +But the case could have been different. The need for a deeper reason for +the fascination which the smile of Gioconda exerted on the artist from +which he could not rid himself has been felt by more than one of his +biographers. W. Pater, who sees in the picture of Monna Lisa the +embodiment of the entire erotic experience of modern man, and discourses +so excellently on "that unfathomable smile always with a touch of +something sinister in it, which plays over all Leonardo's work," leads +us to another track when he says:[55] + +"Besides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image +defining itself on the fabric of his dream; and but for express +historical testimony, we might fancy that this was but his ideal lady, +embodied and beheld at last." + +Herzfeld surely must have had something similar in mind when stating +that in Monna Lisa Leonardo encountered himself and therefore found it +possible to put so much of his own nature into the picture, "whose +features from time immemorial have been imbedded with mysterious +sympathy in Leonardo's soul."[56] + +Let us endeavor to clear up these intimations. It was quite possible +that Leonardo was fascinated by the smile of Monna Lisa, because it had +awakened something in him which had slumbered in his soul for a long +time, in all probability an old memory. This memory was of sufficient +importance to stick to him once it had been aroused; he was forced +continually to provide it with new expression. The assurance of Pater +that we can see an image like that of Monna Lisa defining itself from +Leonardo's childhood on the fabric of his dreams, seems worthy of belief +and deserves to be taken literally. + +Vasari mentions as Leonardo's first artistic endeavors, "heads of women +who laugh."[57] The passage, which is beyond suspicion, as it is not +meant to prove anything, reads more precisely as follows:[58] "He formed +in his youth some laughing feminine heads out of lime, which have been +reproduced in plaster, and some heads of children, which were as +beautiful as if modeled by the hands of a master...." + +Thus we discover that his practice of art began with the representation +of two kinds of objects, which would perforce remind us of the two kinds +of sexual objects which we have inferred from the analysis of his +vulture phantasy. If the beautiful children's heads were reproductions +of his own childish person, then the laughing women were nothing else +but reproductions of Caterina, his mother, and we are beginning to have +an inkling of the possibility that his mother possessed that mysterious +smile which he lost, and which fascinated him so much when he found it +again in the Florentine lady.[59] + +[Illustration: SAINT ANNE] + +The painting of Leonardo which in point of time stands nearest to the +Monna Lisa is the so-called Saint Anne of the Louvre, representing +Saint Anne, Mary and the Christ child. It shows the Leonardesque smile +most beautifully portrayed in the two feminine heads. It is impossible +to find out how much earlier or later than the portrait of Monna Lisa +Leonardo began to paint this picture. As both works extended over years, +we may well assume that they occupied the master simultaneously. But it +would best harmonize with our expectation if precisely the absorption in +the features of Monna Lisa would have instigated Leonardo to form the +composition of Saint Anne from his phantasy. For if the smile of +Gioconda had conjured up in him the memory of his mother, we would +naturally understand that he was first urged to produce a glorification +of motherhood, and to give back to her the smile he found in that +prominent lady. We may thus allow our interest to glide over from the +portrait of Monna Lisa to this other hardly less beautiful picture, now +also in the Louvre. + +Saint Anne with the daughter and grandchild is a subject seldom treated +in the Italian art of painting; at all events Leonardo's representation +differs widely from all that is otherwise known. Muther states:[60] + +"Some masters like Hans Fries, the older Holbein, and Girolamo dei +Libri, made Anne sit near Mary and placed the child between the two. +Others like Jakob Cornelicz in his Berlin pictures, represented Saint +Anne as holding in her arm the small figure of Mary upon which sits the +still smaller figure of the Christ child." In Leonardo's picture Mary +sits on her mother's lap, bent forward and is stretching out both arms +after the boy who plays with a little lamb, and must have slightly +maltreated it. The grandmother has one of her unconcealed arms propped +on her hip and looks down on both with a blissful smile. The grouping is +certainly not quite unconstrained. But the smile which is playing on the +lips of both women, although unmistakably the same as in the picture of +Monna Lisa, has lost its sinister and mysterious character; it expresses +a calm blissfulness.[61] + +On becoming somewhat engrossed in this picture it suddenly dawns upon +the spectator that only Leonardo could have painted this picture, as +only he could have formed the vulture phantasy. This picture contains +the synthesis of the history of Leonardo's childhood, the details of +which are explainable by the most intimate impressions of his life. In +his father's home he found not only the kind step-mother Donna Albiera, +but also the grandmother, his father's mother, Monna Lucia, who we will +assume was not less tender to him than grandmothers are wont to be. This +circumstance must have furnished him with the facts for the +representation of a childhood guarded by a mother and grandmother. +Another striking feature of the picture assumes still greater +significance. Saint Anne, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of the +boy who must have been a matron, is formed here perhaps somewhat more +mature and more serious than Saint Mary, but still as a young woman of +unfaded beauty. As a matter of fact Leonardo gave the boy two mothers, +the one who stretched out her arms after him and another who is seen in +the background, both are represented with the blissful smile of maternal +happiness. This peculiarity of the picture has not failed to excite the +wonder of the authors. Muther, for instance, believes that Leonardo +could not bring himself to paint old age, folds and wrinkles, and +therefore formed also Anne as a woman of radiant beauty. Whether one can +be satisfied with this explanation is a question. Other writers have +taken occasion to deny generally the sameness of age of mother and +daughter.[62] However, Muther's tentative explanation is sufficient +proof for the fact that the impression of Saint Anne's youthful +appearance was furnished by the picture and is not an imagination +produced by a tendency. + +Leonardo's childhood was precisely as remarkable as this picture. He has +had two mothers, the first his true mother, Caterina, from whom he was +torn away between the age of three and five years, and a young tender +step-mother, Donna Albiera, his father's wife. By connecting this fact +of his childhood with the one mentioned above and condensing them into a +uniform fusion, the composition of Saint Anne, Mary and the Child, +formed itself in him. The maternal form further away from the boy +designated as grandmother, corresponds in appearance and in spatial +relation to the boy, with the real first mother, Caterina. With the +blissful smile of Saint Anne the artist actually disavowed and concealed +the envy which the unfortunate mother felt when she was forced to give +up her son to her more aristocratic rival, as once before her lover. + +Our feeling that the smile of Monna Lisa del Gioconda awakened in the +man the memory of the mother of his first years of childhood would thus +be confirmed from another work of Leonardo. Following the production of +Monna Lisa, Italian artists depicted in Madonnas and prominent ladies +the humble dipping of the head and the peculiar blissful smile of the +poor peasant girl Caterina, who brought to the world the noble son who +was destined to paint, investigate, and suffer. + +When Leonardo succeeded in reproducing in the face of Monna Lisa the +double sense comprised in this smile, namely, the promise of unlimited +tenderness, and sinister threat (in the words of Pater), he remained +true even in this to the content of his earliest reminiscence. For the +love of the mother became his destiny, it determined his fate and the +privations which were in store for him. The impetuosity of the caressing +to which the vulture phantasy points was only too natural. The poor +forsaken mother had to give vent through mother's love to all her +memories of love enjoyed as well as to all her yearnings for more +affection; she was forced to it, not only in order to compensate herself +for not having a husband, but also the child for not having a father who +wanted to love it. In the manner of all ungratified mothers she thus +took her little son in place of her husband, and robbed him of a part of +his virility by the too early maturing of his eroticism. The love of the +mother for the suckling whom she nourishes and cares for is something +far deeper reaching than her later affection for the growing child. It +is of the nature of a fully gratified love affair, which fulfills not +only all the psychic wishes but also all physical needs, and when it +represents one of the forms of happiness attainable by man it is due, in +no little measure, to the possibility of gratifying without reproach +also wish feelings which were long repressed and designated as +perverse.[63] Even in the happiest recent marriage the father feels that +his child, especially the little boy has become his rival, and this +gives origin to an antagonism against the favorite one which is deeply +rooted in the unconscious. + +When in the prime of his life Leonardo re-encountered that blissful and +ecstatic smile as it had once encircled his mother's mouth in caressing, +he had long been under the ban of an inhibition, forbidding him ever +again to desire such tenderness from women's lips. But as he had become +a painter he endeavored to reproduce this smile with his brush and +furnish all his pictures with it, whether he executed them himself or +whether they were done by his pupils under his direction, as in Leda, +John, and Bacchus. The latter two are variations of the same type. +Muther says: "From the locust eater of the Bible Leonardo made a +Bacchus, an Apollo, who with a mysterious smile on his lips, and with +his soft thighs crossed, looks on us with infatuated eyes." These +pictures breathe a mysticism into the secret of which one dares not +penetrate; at most one can make the effort to construct the connection +to Leonardo's earlier productions. The figures are again androgynous but +no longer in the sense of the vulture phantasy, they are pretty boys of +feminine tenderness with feminine forms; they do not cast down their +eyes but gaze mysteriously triumphant, as if they knew of a great happy +issue concerning which one must remain quiet; the familiar fascinating +smile leads us to infer that it is a love secret. It is possible that in +these forms Leonardo disavowed and artistically conquered the +unhappiness of his love life, in that he represented the wish +fulfillment of the boy infatuated with his mother in such blissful union +of the male and female nature. + +[Illustration: JOHN THE BAPTIST] + + + + +V + + +Among the entries in Leonardo's diaries there is one which absorbs the +reader's attention through its important content and on account of a +small formal error. In July, 1504, he wrote: + +"Adi 9 Luglio, 1504, mercoledi, a ore 7 mori Ser Piero da Vinci notalio +al palazzo del Potesta, mio padre, a ore 7. Era d'eta d'anni 80, lascio +10 figlioli maschi e 2 feminine."[64] + +The notice as we see deals with the death of Leonardo's father. The +slight error in its form consists in the fact that in the computation of +the time "at 7 o'clock" is repeated two times, as if Leonardo had +forgotten at the end of the sentence that he had already written it at +the beginning. It is only a triviality to which any one but a +psychoanalyst would pay no attention. Perhaps he would not even notice +it, or if his attention would be called to it he would say "that can +happen to anybody during absent-mindedness or in an affective state and +has no further meaning." + +The psychoanalyst thinks differently; to him nothing is too trifling as +a manifestation of hidden psychic processes; he has long learned that +such forgetting or repetition is full of meaning, and that one is +indebted to the "absent-mindedness" when it makes possible the betrayal +of otherwise concealed feelings. + +We would say that, like the funeral account of Caterina and the expense +account of the pupils, this notice, too, corresponds to a case in which +Leonardo was unsuccessful in suppressing his affects, and the long +hidden feeling forcibly obtained a distorted expression. Also the form +is similar, it shows the same pedantic precision, the same pushing +forward of numbers.[65] + +We call such a repetition a perseveration. It is an excellent means to +indicate the affective accentuation. One recalls for example Saint +Peter's angry speech against his unworthy representative on earth, as +given in Dante's Paradiso:[66] + + "Quegli ch'usurpa in terra il luoga mio + Il luoga mio, il luogo mio, che vaca + Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio, + Fatto ha del cimiterio mio cloaca." + +Without Leonardo's affective inhibition the entry into the diary could +perhaps have read as follows: To-day at 7 o'clock died my father, Ser +Piero da Vinci, my poor father! But the displacement of the +perseveration to the most indifferent determination of the obituary to +dying-hour robs the notice of all pathos and lets us recognize that +there was something here to conceal and to suppress. + +Ser Piero da Vinci, notary and descendant of notaries, was a man of +great energy who attained respect and affluence. He was married four +times, the two first wives died childless, and not till the third +marriage has he gotten the first legitimate son, in 1476, when Leonardo +was 24 years old, and had long ago changed his father's home for the +studio of his master Verrocchio. With the fourth and last wife whom he +married when he was already in the fifties he begot nine sons and two +daughters.[67] + +To be sure the father also assumed importance in Leonardo's psychosexual +development, and what is more, it was not only in a negative sense, +through his absence during the boy's first childhood years, but also +directly through his presence in his later childhood. He who as a child +desires his mother, cannot help wishing to put himself in his father's +place, to identify himself with him in his phantasy and later make it +his life's task to triumph over him. As Leonardo was not yet five years +old when he was received into his paternal home, the young step-mother, +Albiera, certainly must have taken the place of his mother in his +feeling, and this brought him into that relation of rivalry to his +father which may be designated as normal. As is known, the preference +for homosexuality did not manifest itself till near the years of +puberty. When Leonardo accepted this preference the identification with +the father lost all significance for his sexual life, but continued in +other spheres of non-erotic activity. We hear that he was fond of luxury +and pretty raiments, and kept servants and horses, although according to +Vasari's words "he hardly possessed anything and worked little." We +shall not hold his artistic taste entirely responsible for all these +special likings; we recognize in them also the compulsion to copy his +father and to excel him. He played the part of the great gentleman to +the poor peasant girl, hence the son retained the incentive that he also +play the great gentleman, he had the strong feeling "to out-herod +Herod," and to show his father exactly how the real high rank looks. + +Whoever works as an artist certainly feels as a father to his works. The +identification with his father had a fateful result in Leonardo's works +of art. He created them and then troubled himself no longer about them, +just as his father did not trouble himself about him. The later +worriments of his father could change nothing in this compulsion, as the +latter originated from the impressions of the first years of childhood, +and the repression having remained unconscious was incorrigible through +later experiences. + +At the time of the Renaissance, and even much later, every artist was in +need of a gentleman of rank to act as his benefactor. This patron was +wont to give the artist commissions for work and entirely controlled his +destiny. Leonardo found his patron in Lodovico Sforza, nicknamed Il +Moro, a man of high aspirations, ostentations, diplomatically astute, +but of an unstable and unreliable character. In his court in Milan, +Leonardo spent the best period of his life, while in his service he +evinced his most uninhibited productive activity as is evidenced in The +Last Supper, and in the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. He left +Milan before the catastrophe struck Lodovico Moro, who died a prisoner +in a French prison. When the news of his benefactor's fate reached +Leonardo he made the following entry in his diary: "The duke has lost +state, wealth, and liberty, not one of his works will be finished by +himself."[68] It is remarkable and surely not without significance that +he here raises the same reproach to his benefactor that posterity was to +apply to him, as if he wanted to lay the responsibility to a person who +substituted his father-series, for the fact that he himself left his +works unfinished. As a matter of fact he was not wrong in what he said +about the Duke. + +However, if the imitation of his father hurt him as an artist, his +resistance against the father was the infantile determinant of his +perhaps equally vast accomplishment as an artist. According to +Merejkowski's beautiful comparison he was like a man who awoke too early +in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep. He dared utter +this bold principle which contains the justification for all independent +investigation: _"Chi dispute allegando l'autorita non adopra l'ingegno +ma piuttosto la memoria"_ (Whoever refers to authorities in disputing +ideas, works with his memory rather than with his reason).[69] Thus he +became the first modern natural philosopher, and his courage was +rewarded by an abundance of cognitions and suggestions; since the Greek +period he was the first to investigate the secrets of nature, relying +entirely on his observation and his own judgment. But when he learned to +depreciate authority and to reject the imitation of the "ancients" and +constantly pointed to the study of nature as the source of all wisdom, +he only repeated in the highest sublimation attainable to man, which had +already obtruded itself on the little boy who surveyed the world with +wonder. To retranslate the scientific abstractions into concrete +individual experiences, we would say that the "ancients" and authority +only corresponded to the father, and nature again became the tender +mother who nourished him. While in most human beings to-day, as in +primitive times, the need for a support of some authority is so +imperative that their world becomes shaky when their authority is +menaced, Leonardo alone was able to exist without such support; but that +would not have been possible had he not been deprived of his father in +the first years of his life. The boldness and independence of his later +scientific investigation presupposes that his infantile sexual +investigation was not inhibited by his father, and this same spirit of +scientific independence was continued by his withdrawing from sex. + +If any one like Leonardo escapes in his childhood his father's +intimidation and later throws off the shackles of authority in his +scientific investigation, it would be in gross contradiction to our +expectation if we found that this same man remained a believer and +unable to withdraw from dogmatic religion. Psychoanalysis has taught us +the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, +and daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious +belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down. In the +parental complex we thus recognize the roots of religious need; the +almighty, just God, and kindly nature appear to us as grand sublimations +of father and mother, or rather as revivals and restorations of the +infantile conceptions of both parents. Religiousness is biologically +traced to the long period of helplessness and need of help of the little +child. When the child grows up and realizes his loneliness and weakness +in the presence of the great forces of life, he perceives his condition +as in childhood and seeks to disavow his despair through a regressive +revival of the protecting forces of childhood. + +It does not seem that Leonardo's life disproves this conception of +religious belief. Accusations charging him with irreligiousness, which +in those times was equivalent to renouncing Christianity, were brought +against him already in his lifetime, and were clearly described in the +first biography given by Vasari.[70] In the second edition of his Vite +(1568) Vasari left out this observation. In view of the extraordinary +sensitiveness of his age in matters of religion it is perfectly +comprehensible to us why Leonardo refrained from directly expressing his +position to Christianity in his notes. As investigator he did not permit +himself to be misled by the account of the creation of the holy +scriptures; for instance, he disputed the possibility of a universal +flood, and in geology he was as unscrupulous in calculating with hundred +thousands of years as modern investigators. + +Among his "prophecies" one finds some things that would perforce offend +the sensitive feelings of a religious Christian, e.g. Praying to the +images of Saints, reads as follows:[71] + +"People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see +nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore +those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those +who do not see." + +Or: Concerning mourning on Good Friday (p. 297): + +"In all parts of Europe great peoples will bewail the death of one man +who died in the Orient." + +It was asserted of Leonardo's art that he took away the last remnant of +religious attachment from the holy figures and put them into human form +in order to depict in them great and beautiful human feelings. Muther +praises him for having overcome the feeling of decadence, and for having +returned to man the right of sensuality and pleasurable enjoyment. The +notices which show Leonardo absorbed in fathoming the great riddles of +nature do not lack any expressions of admiration for the creator, the +last cause of all these wonderful secrets, but nothing indicates that he +wished to hold any personal relation to this divine force. The sentences +which contain the deep wisdom of his last years breathe the resignation +of the man who subjects himself to the laws of nature and expects no +alleviation from the kindness or grace of God. There is hardly any doubt +that Leonardo had vanquished dogmatic as well as personal religion, and +through his work of investigation he had withdrawn far from the world +aspect of the religious Christian. + +From our views mentioned before in the development of the infantile +psychic life, it becomes clear that also Leonardo's first investigations +in childhood occupied themselves with the problems of sexuality. But he +himself betrays it to us through a transparent veil, in that he +connects his impulse to investigate with the vulture phantasy, and in +emphasizing the problem of the flight of the bird as one whose +elaboration devolved upon him through special concatenations of fate. A +very obscure as well as a prophetically sounding passage in his notes +dealing with the flight of the bird demonstrates in the nicest way with +how much affective interest he clung to the wish that he himself should +be able to imitate, the art of flying: "The human bird shall take his +first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his +fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang." He +probably hoped that he himself would sometimes be able to fly, and we +know from the wish fulfilling dreams of people what bliss one expects +from the fulfillment of this hope. + +But why do so many people dream that they are able to fly? +Psychoanalysis answers this question by stating that to fly or to be a +bird in the dream is only a concealment of another wish, to the +recognition of which one can reach by more than one linguistic or +objective bridge. When the inquisitive child is told that a big bird +like the stork brings the little children, when the ancients have formed +the phallus winged, when the popular designation of the sexual activity +of man is expressed in German by the word "to bird" (voegeln), when the +male member is directly called _l'uccello_ (bird) by the Italians, all +these facts are only small fragments from a large collection which +teaches us that the wish to be able to fly signifies in the dream +nothing more or less than the longing for the ability of sexual +accomplishment. This is an early infantile wish. When the grown-up +recalls his childhood it appears to him as a happy time in which one is +happy for the moment and looks to the future without any wishes, it is +for this reason that he envies children. But if children themselves +could inform us about it they would probably give different reports. It +seems that childhood is not that blissful Idyl into which we later +distort it, that on the contrary children are lashed through the years +of childhood by the wish to become big, and to imitate the grown ups. +This wish instigates all their playing. If in the course of their +sexual investigation children feel that the grown up knows something +wonderful in the mysterious and yet so important realm, what they are +prohibited from knowing or doing, they are seized with a violent wish to +know it, and dream of it in the form of flying, or prepare this disguise +of the wish for their later flying dreams. Thus aviation, which has +attained its aim in our times, has also its infantile erotic roots. + +By admitting that he entertained a special personal relation to the +problem of flying since his childhood, Leonardo bears out what we must +assume from our investigation of children of our times, namely, that his +childhood investigation was directed to sexual matters. At least this +one problem escaped the repression which has later estranged him from +sexuality. From childhood until the age of perfect intellectual maturity +this subject, slightly varied, continued to hold his interest, and it is +quite possible that he was as little successful in his cherished art in +the primary sexual sense as in his desires for mechanical matters, that +both wishes were denied to him. + +As a matter of fact the great Leonardo remained infantile in some ways +throughout his whole life; it is said that all great men retain +something of the infantile. As a grown up he still continued playing, +which sometimes made him appear strange and incomprehensible to his +contemporaries. When he constructed the most artistic mechanical toys +for court festivities and receptions we are dissatisfied thereby because +we dislike to see the master waste his power on such petty stuff. He +himself did not seem averse to giving his time to such things. Vasari +reports that he did similar things even when not urged to it by request: +"There (in Rome) he made a doughy mass out of wax, and when it softened +he formed thereof very delicate animals filled with air; when he blew +into them they flew in the air, and when the air was exhausted they fell +to the ground. For a peculiar lizard caught by the wine-grower of +Belvedere Leonardo made wings from skin pulled off from other lizards, +which he filled with mercury so that they moved and trembled when it +walked; he then made for it eyes, a beard and horns, tamed it and put it +in a little box and terrified all his friends with it."[72] Such +playing often served him as an expression of serious thoughts: "He had +often cleaned the intestines of a sheep so well that one could hold them +in the hollow of the hand; he brought them into a big room, and attached +them to a blacksmith's bellows which he kept in an adjacent room, he +then blew them up until they filled up the whole room so that everybody +had to crowd into a corner. In this manner he showed how they gradually +became transparent and filled up with air, and as they were at first +limited to very little space and gradually became more and more extended +in the big room, he compared them to a genius."[73] His fables and +riddles evince the same playful pleasure in harmless concealment and +artistic investment, the riddles were put into the form of prophecies; +almost all are rich in ideas and to a remarkable degree devoid of wit. + +The plays and jumps which Leonardo allowed his phantasy have in some +cases quite misled his biographers who misunderstood this part of his +nature. In Leonardo's Milanese manuscripts one finds, for example, +outlines of letters to the "Diodario of Sorio (Syria), viceroy of the +holy Sultan of Babylon," in which Leonardo presents himself as an +engineer sent to these regions of the Orient in order to construct some +works. In these letters he defends himself against the reproach of +laziness, he furnishes geographical descriptions of cities and +mountains, and finally discusses a big elementary event which occurred +while he was there.[74] + +In 1881, J. P. Richter had endeavored to prove from these documents that +Leonardo made these traveler's observations when he really was in the +service of the Sultan of Egypt, and that while in the Orient he embraced +the Mohammedan religion. This sojourn in the Orient should have taken +place in the time of 1483, that is, before he removed to the court of +the Duke of Milan. However, it was not difficult for other authors to +recognize the illustrations of this supposed journey to the Orient as +what they really were, namely, phantastic productions of the youthful +artist which he created for his own amusement, and in which he probably +brought to expression his wishes to see the world and experience +adventures. + +A phantastic formation is probably also the "Academia Vinciana," the +acceptance of which is due to the existence of five or six most clever +and intricate emblems with the inscription of the Academy. Vasari +mentions these drawings but not the Academy.[75] Muentz who placed such +ornament on the cover of his big work on Leonardo belongs to the few who +believe in the reality of an "Academia Vinciana." + +It is probable that this impulse to play disappeared in Leonardo's +maturer years, that it became discharged in the investigating activity +which signified the highest development of his personality. But the fact +that it continued so long may teach us how slowly one tears himself away +from his infantilism after having enjoyed in his childhood supreme +erotic happiness which is later unattainable. + + + + +VI + + +It would be futile to delude ourselves that at present, readers find +every pathography unsavory. This attitude is excused with the reproach +that from a pathographic elaboration of a great man one never obtains an +understanding of his importance and his attainments, that it is +therefore useless mischief to study in him things which could just as +well be found in the first comer. However, this criticism is so clearly +unjust that it can only be grasped when viewed as a pretext and a +disguise for something. As a matter of fact pathography does not aim at +making comprehensible the attainments of the great man; no one should +really be blamed for not doing something which one never promised. The +real motives for the opposition are quite different. One finds them when +one bears in mind that biographers are fixed on their heroes in quite a +peculiar manner. Frequently they take the hero as the object of study +because, for reasons of their personal emotional life, they bear him a +special affection from the very outset. They then devote themselves to a +work of idealization which strives to enroll the great men among their +infantile models, and to revive through him, as it were, the infantile +conception of the father. For the sake of this wish they wipe out the +individual features in his physiognomy, they rub out the traces of his +life's struggle with inner and outer resistances, and do not tolerate in +him anything of human weakness or imperfection; they then give us a +cold, strange, ideal form instead of the man to whom we could feel +distantly related. It is to be regretted that they do this, for they +thereby sacrifice the truth to an illusion, and for the sake of their +infantile phantasies they let slip the opportunity to penetrate into the +most attractive secrets of human nature.[76] + +Leonardo himself, judging from his love for the truth and his +inquisitiveness, would have interposed no objections to the effort of +discovering the determinations of his psychic and intellectual +development from the trivial peculiarities and riddles of his nature. We +respect him by learning from him. It does no injury to his greatness to +study the sacrifices which his development from the child must have +entailed, and to the compile factors which have stamped on his person +the tragic feature of failure. + +Let us expressly emphasize that we have never considered Leonardo as a +neurotic or as a "nervous person" in the sense of this awkward term. +Whoever takes it amiss that we should even dare apply to him viewpoints +gained from pathology, still clings to prejudices which we have at +present justly given up. We no longer believe that health and disease, +normal and nervous, are sharply distinguished from each other, and that +neurotic traits must be judged as proof of general inferiority. We know +to-day that neurotic symptoms are substitutive formations for certain +repressive acts which have to be brought about in the course of our +development from the child to the cultural man, that we all produce +such substitutive formations, and that only the amount, intensity, and +distribution of these substitutive formations justify the practical +conception of illness and the conclusion of constitutional inferiority. +Following the slight signs in Leonardo's personality we would place him +near that neurotic type which we designate as the "compulsive type," and +we would compare his investigation with the "reasoning mania" of +neurotics, and his inhibitions with the so-called "abulias" of the +latter. + +The object of our work was to explain the inhibitions in Leonardo's +sexual life and in his artistic activity. For this purpose we shall now +sum up what we could discover concerning the course of his psychic +development. + +We were unable to gain any knowledge about his hereditary factors, on +the other hand we recognize that the accidental circumstances of his +childhood produced a far reaching disturbing effect. His illegitimate +birth deprived him of the influence of a father until perhaps his fifth +year, and left him to the tender seduction of a mother whose only +consolation he was. Having been kissed by her into sexual prematurity, +he surely must have entered into a phase of infantile sexual activity of +which only one single manifestation was definitely evinced, namely, the +intensity of his infantile sexual investigation. The impulse for looking +and inquisitiveness were most strongly stimulated by his impressions +from early childhood; the enormous mouth-zone received its accentuation +which it had never given up. From his later contrasting behavior, as the +exaggerated sympathy for animals, we can conclude that this infantile +period did not lack in strong sadistic traits. + +An energetic shift of repression put an end to this infantile excess, +and established the dispositions which became manifest in the years of +puberty. The most striking result of this transformation was a turning +away from all gross sensual activities. Leonardo was able to lead a life +of abstinence and made the impression of an asexual person. When the +floods of pubescent excitement came over the boy they did not make him +ill by forcing him to costly and harmful substitutive formations; owing +to the early preference for sexual inquisitiveness, the greater part of +the sexual needs could be sublimated into a general thirst after +knowledge and so elude repression. A much smaller portion of the libido +was applied to sexual aims, and represented the stunted sexual life of +the grown up. In consequence of the repression of the love for the +mother this portion assumed a homosexual attitude and manifested itself +as ideal love for boys. The fixation on the mother, as well as the happy +reminiscences of his relations with her, was preserved in his +unconscious but remained for the time in an inactive state. In this +manner the repression, fixation, and sublimation participated in the +disposal of the contributions which the sexual impulse furnished to +Leonardo's psychic life. + +From the obscure age of boyhood Leonardo appears to us as an artist, a +painter, and sculptor, thanks to a specific talent which was probably +enforced by the early awakening of the impulse for looking in the first +years of childhood. We would gladly report in what way the artistic +activity depends on the psychic primitive forces were it not that our +material is inadequate just here. We content ourselves by emphasizing +the fact, concerning which hardly any doubt still exists, that the +productions of the artist give outlet also to his sexual desire, and in +the case of Leonardo we can refer to the information imparted by Vasari, +namely, that heads of laughing women and pretty boys, or representations +of his sexual objects, attracted attention among his first artistic +attempts. It seems that during his flourishing youth Leonardo at first +worked in an uninhibited manner. As he took his father as a model for +his outer conduct in life, he passed through a period of manly creative +power and artistic productivity in Milan, where favored by fate he found +a substitute for his father in the duke Lodovico Moro. But the +experience of others was soon confirmed in him, to wit, that the almost +complete suppression of the real sexual life does not furnish the most +favorable conditions for the activity of the sublimated sexual +strivings. The figurativeness of his sexual life asserted itself, his +activity and ability to quick decisions began to weaken, the tendency to +reflection and delay was already noticeable as a disturbance in The +Holy Supper, and with the influence of the technique determined the fate +of this magnificent work. Slowly a process developed in him which can be +put parallel only to the regressions of neurotics. His development at +puberty into the artist was outstripped by the early infantile +determinant of the investigator, the second sublimation of his erotic +impulses turned back to the primitive one which was prepared at the +first repression. He became an investigator, first in service of his +art, later independently and away from his art. With the loss of his +patron, the substitute for his father, and with the increasing +difficulties in his life, the regressive displacement extended in +dimension. He became _"impacientissimo al pennello"_ (most impatient +with the brush) as reported by a correspondent of the countess Isabella +d'Este who desired to possess at any cost a painting from his hand.[77] +His infantile past had obtained control over him. The investigation, +however, which now took the place of his artistic production, seems to +have born certain traits which betrayed the activity of unconscious +impulses; this was seen in his insatiability, his regardless obstinacy, +and in his lack of ability to adjust himself to actual conditions. + +At the summit of his life, in the age of the first fifties, at a time +when the sex characteristics of the woman have already undergone a +regressive change, and when the libido in the man not infrequently +ventures into an energetic advance, a new transformation came over him. +Still deeper strata of his psychic content became active again, but this +further regression was of benefit to his art which was in a state of +deterioration. He met the woman who awakened in him the memory of the +happy and sensuously enraptured smile of his mother, and under the +influence of this awakening he acquired back the stimulus which guided +him in the beginning of his artistic efforts when he formed the smiling +woman. He painted Monna Lisa, Saint Anne, and a number of mystic +pictures which were characterized by the enigmatic smile. With the help +of his oldest erotic feelings he triumphed in conquering once more the +inhibition in his art. This last development faded away in the obscurity +of the approaching old age. But before this his intellect rose to the +highest capacity of a view of life, which was far in advance of his +time. + +In the preceding chapters I have shown what justification one may have +for such representation of Leonardo's course of development, for this +manner of arranging his life and explaining his wavering between art and +science. If after accomplishing these things I should provoke the +criticism from even friends and adepts of psychoanalysis, that I have +only written a psychoanalytic romance, I should answer that I certainly +did not overestimate the reliability of these results. Like others I +succumbed to the attraction emanating from this great and mysterious +man, in whose being one seems to feel powerful propelling passions, +which after all can only evince themselves so remarkably subdued. + +But whatever may be the truth about Leonardo's life we cannot relinquish +our effort to investigate it psychoanalytically before we have finished +another task. In general we must mark out the limits which are set up +for the working capacity of psychoanalysis in biography so that every +omitted explanation should not be held up to us as a failure. +Psychoanalytic investigation has at its disposal the data of the history +of the person's life, which on the one hand consists of accidental +events and environmental influences, and on the other hand of the +reported reactions of the individual. Based on the knowledge of psychic +mechanisms it now seeks to investigate dynamically the character of the +individual from his reactions, and to lay bare his earliest psychic +motive forces as well as their later transformations and developments. +If this succeeds then the reaction of the personality is explained +through the cooeperation of constitutional and accidental factors or +through inner and outer forces. If such an undertaking, as perhaps in +the case of Leonardo, does not yield definite results then the blame for +it is not to be laid to the faulty or inadequate psychoanalytic method, +but to the vague and fragmentary material left by tradition about this +person. It is, therefore, only the author who forced psychoanalysis to +furnish an expert opinion on such insufficient material, who is to be +held responsible for the failure. + +However, even if one had at his disposal a very rich historical material +and could manage the psychic mechanism with the greatest certainty, a +psychoanalytic investigation could not possibly furnish the definite +view, if it concerns two important questions, that the individual could +turn out only so and not differently. Concerning Leonardo we had to +represent the view that the accident of his illegitimate birth and the +pampering of his mother exerted the most decisive influence on his +character formation and his later fate, through the fact that the sexual +repression following this infantile phase caused him to sublimate his +libido into a thirst after knowledge, and thus determined his sexual +inactivity for his entire later life. The repression, however, which +followed the first erotic gratification of childhood did not have to +take place, in another individual it would perhaps not have taken place +or it would have turned out not nearly as profuse. We must recognize +here a degree of freedom which can no longer be solved psychoanalytically. +One is as little justified in representing the issue of this shift of +repression as the only possible issue. It is quite probable that another +person would not have succeeded in withdrawing the main part of his +libido from the repression through sublimation into a desire for +knowledge; under the same influences as Leonardo another person might +have sustained a permanent injury to his intellectual work or an +uncontrollable disposition to compulsion neurosis. The two +characteristics of Leonardo which remained unexplained through +psychoanalytic effort are first, his particular tendency to repress his +impulses, and second, his extraordinary ability to sublimate the +primitive impulses. + +The impulses and their transformations are the last things that +psychoanalysis can discern. Henceforth it leaves the place to biological +investigation. The tendency to repression, as well as the ability to +sublimate, must be traced back to the organic bases of the character, +upon which alone the psychic structure springs up. As artistic talent +and productive ability are intimately connected with sublimation we +have to admit that also the nature of artistic attainment is +psychoanalytically inaccessible to us. Biological investigation of our +time endeavors to explain the chief traits of the organic constitution +of a person through the fusion of male and female predispositions in the +material sense; Leonardo's physical beauty as well as his +left-handedness furnish here some support. However, we do not wish to +leave the ground of pure psychologic investigation. Our aim remains to +demonstrate the connection between outer experiences and reactions of +the person over the path of the activity of the impulses. Even if +psychoanalysis does not explain to us the fact of Leonardo's artistic +accomplishment, it still gives us an understanding of the expressions +and limitations of the same. It does seem as if only a man with +Leonardo's childhood experiences could have painted Monna Lisa and Saint +Anne, and could have supplied his works with that sad fate and so obtain +unheard of fame as a natural historian; it seems as if the key to all +his attainments and failures was hidden in the childhood phantasy of +the vulture. + +But may one not take offense at the results of an investigation which +concede to the accidents of the parental constellation so decisive an +influence on the fate of a person, which, for example, subordinates +Leonardo's fate to his illegitimate birth and to the sterility of his +first step-mother Donna Albiera? I believe that one has no right to feel +so; if one considers accident as unworthy of determining our fate, it is +only a relapse to the pious aspect of life, the overcoming of which +Leonardo himself prepared when he put down in writing that the sun does +not move. We are naturally grieved over the fact that a just God and a +kindly providence do not guard us better against such influences in our +most defenseless age. We thereby gladly forget that as a matter of fact +everything in our life is accident from our very origin through the +meeting of spermatozoa and ovum, accident, which nevertheless +participates in the lawfulness and fatalities of nature, and lacks only +the connection to our wishes and illusions. The division of life's +determinants into the "fatalities" of our constitution and the +"accidents" of our childhood may still be indefinite in individual +cases, but taken altogether one can no longer entertain any doubt about +the importance of precisely our first years of childhood. We all still +show too little respect for nature, which in Leonardo's deep words +recalling Hamlet's speech _"is full of infinite reasons which never +appeared in experience."_[78] Every one of us human beings corresponds +to one of the infinite experiments in which these "reasons of nature" +force themselves into experience. + + +THE END + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] In the words of J. Burckhard, cited by Alexandra Konstantinowa, Die +Entwicklung des Madonnentypus by Leonardo da Vinci, Strassburg, 1907. + +[2] Vite, etc. LXXXIII. 1550-1584. + +[3] Traktat von der Malerei, new edition and introduction by Marie +Herzfeld, E. Diederichs, Jena, 1909. + +[4] Solmi. La resurrezione dell' opera di Leonardo in the collected +work; Leonardo da Vinci. Conferenze Florentine, Milan, 1910. + +[5] Scognamiglio Ricerche e Documenti sulla giovinezza di Leonardo da +Vinci. Napoli, 1900. + +[6] W. v. Seidlitz. Leonardo da Vinci, der Wendepunkt der Renaissance, +1909, Bd. I, p. 203. + +[7] W. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 48 + +[8] W. Pater. The Renaissance, p. 107, The Macmillan Co., 1910. "But it +is certain that at one period of his life he had almost ceased to be an +artist." + +[9] Cf. v. Seidlitz, Bd. I die Geschichte der Restaurations--und +Rettungsversuche. + +[10] Muentz. Leonard de Vinci, Paris, 1899, p. 18. (A letter of a +contemporary from India to a Medici alludes to this peculiarity of +Leonardo. Given by Richter: The literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.) + +[11] F. Botazzi. Leonardo biologo e anatomico. Conferenze Florentine, p. +186, 1910. + +[12] E. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci. German Translation by Emmi Hirschberg. +Berlin, 1908. + +[13] Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci der Denker, Forscher und Poet. +Second edition. Jena, 1906. + +[14] His collected witticisms--belle facezie,--which are not translated, +may be an exception. Cf. Herzfeld, Leonardo da Vinci, p. 151. + +[15] According to Scognamiglio (l. c. p. 49) reference is made to this +episode in an obscure and even variously interpreted passage of the +Codex Atlanticus: "Quando io feci Domeneddio putto voi mi metteste in +prigione, ora s'io lo fo grande, voi mi farete peggio." + +[16] Merejkowski: The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by +Herbert Trench, G. P. Putnam Sons, New York. It forms the second of the +historical Trilogy entitled Christ and Anti-Christ, of which the first +volume is Julian Apostata, and the third volume is Peter the Great and +Alexei. + +[17] Solmi l. c. p. 46. + +[18] Filippo Botazzi, l. c. p. 193. + +[19] Marie Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, Traktat von der Malerei, Jena, +1909 (Chap. I, 64). + +[20] "Such transfiguration of science and of nature into emotions, or +one might say, religion, is one of the characteristic traits of da +Vinci's manuscripts, which one finds expressed hundreds of times." +Solmi: La resurrezione, etc, p. 11. + +[21] La resurrezione, etc., p. 8: "Leonardo placed the study of nature +as a precept to painting ... later the passion for study became +dominating, he no longer wished to acquire science for art, but science +for science' sake." + +[22] For an enumeration of his scientific attainments see Marie +Herzfeld's interesting introduction (Jena, 1906) to the essays of the +Conference Florentine, 1910, and elsewhere. + +[23] For a corroboration of this improbable sounding assertion see the +"Analysis of the Phobia of a Five-year-old Boy," Jahrbuch fuer +Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, Bd. I, 1909, and +the similar observation in Bd. II, 1910. In an essay concerning +"Infantile Theories of Sex" (Sammlungen kleiner Schriften zur +Neurosenlehre, p. 167, Second Series, 1909), I wrote: "But this +reasoning and doubting serves as a model for all later intellectual work +in problems, and the first failure acts as a paralyzer for all times." + +[24] Scognamiglio 1. c., p. 15. + +[25] Cited by Scognamiglio from the Codex Atlanticus, p. 65. + +[26] Cf. here the "Bruchstueck einer Hysterieanalyse," in Neurosenlehre, +Second series, 1909. + +[27] Horapollo: Hieroglyphica I, II. [Greek: Metera de graphontex ... +gupa zographonsin]. + +[28] Roscher: Ausf. Lexicon der griechischen und roemischen Mythologie. +Artikel Mut, II Bd., 1894-1897.--Lanzone. Dizionario di Mitologia +egizia. Torino, 1882. + +[29] H. Hartleben, Champollion. Sein Leben und sein Werk, 1906. + +[30] "[Greek: gypa de arrena ou phasigenesthai pote, aila pheleias +apasas]," cited by v. Roemer. Ueber die androgynische Idee des Lebens, +Jahrb. f. Sexuelle Zwischenstufen, V, 1903, p. 732. + +[31] Plutarch: Veluti scarabaeos mares tantum esse putarunt Aegyptii sic +inter vultures mares non inveniri statuerunt + +[32] Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica edidit Conradus Leemans +Amstelodami, 1835. The words referring to the sex of the vulture read as +follows (p. 14): "[Greek: petera men hepeide arren en touto genei ton +zoon ouch hyparchei.]." + +[33] E. Muentz, 1. c., p. 282. + +[34] E. Muentz, 1. c. + +[35] See the illustrations in Lanzone l. c. T. CXXXVI-VIII. + +[36] v. Roemer l. c. + +[37] Cf. the observations in the Jahrbuch fuer Psychoanalytische und +Psychopathologische Forschungen, Vol. I, 1909. + +[38] Cf. Richard Payne Knight: The Cult of Priapus. + +[39] Prominently among those who undertook these investigations are I. +Sadger, whose results I can essentially corroborate from my own +experience. I am also aware that Stekel of Vienna, Ferenczi of Budapest, +and Brill of New York, came to the same conclusions. + +[40] Edm. Solmi: Leonardo da Vinci, German translation, p. 152. + +[41] Solmi, 1. c. p. 203. + +[42] Leonardo thus behaves like one who was in the habit of making a +daily confession to another person whom he now replaced by his diary. +For an assumption as to who this person may have been see Merejkowski, +p. 309. + +[43] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, 1906, p. 141. + +[44] The wording is that of Merejkowski, 1. c. p. 237. + +[45] The equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza. + +[46] The full wording is found in M. Herzfeld, 1. c. p. 45. + +[47] Merejkowski 1. c.--As a disappointing illustration of the vagueness +of the information concerning Leonardo's intimate life, meager as it is, +I mention the fact that the same expense account is given by Solmi with +considerable variation (German translation, p. 104). The most serious +difference is the substitution of florins by soldi. One may assume that +in this account florins do not mean the old "gold florins," but those +used at a later period which amounted to 1-2/3 lira or 33-1/2 +soldi.--Solmi represents Caterina as a servant who had taken care of +Leonardo's household for a certain time. The source from which the two +representations of this account were taken was not accessible to me. + +[48] "Caterina came in July, 1493." + +[49] The manner of expression through which the repressed libidio could +manifest itself in Leonardo, such as circumstantiality and marked +interest in money, belongs to those traits of character which emanate +from anal eroticism. Cf. Character und Analerotik in the second series +of my Sammlung zur Neurosenlehre, 1909, also Brill's Psychoanalysis, its +Theories and Practical Applications, Chap. XIII, Anal Eroticism and +Character, Saunders, Philadelphia. + +[50] Seidlitz: Leonardo da Vinci, II Bd., p. 280. + +[51] Geschichte der Malerei, Bd. I, p. 314. + +[52] l. c. p. 417. + +[53] A. Conti: Leonardo pittore, Conferenze Fiorentine, l. c. p. 93. + +[54] l. c. p. 45. + +[55] W. Pater: The Renaissance, p. 124, The Macmillan Co., 1910. + +[56] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, p. 88. + +[57] Scognamiglio, l. c. p. 32. + +[58] L. Schorn, Bd. III, 1843, p. 6. + +[59] The same is assumed by Merejkowski, who imagined a childhood for +Leonardo which deviates in the essential points from ours, drawn from +the results of the vulture phantasy. But if Leonardo himself had +displayed this smile, tradition hardly would have failed to report to us +this coincidence. + +[60] l. c. p. 309. + +[61] A. Konstantinowa, l. c., says: "Mary looks tenderly down on her +beloved child with a smile that recalls the mysterious expression of la +Gioconda." Elsewhere speaking of Mary she says: "The smile of Gioconda +floats upon her features." + +[62] Cf. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 274. + +[63] Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, translated by A. A. +Brill, 2nd edition, 1916, Monograph series. + +[64] "On the 9th of July, 1504, Wednesday at 7 o'clock died Ser Piero da +Vinci, notary at the palace of the Podesta, my father, at 7 o'clock. He +was 80 years old, left 10 sons and 2 daughters." (E. Muentz, l. c. p. +13.) + +[65] I shall overlook a greater error committed by Leonardo in his +notice in that he gives his 77-year-old father 80 years. + +[66] "He who usurps on earth my place, my place, my place, which is void +in the presence of the Son of God, has made out of my cemetery a sewer." +Canto XXXVII. + +[67] It seems that in that passage of the diary Leonardo also erred in +the number of his sisters and brothers, which stands in remarkable +contrast to the apparent exactness of the same. + +[68] v. Seidlitz, l. c., II, p. 270. + +[69] Solmi, Conf. fior, p. 13. + +[70] Muentz, l. c., La Religion de Leonardo, p. 292, etc. + +[71] Herzfeld, p. 292. + +[72] Vasari, translated by Schorn, 1843. + +[73] Ebenda, p. 39. + +[74] Concerning these letters and the combinations connected with them +see Muentz, l. c., p. 82; for the wording of the same and for the notices +connected with them see Herzfeld, l. c., p. 223. + +[75] Besides, he lost some time in that he even made a drawing of a +braided cord in which one could follow the thread from one end to the +other, until it formed a perfectly circular figure; a very difficult and +beautiful drawing of this kind is engraved on copper, in the center of +it one can read the words: "Leonardus Vinci Academia" (p. 8). + +[76] This criticism holds quite generally and is not aimed at Leonardo's +biographers in particular. + +[77] Seidlitz II, p. 271. + +[78] La natura e piena d'infinite ragione che non furono mai in +isperienza, M. Herzfeld, l. c. p. II. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Leonardo da Vinci, by Sigmund Freud + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEONARDO DA VINCI *** + +***** This file should be named 34300.txt or 34300.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/0/34300/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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