Leonardo reader of Valturio

Abstract

The present contribution aspires to offer a careful study of the sheets in Leonardo's manuscript B that depend on the reading of Roberto Valturio's De re militari. The examination conducted on these passages is intended to identify the elements of greatest interest to Leonardo in his study of the treatise, to identify the innovations, then to highlight the procedures by which he reworked the information to make it his own, in the belief that the observation of these reading strategies helps to understand, more generally, how Leonardo learned: it brings us, in a sense, closer to his "mental workshop."    
The paper, in particular, exposes some recurring tendencies in Leonardo's transcriptions/reworkings: from the selection of relevant informations to the invention of figures, to the drafting of autonomous "cards" exemplified by the Valturian model.