from the ,google ,print project47       
,illustration3 ,,leonardo ,,da ,,vinci  
,leonardo da ,vinci  ,a ,,psychosexual  
,,study ,,of ,,an ,,infantile           
,,reminiscence  ,,by ,,professor ,,dr4  
,,sigmund ,,freud1 ,,ll4,d4             
7,,university ,,of ,,vienna7            
,,translated ,,by  ,a4 ,a4 ,,brill1     
,,ph4,b41 ,m4,d4  ,lecturer in          
,psychoanalysis and ,abnormal           
,psychology1 ,new ,york ,university     
,illustration  ,,new ,,york ,,moffat1   
,,yard  ,,company #aiaf  ,,copyright1   
#aiaf1 ,,by  ,,moffat1 ,,yard  ,,company
     ,,illustrations   ,leonardo ,da    
,vinci       ,frontispiece              
,,facing                                
,,page  ,mona ,lisa       #gh  ,saint   
,anne       #hf  ,john the ,baptist     
#id     ,,leonardo ,,da ,,vinci     ,i  
,when psychoanalytic investigation1     
which usually contents itself with frail
 human material1 approaches the great   
personages of humanity1 it is not       
impelled to it by motives which are     

often attributed to it by laymen4 ,it   
does not strive to blacken the radiant  
and to drag the sublime into the mire2  
it finds no satisfaction in diminishing 
the distance between the perfection of  
the great and the inadequacy of the     
ordinary objects4 ,but it cannot help   
finding that everything is worthy of    
understanding that can be perceived     
through those prototypes1 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 strictness4       
,leonardo da ,vinci 7#adeb-aeai7 was    
admired even by his contemporaries as   
one of the greatest men of the ,italian 
,renaissance1 still even then he        
appeared as mysterious to them as he now
 appears to us4 ,an all-sided genius1   
whose form can only be divined but never
 deeply fathomed1#a he exerted the most 
decisive influence on his time as an    
artist2 and it remained to us to        
recognize his greatness as a naturalist 

which was united in him with the artist4
 ,although he left masterpieces of the  
art of painting1 while his scientific   
discoveries remained unpublished and    
unused1 the investigator in him has     
never quite left the artist1 often it   
has severely injured the artist and in  
the end it has perhaps suppressed the   
artist altogether4 ,according to        
,vasari1 ,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 art4#b ,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 living1
 it nevertheless retains indisputable   
value as a testimonial of the judgment  
of those people and of those times4     
,what was it that removed the           
personality of ,leonardo from the       
understanding of his contemporaries8    
,certainly not the many sidedness of his
 capacities and knowledge1 which allowed

 him to install himself as a player of  
the lyre on an instrument invented by   
himself1 in the court of ,lodovico      
,sforza1 nicknamed ,il ,moro1 the ,duke 
of ,milan1 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       
engineer4 ,for the combination of       
manifold talents in the same person was 
not unusual in the times of the         
,renaissance2 to be sure ,leonardo      
himself furnished one of the most       
splendid examples of such persons4 ,nor 
did he belong to that type of genial    
persons who are outwardly poorly endowed
 by nature1 and who on their side place 
no value on the outer forms of life1 and
 in the painful gloominess of their     
feelings fly from human relations4 ,on  
the contrary he was tall and            
symmetrically built1 of consummate      
beauty of countenance and of unusual    
physical strength1 he was charming in   
his manner1 a master of speech1 and     

jovial and affectionate to everybody4   
,he loved beauty in the objects of his  
surroundings1 he was fond of wearing    
magnificent garments and appreciated    
every refinement of conduct4 ,in his    
treatise#c 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 
sculptor3 ,now his face is entirely     
smeared and powdered with marble dust1  
so that he looks like a baker1 he is    
covered with small marble splinters1 so 
that it seems as if it snowed on his    
back1 and his house is full of stone    
splinters1 and dust4 ,the case of the   
painter is quite different from that2   
for the painter is well dressed and sits
 with great comfort before his work1 he 
gently and very lightly brushes in the  
beautiful colors4 ,he wears as          
decorative clothes as he likes1 and his 
house is filled with beautiful paintings
 and is spotlessly clean4 ,he often     
enjoys company1 music1 or some one may  

read for him various nice works1 and all
 this can be listened to with great     
pleasure1 undisturbed by any pounding   
from the hammer and other noises4  ,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 life4 ,from now  
on1 when the downfall of the rule of    
,lodovico ,moro forced him to leave     
,milan1 his sphere of action and his    
assured position1 to lead an unsteady   
and unsuccessful life until his last    
asylum in ,france1 it is possible that  
the luster of his disposition became    
pale and some odd features of his       
character became more prominent4 ,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         
contemporaries4 ,all his efforts with   
which1 according to their opinion1 he   
wasted his time instead of diligently   
filling orders and becoming rich as     

perhaps his former classmate ,perugino1 
seemed to his contemporaries as         
capricious playing1 or even caused them 
to suspect him of being in the service  
of the black art4 ,we who know him from 
his sketches understand him better4 ,in 
a time in which the authority of the    
church began to be substituted by that  
of antiquity and in which only          
theoretical investigation existed1 he   
the forerunner1 or better the worthy    
competitor of ,bacon and ,copernicus1   
was necessarily isolated4 ,when he      
dissected cadavers of horses and human  
beings1 and built flying apparatus1 or  
when he studied the nourishment of      
plants and their behavior towards       
poisons1 he naturally deviated much from
 the commentators of ,aristotle and came
 nearer the despised alchemists1 in     
whose laboratories the experimental     
investigations found some refuge during 
these unfavorable times4  ,the effect   
that this had on his paintings was that 
he disliked to handle the brush1 he     

painted less and what was more often the
 case1 the things he began were mostly  
left unfinished2 he cared less and less 
for the future fate of his works4 ,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 riddle4  ,many of    
,leonardo's later admirers have         
attempted to wipe off the stain of      
unsteadiness from his character4 ,they  
maintained that what is blamed in       
,leonardo is a general characteristic of
 great artists4 ,they said that even the
 energetic ,michelangelo who was        
absorbed in his work left many          
incompleted works1 which was as little  
due to his fault as to ,leonardo's in   
the same case4 ,besides some pictures   
were not as unfinished as he claimed1   
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           
intentions2 he has a faint notion of a  

perfection which he despairs of         
reproducing in likeness4 ,least of all  
should the artist be held responsible   
for the fate which befalls his works4   
,as plausible as some of these excuses  
may sound they nevertheless do not      
explain the whole state of affairs which
 we find in ,leonardo4 ,the painful     
struggle with the work1 the final flight
 from it and the indifference to its    
future fate may be seen in many other   
artists1 but this behavior is shown in  
,leonardo to highest degree4 ,edm4      
,solmi#d cites 7p4 #ab7 the expression  
of one of his pupils3 ,pareva1 che ad   
ogni ora tremasse1 quando si poneva a   
dipingere1 e pero no diede mai fine ad  
alcuna cosa cominciata1 considerando la 
grandezza dell'arte1 tal che egli       
scorgeva errori in quelle cose1 che ad  
altri parevano miracoli4 ,his last      
pictures1 ,leda1 the ,madonna di ,saint 
,onofrio1 ,bacchus and ,st4 ,john the   
,baptist1 remained unfinished come quasi
 intervenne di tutte le cose sue4       

,lomazzo1#e who finished a copy of ,the 
,holy ,supper1 refers in a sonnet to the
 familiar inability of ,leonardo to     
finish his works3      ,protogen che il 
penel di sue pitture      ,non levava1  
agguaglio il ,vinci ,divo1      ,di cui 
opra non e finita pure4  ,the slowness  
with which ,leonardo worked was         
proverbial4 ,after the most thorough    
preliminary studies he painted ,the     
,holy ,supper for three years in the    
cloister of ,santa ,maria delle ,grazie 
in ,milan4 ,one of his contemporaries1  
,matteo ,bandelli1 the writer of novels1
 who was then a young monk in the       
cloister1 relates that ,leonardo often  
ascended the scaffold very early in the 
morning and did not leave the brush out 
of his hand until twilight1 never       
thinking of eating or drinking4 ,then   
days passed without putting his hand on 
it1 sometimes he remained for hours     
before the painting and derived         
satisfaction from studying it by        
himself4 ,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 ,sforza1 in order 
to add a few strokes with the brush to  
one of the figures and then stopped     
immediately4#f ,according to ,vasari he 
worked for years on the portrait of     
,monna ,lisa1 the wife of the           
,florentine de ,gioconda1 without being 
able to bring it to completion4 ,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       
,france4#g ,having been procured by     
,king ,francis ,i1 it now forms one of  
the greatest treasures of the ,louvre4  
,when one compares these reports about  
,leonardo's way of working with the     
evidence of the extraordinary amount of 
sketches and studies left by him1 one is
 bound altogether to reject the idea    
that traits of flightiness and          
unsteadiness exerted the slightest      

influence on ,leonardo's relation to his
 art4 ,on the contrary one notices a    
very extraordinary absorption in work1 a
 richness in possibilities in which a   
decision could be reached only          
hestitatingly1 claims which could hardly
 be satisfied1 and an inhibition in the 
execution which could not even be       
explained by the inevitable backwardness
 of the artist behind his ideal purpose4
 ,the slowness which was striking in    
,leonardo's works from the very         
beginning proved to be a symptom of his 
inhibition1 a forerunner of his turning 
away from painting which manifested     
itself later4#h ,it was this slowness   
which decided the not undeserving fate  
of ,the ,holy ,supper4 ,leonardo could  
not take kindly to the art of fresco    
painting which demands quick work while 
the background is still moist1 it was   
for this reason that he chose oil       
colors1 the drying of which permitted   
him to complete the picture according to
 his mood and leisure4 ,but these colors

 separated themselves from the          
background upon which they were painted 
and which isolated them from the brick  
wall2 the blemishes of this wall and the
 vicissitudes to which the room was     
subjected seemingly contributed to the  
inevitable deterioration of the         
picture4#i  ,the picture of the cavalry 
battle of ,anghiari1 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 state1 seemed
 to have perished through the failure of
 a similar technical process4 ,it seems 
here as if a peculiar interest1 that of 
the experimenter1 at first reenforced   
the artistic1 only later to damage the  
art production4  ,the character of the  
man ,leonardo evinces still some other  
unusual traits and apparent             
contradictions4 ,thus a certain         
inactivity and indifference seemed very 
evident in him4 ,at a time when every   
individual sought to gain the widest    

latitude for his activity1 which could  
not take place without the development  
of energetic aggression towards others1 
he surprised every one through his quiet
 peacefulness1 his shunning of all      
competition and controversies4 ,he was  
mild and kind to all1 he was said to    
have rejected a meat diet because he did
 not consider it just to rob animals of 
their lives1 and one of his special     
pleasures was to buy caged birds in the 
market and set them free4#aj ,he        
condemned war and bloodshed and         
designated man not so much as the king  
of the animal world1 but rather as the  
worst of the wild beasts4#aa ,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 features1 distorted by   
fear1 nor did it prevent him from       
inventing the most cruel offensive      
weapons1 and from entering the service  
of ,cesare ,borgia as chief military    

engineer4 ,often he seemed to be        
indifferent to good and evil1 or he had 
to be measured with a special standard4 
,he held a high position in ,cesare's   
campaign which gained for this most     
inconsiderate and most faithless of foes
 the possession of the ,romagna4 ,not a 
single line of ,leonardo's sketches     
betrays any criticism or sympathy of the
 events of those days4 ,the comparison  
with ,goethe during the ,french campaign
 cannot here be altogether rejected4    
,if a biographical effort really        
endeavors to penetrate the understanding
 of the psychic life of its hero it must
 not1 as happens in most biographies    
through discretion or prudery1 pass over
 in silence the sexual activity or the  
sex peculiarity of the one examined4    
,what we know about it in ,leonardo is  
very little but full of significance4   
,in a period where there was a constant 
struggle between riotous licentiousness 
and gloomy asceticism1 ,leonardo        
presented an example of cool sexual     

rejection which one would not expect in 
an artist and a portrayer of feminine   
beauty4 ,solmi#ab cites the following   
sentence from ,leonardo showing his     
frigidity3 ,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 dispositions4 
,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 7an      
allegorical natural history1 animal     
fables1 witticisms1 prophecies71#ac are 
chaste to a degree--one might say       
abstinent--that in a work of belle      
lettres would excite wonder even to-day4
 ,they evade everything sexual so       
thoroughly1 as if ,eros alone who       
preserves everything living was no      
worthy material for the scientific      
impulse of the investigator4#ad ,it is  

known how frequently great artists found
 pleasure in giving vent to their       
phantasies in erotic and even grossly   
obscene representations2 in             
contradistinction to this ,leonardo left
 only some anatomical drawings of the   
woman's internal genitals1 the position 
of the child in the womb1 etc4  ,it is  
doubtful whether ,leonardo ever embraced
 a woman in love1 nor is it known that  
he ever entertained an intimate         
spiritual relation with a woman as in   
the case of ,michelangelo and ,vittoria 
,colonna4 ,while he still lived as an   
apprentice in the house of his master   
,verrocchio1 he with other young men    
were accused of forbidden homosexual    
relations which ended in his acquittal4 
,it seems that he came into this        
suspicion because he employed as a model
 a boy of evil repute4#ae ,when he was a
 master he surrounded himself with      
handsome boys and youths whom he took as
 pupils4 ,the last of these pupils      
,francesco ,melzi1 accompanied him to   

,france1 remained with him until his    
death1 and was named by him as his heir4
 ,without sharing the certainty of his  
modern biographers1 who naturally reject
 the possibility of a sexual relation   
between himself and his pupils as a     
baseless insult to this great man1 it   
may be thought by far more probable that
 the affectionate relationships of      
,leonardo to the young men did not      
result in sexual activity4 ,nor should  
one attribute to him a high measure of  
sexual activity4  ,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 way4 ,of the    
biographers to whom psychological       
viewpoints are often very foreign1 only 
one1 ,edm4 ,solmi1 has to my knowledge  
approached the solution of the riddle4  
,but a writer1 ,dimitri ,sergewitsch    
,merejkowski1 who selected ,leonardo as 
the hero of a great historical novel has
 based his delineation on such an       

understanding of this unusual man1 and  
if not in dry words he gave unmistakable
 utterance in plastic expression in the 
manner of a poet4#af ,solmi judges      
,leonardo as follows3 ,but the          
unrequited desire to understand         
everything surrounding him1 and with    
cold reflection to discover the deepest 
secret of everything that is perfect1   
has condemned ,leonardo's works to      
remain forever unfinished4#ag ,in an    
essay of the ,conferenze ,fiorentine the
 utterances of ,leonardo are cited1     
which show his confession of faith and  
furnish the key to his character4       
,nessuna cosa si puo amare ne odiare1 se
      prima no si ha cognition di       
quella4#ah  ,that is3 ,one has no right 
to love or to hate anything if one has  
not acquired a thorough knowledge of its
 nature4 ,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 irreligiousness3  ,but such         

censurers might better remain silent4   
,for that action is the manner of       
showing the workmaster so many wonderful
 things1 and this is the way to love so 
great a discoverer4 ,for1 verily great  
love springs from great knowledge of the
 beloved object1 and if you little know 
it you will be able to love it only     
little or not at all4#ai  ,the value of 
these utterances of ,leonardo cannot be 
found in that they impart to us an      
important psychological fact1 for what  
they maintain is obviously false1 and   
,leonardo must have known this as well  
as we do4 ,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 affects1 on the      
contrary they love impulsively and are  
guided by emotional motives which have  
nothing to do with cognition and whose  
affects are weakened1 if anything1 by   
thought and reflection4 ,leonardo only  
could have implied that the love        

practiced by people is not of the proper
 and unobjectionable kind1 one should so
 love as to hold back the affect and to 
subject it to mental elaboration1 and   
only after it has stood the test of the 
intellect should free play be given to  
it4 ,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 does4     
,and it seems that in his case it was   
really so4 ,his affects were controlled 
and subjected to the investigation      
impulse1 he neither loved nor hated1 but
 questioned himself whence does that    
arise1 which he was to love or hate1 and
 what does it signify1 and thus he was  
at first forced to appear indifferent to
 good and evil1 to beauty and ugliness4 
,during this work of investigation love 
and hatred threw off their designs and  
uniformly changed into intellectual     
interest4 ,as a matter of fact ,leonardo
 was not dispassionate1 he did not lack 

the divine spark which is the mediate or
 immediate motive power--il primo       
motore--of all human activity4 ,he only 
transmuted his passion into             
inquisitiveness4 ,he then applied       
himself to study with that persistence1 
steadiness1 and profundity which comes  
from passion1 and on the height of the  
psychic work1 after the cognition was   
won1 he allowed the long checked affect 
to break loose and to flow off freely   
like a branch of a stream1 after it has 
accomplished its work4 ,at the height of
 his cognition when he could examine a  
big part of the whole he was seized with
 a feeling of pathos1 and in ecstatic   
words he praised the grandeur of that   
part of creation which he studied1      
or--in religious cloak--the greatness of
 the creator4 ,solmi has correctly      
divined this process of transformation  
in ,leonardo4 ,according to the         
quotation of such a passage1 in which   
,leonardo celebrated the higher impulse 
of nature 7,o mirabile necessita 444 7  

he said3 ,tale trasfigurazione della    
scienza della natura in emozione1 quasi 
direi1 religiosa1 e uno dei tratti      
caratteristici de manoscritti vinciani1 
e si trova cento e cento volte          
espressa4444#bj  ,leonardo was called   
the ,italian ,faust on account of his   
insatiable and indefatigable desire for 
investigation4 ,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      
tragedy1 one might venture to remark    
that ,leonardo's system recalls         
,spinoza's mode of thinking4  ,the      
transformation of psychic motive power  
into the different forms of activity is 
perhaps as little convertible without   
loss1 as in the case of physical powers4
 ,leonardo's example teaches how many   
other things one must follow up in these
 processes4 ,not to love before one     
gains full knowledge of the thing loved 
presupposes a delay which is harmful4   

,when one finally reaches cognition he  
neither loves nor hates properly2 one   
remains beyond love and hatred4 ,one has
 investigated instead of having loved4  
,it is perhaps for this reason that     
,leonardo's life was so much poorer in  
love than those of other great men and  
great artists4 ,the storming passions of
 the soul-stirring and consuming kind1  
in which others experience the best part
 of their lives1 seem to have missed    
him4  ,there are still other            
consequences when one follows           
,leonardo's dictum4 ,instead of acting  
and producing one just investigates4 ,he
 who begins to divine the grandeur of   
the universe and its needs readily      
forgets his own insignificant self4     
,when one is struck with admiration and 
becomes truly humble he easily forgets  
that he himself is a part of that living
 force1 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 world1 the  

world in which the insignificant is no  
less wonderful and important than the   
great4  ,solmi thinks that ,leonardo's  
investigations started with his art1#ba 
he tried to investigate the attributes  
and laws of light1 of color1 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
 others4 ,it is probable that already at
 that time he overestimated the value of
 this knowledge for the artist4         
,following the guide-rope of the        
painter's need1 he was then driven      
further and further to investigate the  
objects of the art of painting1 such as 
animals and plants1 and the proportions 
of the human body1 and to follow the    
path from their exterior to their       
interior structure and biological       
functions1 which really also express    
themselves in their appearance and      
should be depicted in art4 ,and finally 
he was pulled along by this overwhelming
 desire until the connection was torn   

from the demands of his art1 so that he 
discovered the general laws of mechanics
 and divined the history of the         
stratification and fossilization of the 
,arno-valley1 until he could enter in   
his book with capital letters the       
cognition3 ,il sole non si move 7,the   
sun does not move74 ,his investigations 
were thus extended over almost all      
realms of natural science1 in every one 
of which he was a discoverer or at least
 a prophet or forerunner4#bb ,however1  
his curiosity continued to be directed  
to the outer world1 something kept him  
away from the investigation of the      
psychic life of men2 there was little   
room for psychology in the ,academia    
,vinciana1 for which he drew very       
artistic and very complicated emblems4  
,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 work4 ,in the picture he was

 interested above all in a problem1 and 
behind this one he saw emerging numerous
 other problems just as he was          
accustomed in the endless and           
indeterminable investigations of natural
 history4 ,he was no longer able to     
limit his demands1 to isolate the work  
of art1 and to tear it out from that    
great connection of which he knew it    
formed part4 ,after the most exhausting 
efforts to bring to expression all that 
was in him1 all that was connected with 
it in his thoughts1 he was forced to    
leave it unfinished1 or to declare it   
incomplete4  ,the artist had once taken 
into his service the investigator to    
assist him1 now the servant was stronger
 and suppressed his master4  ,when we   
find in the portrait of a person one    
single impulse very forcibly developed1 
as curiosity in the case of ,leonardo1  
we look for the explanation in a special
 constitution1 concerning its probable  
organic determination hardly anything is
 known4 ,our psychoanalytic studies of  

nervous people lead us to look for two  
other expectations which we would like  
to find verified in every case4 ,we     
consider it probable that this very     
forcible impulse was already active in  
the earliest childhood of the person1   
and that its supreme sway was fixed by  
infantile impressions2 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 life4 
,such person would then1 e4g41          
investigate with that passionate        
devotion which another would give to his
 love1 and he could investigate instead 
of loving4 ,we would venture the        
conclusion of a sexual reenforcement not
 only in the impulse to investigate1 but
 also in most other cases of special    
intensity of an impulse4  ,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

 activities4 ,the sexual impulse is     
particularly suited to yield such       
contributions because it is endowed with
 the capacity of sublimation1 i4e41 it  
has the power to exchange its nearest   
aim for others of higher value which are
 not sexual4 ,we consider this process  
as proved1 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 interest4 ,we consider it a  
further corroboration if this is        
substantiated by a striking stunting in 
the sexual life of mature years1 as if a
 part of the sexual activity had now    
been replaced by the activity of the    
predominant impulse4  ,the application  
of these assumptions to the case of the 
predominant investigation-impulse seems 
to be subject to special difficulties1  
as one is unwilling to admit that this  
serious impulse exists in children or   
that children show any noteworthy sexual
 interest4 ,however1 these difficulties 

are easily obviated4 ,the untiring      
pleasure in questioning as seen in      
little children demonstrates their      
curiosity1 which is puzzling to the     
grown-up1 as long as he does not        
understand that all these questions are 
only circumlocutions1 and that they     
cannot come to an end because they      
replace only one question which the     
child does not put4 ,when the child     
becomes older and gains more            
understanding this manifestation of     
curiosity suddenly disappears4 ,but     
psychoanalytic investigation gives us a 
full explanation in that it teaches us  
that many1 perhaps most children1 at    
least the most gifted ones1 go through a
 period beginning with the third year1  
which may be designated as the period of
 infantile sexual investigation4 ,as far
 as we know1 the curiosity is not       
awakened spontaneously in children of   
this age1 but is aroused through the    
impression of an important experience1  
through the birth of a little brother or

 sister1 or through fear of the same    
endangered by some outward experience1  
wherein the child sees a danger to his  
egotistic interests4 ,the investigation 
directs itself to the question whence   
children come1 as if the child were     
looking for means to guard against such 
undesired event4 ,we were astonished to 
find that the child refuses to give     
credence to the information imparted to 
it1 e4g41 it energetically rejects the  
mythological and so ingenious           
stork-fable1 we were astonished to find 
that its psychic independence dates from
 this act of disbelief1 that it often   
feels itself at serious variance with   
the grown-ups1 and never forgives them  
for having been deceived of the truth on
 this occasion4 ,it investigates in its 
own way1 it divines that the child is in
 the mother's womb1 and guided by the   
feelings of its own sexuality1 it       
formulates for itself theories about the
 origin of children from food1 about    
being born through the bowels1 about the

 role of the father which is difficult  
to fathom1 and even at that time it has 
a vague conception of the sexual act    
which appears to the child as something 
hostile1 as something violent4 ,but as  
its own sexual constitution is not yet  
equal to the task of producing children1
 his investigation whence come children 
must also run aground and must be left  
in the lurch as unfinished4 ,the        
impression of this failure at the first 
attempt of intellectual independence    
seems to be of a persevering and        
profoundly depressing nature4#bc  ,if   
the period of infantile sexual          
investigation comes to an end through an
 impetus of energetic sexual repression1
 the early association with sexual      
interest may result in three different  
possibilities for the future fate of the
 investigation impulse4 ,the            
investigation either shares the fate of 
the sexuality1 the curiosity henceforth 
remains inhibited and the free activity 
of intelligence may become narrowed for 

life2 this is especially made possible  
by the powerful religious inhibition of 
thought1 which is brought about shortly 
hereafter through education4 ,this is   
the type of neurotic inhibition4 ,we    
know well that the so acquired mental   
weakness furnishes effective support for
 the outbreak of a neurotic disease4 ,in
 a second type the intellectual         
development is sufficiently strong to   
withstand the sexual repression pulling 
at it4 ,sometimes after the             
disappearance of the infantile sexual   
investigation1 it offers its support to 
the old association in order to elude   
the sexual repression1 and the          
suppressed sexual investigation comes   
back from the unconscious as compulsive 
reasoning1 it is naturally distorted and
 not free1 but forceful enough to       
sexualize even thought itself and to    
accentuate the intellectual operations  
with the pleasure and fear of the actual
 sexual processes4 ,here the            
investigation becomes sexual activity   

and often exclusively so1 the feeling of
 settling the problem and of explaining 
things in the mind is put in place of   
sexual gratification4 ,but the          
indeterminate character of the infantile
 investigation repeats itself also in   
the fact that this reasoning never ends1
 and that the desired intellectual      
feeling of the solution constantly      
recedes into the distance4 ,by virtue of
 a special disposition the third1 which 
is the most rare and most perfect type1 
escapes the inhibition of thought and   
the compulsive reasoning4 ,also here    
sexual repression takes place1 it is    
unable1 however1 to direct a partial    
impulse of the sexual pleasure into the 
unconscious1 but the libido withdraws   
from the fate of the repression by being
 sublimated from the beginning into     
curiosity1 and by reenforcing the       
powerful investigation impulse4 ,here1  
too1 the investigation becomes more or  
less compulsive and a substitute of the 
sexual activity1 but owing to the       

absolute difference of the psychic      
process behind it 7sublimation in place 
of the emergence from the unconscious7  
the character of the neurosis does not  
manifest itself1 the subjection to the  
original complexes of the infantile     
sexual investigation disappears1 and the
 impulse can freely put itself in the   
service of the intellectual interest4   
,it takes account of the sexual         
repression which made it so strong in   
contributing to it sublimated libido1 by
 avoiding all occupation with sexual    
themes4  ,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 homosexuality1 we   
feel inclined to consider him as a model
 example of our third type4 ,the most   
essential point of his character and the
 secret of it seems to lie in the fact1 
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 investigation4 ,but to be   
sure the proof of this conception is not
 easy to produce4 ,to do this we would  
have to have an insight into the psychic
 development of his first childhood     
years1 and it seems foolish to hope for 
such material when the reports          
concerning his life are so meager and so
 uncertain2 and moreover1 when we deal  
with information which even persons of  
our own generation withdraw from the    
attention of the observer4  ,we know    
very little concerning ,leonardo's      
youth4 ,he was born in #adeb in the     
little city of ,vinci between ,florence 
and ,empoli2 he was an illegitimate     
child which was surely not considered a 
great popular stain in that time4 ,his  
father was ,ser ,piero da ,vinci1 a     
notary and descendant of notaries and   
farmers1 who took their name from the   
place ,vinci2 his mother1 a certain     
,caterina1 probably a peasant girl1 who 
later married another native of ,vinci4 

,nothing else about his mother appears  
in the life history of ,leonardo1 only  
the writer ,merejkowski believed to have
 found some traces of her4 ,the only    
definite information about ,leonardo's  
childhood is furnished by a legal       
document from the year #adeg1 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 ,piero4#bd ,as the        
marriage of ,ser ,piero with ,donna     
,albiera remained childless the little  
,leonardo could be brought up in his    
father's house4 ,he did not leave this  
house until he entered as apprentice--it
 is not known what year--in the studio  
of ,andrea del ,verrocchio4 ,in #adgb   
,leonardo's name could already be found 
in the register of the members of the   
,compagnia dei ,pittori4 ,that is all4  
,,ii   ,as far as ,i know ,leonardo only
 once interspersed in his scientific    
descriptions a communication from his   
childhood4 ,in a passage where he speaks

 about the flight of the vulture1 he    
suddenly interrupts himself in order to 
follow up a memory from very early years
 which came to his mind4  ,it seems that
 it had been destined before that ,i    
should occupy myself so thoroughly with 
the vulture1 for it comes to my mind as 
a very early memory1 when ,i was still  
in the cradle1 a vulture came down to   
me1 he opened my mouth with his tail and
 struck me a few times with his tail    
against my lips4#be  ,we have here an   
infantile memory and to be sure of the  
strangest sort4 ,it is strange on       
account of its content and account of   
the time of life in which it was fixed4 
,that a person could retain a memory of 
the nursing period is perhaps not       
impossible1 but it can in no way be     
taken as certain4 ,but what this memory 
of ,leonardo states1 namely1 that a     
vulture opened the child's mouth with   
its tail1 sounds so improbable1 so      
fabulous1 that another conception which 
puts an end to the two difficulties with

 one stroke appeals much more to our    
judgment4 ,the scene of the vulture is  
not a memory of ,leonardo1 but a        
phantasy which he formed later1 and     
transferred into his childhood4 ,the    
childhood memories of persons often have
 no different origin1 as a matter of    
fact1 they are not fixated from an      
experience like the conscious memories  
from the time of maturity and then      
repeated1 but they are not produced     
until a later period when childhood is  
already past1 they are then changed and 
disguised and put in the service of     
later tendencies1 so that in general    
they cannot be strictly differentiated  
from phantasies4 ,their nature will     
perhaps be best understood by recalling 
the manner in which history writing     
originated among ancient nations4 ,as   
long as the nation was small and weak it
 gave no thought to the writing of its  
history1 it tilled the soil of its land1
 defended its existence against its     
neighbors by seeking to wrest land from 

them and endeavored to become rich4 ,it 
was a heroic but unhistoric time4 ,then 
came another age1 a period of           
self-realization in which one felt rich 
and powerful1 and it was then that one  
experienced the need to discover whence 
one originated and how one developed4   
,the history-writing which then         
continues to register the present events
 throws also its backward glance to the 
past1 it gathers traditions and legends1
 it interprets what survived from olden 
times into customs and uses1 and thus   
creates a history of past ages4 ,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 past1 for    
many a thing escaped the people's       
memory1 other things became distorted1  
some trace of the past was misunderstood
 and interpreted in the sense of the    
present2 and besides one does not write 
history through motives of objective    
curiosity1 but because one desires to   

impress his contemporaries1 to stimulate
 and extol them1 or to hold the mirror  
before them4 ,the conscious memory of a 
person concerning the experiences of his
 maturity may now be fully compared to  
that of history writing1 and his        
infantile memories1 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 
intent4  ,now one may think that if     
,leonardo's story of the vulture which  
visited him in his cradle is only a     
phantasy of later birth1 it is hardly   
worth while giving more time to it4 ,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 fate4 ,but with 
this depreciation one commits as great  
an injustice as if one would simply     
ignore the material of legends1         
traditions1 and interpretations in the  

primitive history of a people4          
,notwithstanding all distortions and    
misunderstandings to the contrary they  
still represent the reality of the past2
 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 motives1 and 
if these distortions could be unraveled 
through the knowledge of all effective  
forces1 one would surely discover the   
historic truth under this legendary     
material4 ,the same holds true for the  
infantile reminiscences or for the      
phantasies of individuals4 ,what a      
person thinks he recalls from his       
childhood1 is not of an indifferent     
nature4 ,as a rule the memory remnants1 
which he himself does not understand1   
conceal invaluable evidences of the most
 important features of his psychic      
development4 ,as the psychoanalytic     
technique affords us excellent means for
 bringing to light this concealed       
material1 we shall venture the attempt  

to fill the gaps in the history of      
,leonardo's life through the analysis of
 his infantile phantasy4 ,and if we     
should not attain a satisfactory degree 
of certainty1 we will have to console   
ourselves with the fact that so many    
other investigations about this great   
and mysterious man have met no better   
fate4  ,when we examine ,leonardo's     
vulture-phantasy with the eyes of a     
psychoanalyst then it does not seem     
strange very long2 we recall that we    
have often found similar structures in  
dreams1 so that we may venture to       
translate this phantasy from its strange
 language into words that are           
universally understood4 ,the translation
 then follows an erotic direction4      
,tail1 coda1 is one of the most familiar
 symbols1 as well as a substitutive     
designation of the male member which is 
no less true in ,italian than in other  
languages4 ,the situation contained in  
the phantasy1 that a vulture opened the 
mouth of the child and forcefully       

belabored it with its tail1 corresponds 
to the idea of fellatio1 a sexual act in
 which the member is placed into the    
mouth of the other person4 ,strangely   
enough this phantasy is altogether of a 
passive character2 it resembles certain 
dreams and phantasies of women and of   
passive homosexuals who play the        
feminine part in sexual relations4  ,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 man4 ,for it is quite    
certain that this indignation will never
 solve for us the meaning of ,leonardo's
 childhood phantasy2 on the other hand1 
,leonardo has unequivocally acknowledged
 this phantasy1 and we shall therefore  
not relinquish the expectation--or if   
you prefer the preconception--that like 
every psychic production such as dreams1
 visions and deliria this phantasy1 too1
 must have some meaning4 ,let us        

therefore lend our unprejudiced ears for
 a while to psychoanalytic work which   
after all has not yet uttered the last  
word4  ,the desire to take the male     
member into the mouth and suck it1 which
 is considered as one of the most       
disgusting of sexual perversions1 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  
character4 ,the physician encounters    
phantasies based on this desire1 even in
 women who did not come to the knowledge
 of the possibility of such sexual      
gratification by reading ,v4            
,krafft-,ebing's ,psychopathia ,sexualis
 or through other information4 ,it seems
 that it is quite easy for the women    
themselves to produce such              
wish-phantasies4#bf ,investigation then 
teaches us that this situation1 so      
forcibly condemned by custom1 may be    
traced to the most harmless origin4 ,it 

is nothing but the elaboration of       
another situation in which we all once  
felt comfort1 namely1 when we were in   
the suckling-age 7when ,i was still in  
the cradle7 and took the nipple of our  
mother's or wet-nurse's breast into our 
mouth to suck it4 ,the organic          
impression of this first pleasure in our
 lives surely remains indelibly         
impregnated2 when the child later learns
 to know the udder of the cow1 which in 
function is a breast-nipple1 but in     
shape and in position on the abdomen    
resembles the penis1 it obtains the     
primary basis for the later formation of
 that disgusting sexual phantasy4  ,we  
now understand why ,leonardo displaced  
the memory of the supposed experience   
with the vulture to his nursing period4 
,this phantasy conceals nothing more or 
less than a reminiscence of nursing--or 
being nursed--at the mother's breast1 a 
scene both human and beautiful1 which he
 as well as other artists undertook to  
depict with the brush in the form of the

 mother of ,god and her child4 ,at all  
events1 we also wish to maintain1       
something we do not as yet understand1  
that this reminiscence1 equally         
significant for both sexes1 was         
elaborated in the man ,leonardo into a  
passive homosexual phantasy4 ,for the   
present we shall not take up the        
question as to what connection there is 
between homosexuality and suckling at   
the mother's breast1 we merely wish to  
recall that tradition actually          
designates ,leonardo as a person of     
homosexual feelings4 ,in considering    
this1 it makes no difference whether    
that accusation against the youth       
,leonardo was justified or not4 ,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 homosexuality4        
,another incomprehensible feature of    
,leonardo's infantile phantasy next     
claims our interest4 ,we interpret the  
phantasy of being wet-nursed by the     

mother and find that the mother is      
replaced by a vulture4 ,where does this 
vulture originate and how does he come  
into this place8  ,a thought now        
obtrudes itself which seems so remote   
that one is tempted to ignore it4 ,in   
the sacred hieroglyphics of the old     
,egyptians the mother is represented by 
the picture of the vulture4#bg ,these   
,egyptians also worshiped a motherly    
deity1 whose head was vulture like1 or  
who had many heads of which at least one
 or two was that of a vulture4#bh ,the  
name of this goddess was pronounced     
,mut2 we may question whether the sound 
similarity to our word mother 7,mutter7 
is only accidental8 ,so the vulture     
really has some connection with the     
mother1 but of what help is that to us8 
,have we a right to attribute this      
knowledge to ,leonardo when ,francois   
,champollion first succeeded in reading 
hieroglyphics between #agij-ahcb8bi  ,it
 would also be interesting to discover  
in what way the old ,egyptians came to  

choose the vulture as a symbol of       
motherhood4 ,as a matter of fact the    
religion and culture of ,egyptians were 
subjects of scientific interest even to 
the ,greeks and ,romans1 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       
antiquity4 ,some of these writings      
belonged to familiar authors like       
,strabo1 ,plutarch1 ,aminianus          
,marcellus1 and some bear unfamiliar    
names and are uncertain as to origin and
 time1 like the hieroglyphica of        
,horapollo ,nilus1 and like the         
traditional book of oriental priestly   
wisdom bearing the godly name ,hermes   
,trismegistos4 ,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 males4#cj ,the natural  
history of the ancients shows a         
counterpart to this limitation among the

 scarebaeus beetles which were revered  
by the ,egyptians as godly1 no females  
were supposed to exist4#ca  ,but how    
does impregnation take place in vultures
 if only females exist8 ,this is fully  
answered in a passage of ,horapollo4#cb 
,at a certain time these birds stop in  
the midst of their flight1 open their   
vagina and are impregnated by the wind4 
,unexpectedly we have now reached a     
point where we can take something as    
quite probable which only shortly before
 we had to reject as absurd4 ,it is     
quite possible that ,leonardo was well  
acquainted with the scientific fable1   
according to which the ,egyptians       
represented the idea of mother with the 
picture of the vulture4 ,he was an      
omnivorous reader whose interest        
comprised all spheres of literature and 
knowledge4 ,in the ,codex ,atlanticus we
 find an index of all books which he    
possessed at a certain time1#cc as well 
as numerous notices about other books   
which he borrowed from friends1 and     

according to the excerpts which ,fr4    
,richter#cd compiled from his drawings  
we can hardly overestimate the extent of
 his reading4 ,among these books there  
was no lack of older as well as         
contemporary works treating of natural  
history4 ,all these books were already  
in print at that time1 and it so happens
 that ,milan was the principal place of 
the young art of book printing in       
,italy4  ,when we proceed further we    
come upon a communication which may     
raise to a certainty the probability    
that ,leonardo knew the vulture fable4  
,the erudite editor and commentator of  
,horapollo remarked in connection with  
the text 7p4 #agb7 cited before3        
,caeterum hanc fabulam de vulturibus    
cupide amplexi sunt ,patres             
,ecclesiastici1 ut ita argumento ex     
rerum natura petito refutarent eos1 qui 
,virginis partum negabant2 itaque apud  
omnes fere hujus rei mentio occurit4    
,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 beetles2 that  
church fathers mastered it in order to  
have it ready as an argument from       
natural history against those who       
doubted the sacred history4 ,if         
according the best information from     
antiquity the vultures were directed to 
let themselves be impregnated by the    
wind1 why should the same thing not have
 happened even once in a human female8  
,on account of this use the church      
fathers were almost all in the habit of 
relating this vulture fable1 and now it 
can hardly remain doubtful that it also 
became known to ,leonardo through so    
powerful a source4  ,the origin of      
,leonardo's vulture phantasy can be     
conceived in the following manner3      
,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 male1 a   

memory emerged in him which became      
transformed into that phantasy1 but     
which meant to say that he also had been
 such a vulture child1 which had a      
mother but no father4 ,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 themselves4 ,the allusion to   
the idea of the holy virgin with the    
child1 formed by the authors1 which is  
so dear to every artist1 must have      
contributed to it to make this phantasy 
seem to him valuable and important4 ,for
 this helped him to identify himself    
with the ,christ child1 the comforter   
and savior of not alone this one woman4 
,when we break up an infantile phantasy 
we strive to separate the real memory   
content from the later motives which    
modify and distort the same4 ,in the    
case of ,leonardo we now think that we  
know the real content of the phantasy4  
,the replacement of the mother by the   
vulture indicates that the child missed 

the father and felt himself alone with  
his mother4 ,the fact of ,leonardo's    
illegitimate birth fits in with his     
vulture phantasy2 only on account of it 
was he able to compare himself with a   
vulture child4 ,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   
home2 when this took place1 whether a   
few months following his birth1 or a few
 weeks before the taking of the         
assessment of taxes1 is entirely unknown
 to us4 ,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 poor1 forsaken1 real mother1 so
 that he had time to miss his father4   
,this still seems to be a rather meager 
and rather daring result of the         
psychoanalytic effort1 but on further   
reflection it will gain in significance4
 ,certainty will be promoted by         

mentioning the actual relations in      
,leonardo's childhood4 ,according to the
 reports1 his father ,ser ,piero da     
,vinci married the prominent ,donna     
,albiera during the year of ,leonardo's 
birth2 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 year4 ,however1 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 children4 
,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 for4 ,it harmonizes best with the 
interpretation of the vulture-phantasy1 
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 home4 ,but then it had 

already become too late4 ,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 experiences4  ,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 
development1 then the fact corroborated 
by the vulture phantasy1 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 life4 ,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 children1 should
 have begun to ponder very passionately 
over this riddle and thus should have   
become an investigator early in life4   
,for he was tortured by the great       
questions where do children come from   

and what has the father to do with their
 origin4 ,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  
flight1 for already in his cradle he had
 been visited by a vulture4 ,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     
accomplish4     ,,iii   ,the element of 
the vulture represents to us the real   
memory content in ,leonardo's childhood 
phantasy2 the association into which    
,leonardo himself placed his phantasy   
threw a bright light on the importance  
of this content for his later life4 ,in 
continuing the work of interpretation we
 now encounter the strange problem why  
this memory content was elaborated into 
a homosexual situation4 ,the mother who 
nursed the child1 or rather from whom   

the child suckled was transformed into a
 vulture which stuck its tail into the  
child's mouth4 ,we maintain that the    
coda 7tail7 of the vulture1 following   
the common substituting usages of       
language1 cannot signify anything else  
but a male genital or penis4 ,but we do 
not understand how the phantastic       
activity came to furnish precisely this 
maternal bird with the mark of          
masculinity1 and in view of this        
absurdity we become confused at the     
possibility of reducing this phantastic 
structure to rational sense4  ,however1 
we must not despair4 ,how many seemingly
 absurd dreams have we not forced to    
give up their sense6 ,why should it     
become more difficult to accomplish this
 in a childhood phantasy than in a      
dream6  ,let us remember the fact that  
it is not good to find one isolated     
peculiarity1 and let us hasten to add   
another to it which is still more       
striking4  ,the vulture-headed goddess  
,mut of the ,egyptians1 a figure of     

altogether impersonal character1 as     
expressed by ,drexel in ,roscher's      
lexicon1 was often fused with other     
maternal deities of living individuality
 like ,isis and ,hathor1 but she        
retained besides her separate existence 
and reverence4 ,it was especially       
characteristic of the ,egyptian pantheon
 that the individual gods did not perish
 in this amalgamation4 ,besides the     
composition of deities the simple divine
 image remained in her independence4 ,in
 most representations the vulture-headed
 maternal deity was formed by the       
,egyptians in a phallic manner1#ce her  
body which was distinguished as feminine
 by its breasts also bore the masculine 
member in a state of erection4  ,the    
goddess ,mut thus evinced the same union
 of maternal and paternal               
characteristics as in ,leonardo's       
vulture phantasy4 ,should we explain    
this concurrence by the assumption that 
,leonardo knew from studying his book   
the androgynous nature of the maternal  

vulture8 ,such possibility is more than 
questionable2 it seems that the sources 
accessible to him contained nothing of  
remarkable determination4 ,it is more   
likely that here as there the agreement 
is to be traced to a common1 effective  
and unknown motive4  ,mythology can     
teach us that the androgynous formation1
 the union of masculine and feminine sex
 characteristics1 did not belong to the 
goddess ,mut alone but also to other    
deities such as ,isis and ,hathor1 but  
in the latter perhaps only insofar as   
they possessed also a motherly nature   
and became fused with the goddess       
,mut4#cf ,it teaches us further that    
other ,egyptian deities such as ,neith  
of ,sais out of whom the ,greek ,athene 
was later formed1 were originally       
conceived as androgynous or             
dihermaphroditic1 and that the same held
 true for many of the ,greek gods1      
especially of the ,dionysian circle1 as 
well as for ,aphrodite who was later    
restricted to a feminine love deity4    

,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  
nature1 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 perfection4 ,but none of these   
observations explain the psychological  
riddle1 namely1 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 motherhood4  ,the      
explanation comes from the infantile    
sexual theories4 ,there really was a    
time in which the male genital was found
 to be compatible with the              
representation of the mother4 ,when the 
male child first directs his curiosity  
to the riddle of the sexual life1 he is 
dominated by the interest for his own   

genitals4 ,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   
resemblance4 ,as he cannot divine that  
there is still another equally valuable 
type of genital formation he must grasp 
the assumption that all persons1 also   
women1 possess such a member as he4     
,this preconception is so firm in the   
youthful investigator that it is not    
destroyed even by the first observation 
of the genitals in little girls4 ,his   
perception naturally tells him that     
there is something different here than  
in him1 but he is unable to admit to    
himself as the content of this          
perception that he cannot find this     
member in girls4 ,that this member may  
be missing is to him a dismal and       
unbearable thought1 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        
later4#cg ,if this expectation does not 

appear to be fulfilled on later         
observation he has at his disposal      
another way of escape4 ,the member also 
existed in the little girl but it was   
cut off and on its place there remained 
a wound4 ,this progress of the theory   
already makes use of his own painful    
experience2 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         
occupation4 ,under the influence of this
 threat of castration he now interprets 
his conception of the female genital1   
henceforth he will tremble for his      
masculinity1 but at the same time he    
will look with contempt upon those      
unhappy creatures upon whom1 in his     
opinion1 this cruel punishment had      
already been visited4  ,before the child
 came under the domination of the       
castration complex1 at the time when he 
still held the woman at her full value1 
he began to manifest an intensive desire
 to look as an erotic activity of his   

impulse4 ,he wished to see the genitals 
of other persons1 originally probably   
because he wished to compare them with  
his own4 ,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 penis4 ,with the cognition acquired
 only later that the woman has no penis1
 this longing often becomes transformed 
into its opposite and gives place to    
disgust1 which in the years of puberty  
may become the cause of psychic         
impotence1 of misogyny and of lasting   
homosexuality4 ,but the fixation on the 
once so vividly desired object1 the     
penis of the woman1 leaves ineradicable 
traces in the psychic life of the child1
 which has gone through that fragment of
 infantile sexual investigation with    
particular thoroughness4 ,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 woman4 ,the braid-slashers
 without knowing it play the part of    
persons who perform the act of          
castration on the female genital4  ,one 
will not gain any correct understanding 
of the activities of the infantile      
sexuality and probably will consider    
these communications unworthy of belief1
 as long as one does not relinquish the 
attitude of our cultural depreciation of
 the genitals and of the sexual         
functions in general4 ,to understand the
 infantile psychic life one has to look 
to analogies from primitive times4 ,for 
a long series of generations we have    
been in the habit of considering the    
genitals or pudenda as objects of shame1
 and in the case of more successful     
sexual repression as objects of disgust4
 ,the majority of those living to-day   
only reluctantly obey the laws of       
propagation1 feeling thereby that their 
human dignity is being offended and     
degraded4 ,what exists among us of the  
other conception of the sexual life is  

found only in the uncultivated and in   
the lower social strata2 among the      
higher and more refined types it is     
concealed as culturally inferior1 and   
its activity is ventured only under the 
embittered admonition of a guilty       
conscience4 ,it was quite different in  
the primitive times of the human race4  
,from the laborious collections of      
students of civilization one gains the  
conviction that the genitals were       
originally the pride and hope of living 
beings1 they enjoyed divine worship1 and
 the divine nature of their functions   
was transported to all newly acquired   
activities of mankind4 ,through         
sublimation of its essential elements   
there arose innumerable god-figures1 and
 at the time when the relation of       
official religions with sexual activity 
was already hidden from the general     
consciousness1 secret cults labored to  
preserve it alive among a number of the 
initiated4 ,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 contempt4   
,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 times1 and that language1  
customs and superstitions of present day
 humanity contain the remnants of all   
phases of this course of development4#ch
  ,important biological analogies have  
taught us that the psychic development  
of the individual is a short repetition 
of the course of development of the     
race1 and we shall therefore not find   
improbable what the psychoanalytic      
investigation of the child's psyche     
asserts concerning the infantile        
estimation of the genitals4 ,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     
7tail7 in ,leonardo's childhood         
phantasy4 ,as a matter of fact1 it is   
only through misunderstanding that these
 deistic representations are designated 
hermaphroditic in the medical sense of  
the word4 ,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    
eye2 but besides the breast as a mark of
 motherhood there is also the male      
member1 just as it existed in the first 
imagination of the child about his      
mother's body4 ,mythology has retained  
for the faithful this revered and very  
early fancied bodily formation of the   
mother4 ,the prominence given to the    
vulture-tail in ,leonardo's phantasy we 
can now translate as follows3 ,at that  
time when ,i directed my tender         
curiosity to my mother ,i still adjudged
 to her a genital like my own4 ,a       
further testimonial of ,leonardo's      
precocious sexual investigation1 which  

in our opinion became decisive for his  
entire life4  ,a brief reflection now   
admonishes us that we should not be     
satisfied with the explanation of the   
vulture-tail in ,leonardo's childhood   
phantasy4 ,it seems as if it contained  
more than we as yet understand4 ,for its
 more striking feature really consisted 
in the fact that the nursing at the     
mother's breast was transformed into    
being nursed1 that is into a passive act
 which thus gives the situation an      
undoubted homosexual character4 ,mindful
 of the historical probability that     
,leonardo behaved in life as a          
homosexual in feeling1 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 manifest1 if
 only ideal1 homosexuality4 ,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 exists1 indeed it really is an 
intimate and necessary relation4        
,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 variation1 which  
may be distinguished from the very      
beginning1 as an intermediate stage of  
sex or as a third sex4 ,in other words1 
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 woman4 ,as much as one would
 wish to subscribe to their demands out 
of humane considerations1 one must      
nevertheless exercise reserve regarding 
their theories which were formulated    
without regard for the psychic genesis  
of homosexuality4 ,psychoanalysis offers
 the means to fill this gap and to put  
to test the assertions of the           

homosexuals4 ,it is true that           
psychoanalysis fulfilled this task in   
only a small number of people1 but all  
investigation thus far undertaken       
brought the same surprising results4#ci 
,in all our male homosexuals there was a
 very intensive erotic attachment to a  
feminine person1 as a rule to the       
mother1 which was manifest in the very  
first period of childhood and later     
entirely forgotten by the individual4   
,this attachment was produced or favored
 by too much love from the mother       
herself1 but was also furthered by the  
retirement or absence of the father     
during the childhood period4 ,sadger    
emphasizes the fact that the mothers of 
his homosexual patients were often      
man-women1 or women with energetic      
traits of character who were able to    
crowd out the father from the place     
allotted to him in the family4 ,i have  
sometimes observed the same thing1 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   
influence4 ,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 sex4  ,following this primary  
stage1 a transformation takes place     
whose mechanisms we know but whose      
motive forces we have not yet grasped4  
,the love of the mother cannot continue 
to develop consciously so that it merges
 into repression4 ,the boy represses the
 love for the mother by putting himself 
in her place1 by identifying himself    
with her1 and by taking his own person  
as a model through the similarity of    
which he is guided in the selection of  
his love object4 ,he thus becomes       
homosexual2 as a matter of fact he      
returns to the stage of autoerotism1 for
 the boys whom the growing adult now    
loves are only substitutive persons or  
revivals of his own childish person1    
whom he loves in the same way as his    

mother loved him4 ,we say that he finds 
his love object on the road to narcism1 
for the ,greek legend called a boy      
,narcissus to whom nothing was more     
pleasing than his own mirrored image1   
and who became transformed into a       
beautiful flower of this name4  ,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 mother1 ,by repressing the love 
for his mother he conserves the same in 
his unconscious and henceforth remains  
faithful to her4 ,when as a lover he    
seems to pursue boys1 he really thus    
runs away from women who could cause him
 to become faithless to his mother4     
,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 person1 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 
homosexuality4  ,it is far from us to   
exaggerate the importance of these      
explanations concerning the psychic     
genesis of homosexuality4 ,it is quite  
clear that they are in crass opposition 
to the official theories of the         
homosexual spokesmen1 but we are aware  
that these explanations are not         
sufficiently comprehensive to render    
possible a final explanation of the     
problem4 ,what one calls homosexual for 
practical purposes may have its origin  
in a variety of psychosexual inhibiting 
processes1 and the process recognized by
 us is perhaps only one among many1 and 
has reference only to one type of       
homosexuality4 ,we must also admit1 that
 the number of cases in our homosexual  
type which shows the conditions required
 by us1 exceeds by far those cases in   
which the resulting effect really       

appears1 so that even we cannot reject  
the supposed cooeperation of unknown    
constitutional factors from which one   
was otherwise wont to deduce the whole  
of homosexuality4 ,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      
,leonardo1 from whose vulture-phantasy  
we started1 really belonged to this one 
type of homosexuality4  ,as little as is
 known concerning the sexual behavior of
 the great artist and investigator1 we  
must still trust to the probability that
 the testimonies of his contemporaries  
did not go far astray4 ,in the light of 
this tradition he appears to us as a man
 whose sexual need and activity were    
extraordinarily low1 as if a higher     
striving had raised him above the common
 animal need of mankind4 ,it may be open
 to doubt whether he ever sought direct 
sexual gratification1 and in what       
manner1 or whether he could dispense    

with it altogether4 ,we are justified1  
however1 to look also in him for those  
emotional streams which imperatively    
force others to the sexual act1 for we  
cannot imagine a human psychic life in  
whose development the sexual desire in  
the broadest sense1 the libido1 has not 
had its share1 whether the latter has   
withdrawn itself far from the original  
aim or whether it was detained from     
being put into execution4  ,anything but
 traces of unchanged sexual desire we   
need not expect in ,leonardo4 ,these    
point however to one direction and allow
 us to count him among homosexuals4 ,it 
has always been emphasized that he took 
as his pupils only strikingly handsome  
boys and youths4 ,he was kind and       
considerate towards them1 he cared for  
them and nursed them himself when they  
were ill1 just like a mother nurses her 
children1 as his own mother might have  
cared for him4 ,as he selected them on  
account of their beauty rather than     
their talent1 none of them--,cesare da  

,sesto1 ,g4 ,boltraffio1 ,andrea        
,salaino1 ,francesco ,melzi and the     
others--ever became a prominent artist4 
,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 art4 ,the others who by  
their productions earned the right to   
call themselves his pupils1 as ,luini   
and ,bazzi1 nicknamed ,sodoma1 he       
probably did not know personally4  ,we  
realize that we will have to face the   
objection that ,leonardo's behavior     
towards his pupils surely had nothing to
 do with sexual motives1 and permits no 
conclusion as to his sexual peculiarity4
 ,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 enigmatical4 ,leonardo kept a  
diary2 he made entries in his small     
hand1 written from right to left which  
were meant only for himself4 ,it is to  

be noted that in this diary he addressed
 himself with thou3 ,learn from master  
,lucca the multiplication of roots4#dj  
,let master d',abacco show thee the     
square of the circle4#da ,or on the     
occasion of a journey he entered in his 
diary3  ,i am going to ,milan to look   
after the affairs of my garden 444 order
 two pack-sacks to be made4 ,ask        
,boltraffio to show thee his            
turning-lathe and let him polish a stone
 on it4--,leave the book to master      
,andrea il ,todesco4#db ,or he wrote a  
resolution of quite different           
significance3 ,thou must show in thy    
treatise that the earth is a star1 like 
the moon or resembling it1 and thus     
prove the nobility of our world4#dc  ,in
 this diary1 which like the diaries of  
other mortals often skim over the most  
important events of the day with only   
few words or ignore them altogether1 one
 finds a few entries which on account of
 their peculiarity are cited by all of  
,leonardo's biographers4 ,they show     

notations referring to the master's     
petty expenses1 which are recorded with 
painful exactitude as if coming from a  
pedantic and strictly parsimonious      
family father1 while there is nothing to
 show that he spent greater sums1 or    
that the artist was well versed in      
household management4 ,one of these     
notes refers to a new cloak which he    
bought for his pupil ,andrea            
,salaino3#dd      ,silver brocade       
,lira #ae ,soldi #d     ,crimson velvet 
for trimming      #i      #j     ,braid 
#j      #i     ,buttons                 
#j     #ab  ,another very detailed      
notice gives all the expenses which he  
incurred through the bad qualities and  
the thieving tendencies of another pupil
 or model3 ,on #bast day of ,april1     
#adij1 ,i started this book and started 
again the horse4#de ,jacomo came to me  
on ,magdalene day1 #adij1 at the age of 
ten years 7marginal note3 thievish1     
mendacious1 willful1 gluttonous74 ,on   
the second day ,i ordered for him two   

shirts1 a pair of pants1 and a jacket1  
and as ,i put the money away to pay for 
the things named he stole the money from
 my purse1 and it was never possible to 
make him confess1 although ,i was       
absolutely sure of it 7marginal note3 #d
 ,lira 44474 ,so the report continues   
concerning the misdeeds of the little   
boy and concludes with the expense      
account3 ,in the first year1 a cloak1   
,lira #b3 #f shirts1 ,lira #d3 #c       
jackets1 ,lira #f3 #d pair of socks1    
,lira #g1 etc4#df  ,leonardo's          
biographers1 to whom nothing was further
 than to solve the riddle in the psychic
 life of their hero from these slight   
weaknesses and peculiarities1 were wont 
to remark in connection with these      
peculiar accounts that they emphasized  
the kindness and consideration of the   
master for his pupils4 ,they forget     
thereby that it is not ,leonardo's      
behavior that needs an explanation1 but 
the fact that he left us these          
testimonies of it4 ,as it is impossible 

to ascribe to him the motive of         
smuggling into our hands proofs of his  
kindness1 we must assume that another   
affective motive caused him to write    
this down4 ,it is not easy to conjecture
 what this motive was1 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' clothes1 and others of a        
kind3#dg      ,burial expenses following
 the death of ,caterina    #bg florins  
#b pounds wax                           
#ah         ,cataphalc                  
#ab         ,for the transportation and 
erection of the cross  #d         ,pall 
bearers                                 
#h         ,to #d priests and #d clerics
                       #bj              
,ringing of bells                       
#b         ,to grave diggers            
#af         ,for the approval--to the   
officials                #a             
------------                  ,to sum up

                            #ajh florins
      ,previous expenses3       ,to the 
doctor           #d florins       ,for  
sugar and candles  #ab                  
#af florins                             
------------                     ,sum   
total                         #abd      
florins  ,the writer ,merejkowski is the
 only one who can tell us who this      
,caterina was4 ,from two different short
 notices he concludes that she was the  
mother of ,leonardo1 the poor peasant   
woman from ,vinci1 who came to ,milan in
 #adic to visit her son then #da years  
old4 ,while on this visit she fell ill  
and was taken to the hospital by        
,leonardo1 and following her death she  
was buried by her son with such         
sumptuous funeral4#dh  ,this deduction  
of the psychological writer of romances 
is not capable of proof1 but it can lay 
claim to so many inner probabilities1 it
 agrees so well with everything we know 
besides about ,leonardo's emotional     
activity that ,i cannot refrain from    

accepting it as correct4 ,leonardo      
succeeded in forcing his feelings under 
the yoke of investigation and in        
inhibiting their free utterance1 but    
even in him there were episodes in which
 the suppression obtained expression1   
and one of these was the death of his   
mother whom he once loved so ardently4  
,through this account of the burial     
expenses he represents to us the        
mourning of his mother in an almost     
unrecognizable distortion4 ,we wonder   
how such a distortion could have come   
about1 and we certainly cannot grasp it 
when viewed under normal mental         
processes4 ,but similar mechanisms are  
familiar to us under the abnormal       
conditions of neuroses1 and especially  
in the so-called compulsion neurosis4   
,here one can observe how the           
expressions of more intensive feelings  
have been displaced to trivial and even 
foolish performances4 ,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 unimportant1 but the      
imperative compulsion with which these  
insignificant acts express themselves   
betrays the real force of the feelings  
which are rooted in the unconscious1    
which consciousness would wish to       
disavow4 ,only by bearing in mind the   
mechanisms of compulsion neurosis can   
one explain ,leonardo's account of the  
funeral expenses of his mother4 ,in his 
unconscious he was still tied to her as 
in childhood1 by erotically tinged      
feelings2 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 monument1 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 
incomprehensible4  ,it is not venturing 

far to transfer the interpretation      
obtained from the funeral expenses to   
the accounts dealing with his pupils4   
,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 expression4 ,the   
mother and the pupils1 the very images  
of his own boyish beauty1 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 
behalf1 would designate the strange     
betrayal of his rudimentary conflicts4  
,from this we would conclude that       
,leonardo's love-life really belonged to
 that type of homosexuality1 the psychic
 development of which we were able to   
disclose1 and the appearance of the     
homosexual situation in his             
vulture-phantasy would become           
comprehensible to us1 for it states     

nothing more or less than what we have  
asserted before concerning that type4   
,it requires the following              
interpretation3 ,through the erotic     
relations to my mother ,i became a      
homosexual4#di     ,,iv   ,the vulture  
phantasy of ,leonardo still absorbs our 
interest4 ,in words which only too      
plainly recall a sexual act 7and has    
many times struck against my lips with  
his tail71 ,leonardo emphasizes the     
intensity of the erotic relations       
between the mother and the child4 ,a    
second memory content of the phantasy   
can readily be conjectured from the     
association of the activity of the      
mother 7of the vulture7 with the        
accentuation of the mouth zone4 ,we can 
translate it as follows3 ,my mother has 
pressed on my mouth innumerable         
passionate kisses4 ,the phantasy is     
composed of the memories of being nursed
 and of being kissed by the mother4     
,illustration3 ,,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 himself1 which  
powerfully affect outsiders who are     
strangers to the artist without their   
being able to state whence this         
emotivity comes4 ,should there be no    
evidence in ,leonardo's work of that    
which his memory retained as the        
strongest impression of his childhood8  
,one would have to expect it4 ,however1 
when one considers what profound        
transformations an impression of an     
artist has to experience before it can  
add its contribution to the work of art1
 one is obliged to moderate considerably
 his expectation of demonstrating       
something definite4 ,this is especially 
true in the case of ,leonardo4  ,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 figures4  
,it is a fixed smile on elongated1      
sinuous lips which is considered        

characteristic of him and is            
preferentially designated as            
,leonardesque4 ,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 them4     
,this smile was in need of an           
interpretation1 and received many of the
 most varied kind but none of them was  
considered satisfactory4 ,as ,gruyer    
puts it3 ,it is almost four centuries   
since ,monna ,lisa causes all those to  
lose their heads who have looked upon   
her for some time4#ej  ,muther          
states3#ea ,what fascinates the         
spectator is the demoniacal charm of    
this smile4 ,hundreds of poets and      
writers have written about this woman1  
who now seems to smile upon us          
seductively and now to stare coldly and 
lifelessly into space1 but nobody has   
solved the riddle of her smile1 nobody  
has interpreted her thoughts4           
,everything1 even the scenery is        

mysterious and dream-like1 trembling as 
if in the sultriness of sensuality4     
,the idea that two diverse elements were
 united in the smile of ,monna ,lisa has
 been felt by many critics4 ,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 man1 as
 that of reserve and seduction1 and of  
most devoted tenderness and             
inconsiderateness in urgent and         
consuming sensuality4 ,muentz#eb        
expresses himself in this manner3 ,one  
knows what indecipherable and           
fascinating enigma ,monna ,lisa         
,gioconda has been putting for nearly   
four centuries to the admirers who crowd
 around her4 ,no artist 7,i borrow the  
expression of the delicate writer who   
hides himself under the pseudonym of    
,pierre de ,corlay7 has ever translated 
in this manner the very essence of      
femininity3 the tenderness and coquetry1

 the modesty and quiet voluptuousness1  
the whole mystery of the heart which    
holds itself aloof1 of a brain which    
reflects1 and of a personality who      
watches itself and yields nothing from  
herself except radiance4444 ,the        
,italian ,angelo ,conti#ec saw the      
picture in the ,louvre illumined by a   
ray of the sun and expressed himself as 
follows3 ,the woman smiled with a royal 
calmness1 her instincts of conquest1 of 
ferocity1 the entire heredity of the    
species1 the will of seduction and      
ensnaring1 the charm of the deceiver1   
the kindness which conceals a cruel     
purpose1 all that appears and disappears
 alternately behind the laughing veil   
and melts into the poem of her smile4444
 ,good and evil1 cruelty and compassion1
 graceful and cat-like1 she laughed4444 
,leonardo painted this picture four     
years1 perhaps from #aejc until #aejg1  
during his second sojourn in ,florence  
when he was about the age of fifty      
years4 ,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        
features4 ,of all the gracefulness that 
his brush reproduced on the canvas at   
that time the picture preserves but very
 little in its present state4 ,during   
its production it was considered the    
highest that art could accomplish2 it is
 certain1 however1 that it did not      
satisfy ,leonardo himself1 that he      
pronounced it as unfinished and did not 
deliver it to the one who ordered it1   
but took it with him to ,france where   
his benefactor ,francis ,i1 acquired it 
for the ,louvre4  ,let us leave the     
physiognomic riddle of ,monna ,lisa     
unsolved1 and let us note the           
unequivocal fact that her smile         
fascinated the artist no less than all  
the spectators for these #djj years4    
,this captivating smile had thereafter  
returned in all of his pictures and in  
those of his pupils4 ,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 possess4 ,it 
seems1 we cannot help but believe1 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 phantasy4 ,this obvious         
conception is1 e4g41 expressed by ,a4   
,konstantinowa in the following         
manner3#ed  ,during the long period in  
which the master occupied himself with  
the portrait of ,monna ,lisa del        
,gioconda1 he entered into the          
physiognomic delicacies of this feminine
 face with such sympathy of feeling that
 he transferred these creatures1        
especially the mysterious smile and the 
peculiar glance1 to all faces which he  
later painted or drew4 ,the mimic       
peculiarity of ,gioconda can even be    
perceived in the picture of ,john the   
,baptist in the ,louvre4 ,but above all 
they are distinctly recognized in the   
features of ,mary in the picture of ,st4

 ,anne of the ,louvre4  ,but the case   
could have been different4 ,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 biographers4 ,w4 ,pater1 who sees
 in the picture of ,monna ,lisa the     
embodiment of the entire erotic         
experience of modern man1 and discourses
 so excellently on that unfathomable    
smile always with a touch of something  
sinister in it1 which plays over all    
,leonardo's work1 leads us to another   
track when he says3#ee  ,besides1 the   
picture is a portrait4 ,from childhood  
we see this image defining itself on the
 fabric of his dream2 and but for       
express historical testimony1 we might  
fancy that this was but his ideal lady1 
embodied and beheld at last4  ,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 picture1
 whose features from time immemorial    
have been imbedded with mysterious      
sympathy in ,leonardo's soul4#ef  ,let  
us endeavor to clear up these           
intimations4 ,it was quite possible that
 ,leonardo was fascinated by the smile  
of ,monna ,lisa1 because it had awakened
 something in him which had slumbered in
 his soul for a long time1 in all       
probability an old memory4 ,this memory 
was of sufficient importance to stick to
 him once it had been aroused2 he was   
forced continually to provide it with   
new expression4 ,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 dreams1 seems worthy of belief and  
deserves to be taken literally4  ,vasari
 mentions as ,leonardo's first artistic 
endeavors1 heads of women who laugh4#eg 
,the passage1 which is beyond suspicion1
 as it is not meant to prove anything1  
reads more precisely as follows3#eh ,he 

formed in his youth some laughing       
feminine heads out of lime1 which have  
been reproduced in plaster1 and some    
heads of children1 which were as        
beautiful as if modeled by the hands of 
a master4444  ,thus we discover that his
 practice of art began with the         
representation of two kinds of objects1 
which would perforce remind us of the   
two kinds of sexual objects which we    
have inferred from the analysis of his  
vulture phantasy4 ,if the beautiful     
children's heads were reproductions of  
his own childish person1 then the       
laughing women were nothing else but    
reproductions of ,caterina1 his mother1 
and we are beginning to have an inkling 
of the possibility that his mother      
possessed that mysterious smile which he
 lost1 and which fascinated him so much 
when he found it again in the           
,florentine lady4#ei  ,illustration3    
,,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 ,louvre1  
representing ,saint ,anne1 ,mary and the
 ,christ child4 ,it shows the           
,leonardesque smile most beautifully    
portrayed in the two feminine heads4 ,it
 is impossible to find out how much     
earlier or later than the portrait of   
,monna ,lisa ,leonardo began to paint   
this picture4 ,as both works extended   
over years1 we may well assume that they
 occupied the master simultaneously4    
,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    
phantasy4 ,for if the smile of ,gioconda
 had conjured up in him the memory of   
his mother1 we would naturally          
understand that he was first urged to   
produce a glorification of motherhood1  
and to give back to her the smile he    
found in that prominent lady4 ,we may   
thus allow our interest to glide over   
from the portrait of ,monna ,lisa to    

this other hardly less beautiful        
picture1 now also in the ,louvre4       
,saint ,anne with the daughter and      
grandchild is a subject seldom treated  
in the ,italian art of painting2 at all 
events ,leonardo's representation       
differs widely from all that is         
otherwise known4 ,muther states3#fj     
,some masters like ,hans ,fries1 the    
older ,holbein1 and ,girolamo dei       
,libri1 made ,anne sit near ,mary and   
placed the child between the two4       
,others like ,jakob ,cornelicz in his   
,berlin pictures1 represented ,saint    
,anne as holding in her arm the small   
figure of ,mary upon which sits the     
still smaller figure of the ,christ     
child4 ,in ,leonardo's picture ,mary    
sits on her mother's lap1 bent forward  
and is stretching out both arms after   
the boy who plays with a little lamb1   
and must have slightly maltreated it4   
,the grandmother has one of her         
unconcealed arms propped on her hip and 
looks down on both with a blissful      

smile4 ,the grouping is certainly not   
quite unconstrained4 ,but the smile     
which is playing on the lips of both    
women1 although unmistakably the same as
 in the picture of ,monna ,lisa1 has    
lost its sinister and mysterious        
character2 it expresses a calm          
blissfulness4#fa  ,on becoming somewhat 
engrossed in this picture it suddenly   
dawns upon the spectator that only      
,leonardo could have painted this       
picture1 as only he could have formed   
the vulture phantasy4 ,this picture     
contains the synthesis of the history of
 ,leonardo's childhood1 the details of  
which are explainable by the most       
intimate impressions of his life4 ,in   
his father's home he found not only the 
kind step-mother ,donna ,albiera1 but   
also the grandmother1 his father's      
mother1 ,monna ,lucia1 who we will      
assume was not less tender to him than  
grandmothers are wont to be4 ,this      
circumstance must have furnished him    
with the facts for the representation of

 a childhood guarded by a mother and    
grandmother4 ,another striking feature  
of the picture assumes still greater    
significance4 ,saint ,anne1 the mother  
of ,mary and the grandmother of the boy 
who must have been a matron1 is formed  
here perhaps somewhat more mature and   
more serious than ,saint ,mary1 but     
still as a young woman of unfaded       
beauty4 ,as a matter of fact ,leonardo  
gave the boy two mothers1 the one who   
stretched out her arms after him and    
another who is seen in the background1  
both are represented with the blissful  
smile of maternal happiness4 ,this      
peculiarity of the picture has not      
failed to excite the wonder of the      
authors4 ,muther1 for instance1 believes
 that ,leonardo could not bring himself 
to paint old age1 folds and wrinkles1   
and therefore formed also ,anne as a    
woman of radiant beauty4 ,whether one   
can be satisfied with this explanation  
is a question4 ,other writers have taken
 occasion to deny generally the sameness

 of age of mother and daughter4#fb      
,however1 ,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 tendency4     
,leonardo's childhood was precisely as  
remarkable as this picture4 ,he has had 
two mothers1 the first his true mother1 
,caterina1 from whom he was torn away   
between the age of three and five years1
 and a young tender step-mother1 ,donna 
,albiera1 his father's wife4 ,by        
connecting this fact of his childhood   
with the one mentioned above and        
condensing them into a uniform fusion1  
the composition of ,saint ,anne1 ,mary  
and the ,child1 formed itself in him4   
,the maternal form further away from the
 boy designated as grandmother1         
corresponds in appearance and in spatial
 relation to the boy1 with the real     
first mother1 ,caterina4 ,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 rival1 as  
once before her lover4  ,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 ,leonardo4 ,following   
the production of ,monna ,lisa1 ,italian
 artists depicted in ,madonnas and      
prominent ladies the humble dipping of  
the head and the peculiar blissful smile
 of the poor peasant girl ,caterina1 who
 brought to the world the noble son who 
was destined to paint1 investigate1 and 
suffer4  ,when ,leonardo succeeded in   
reproducing in the face of ,monna ,lisa 
the double sense comprised in this      
smile1 namely1 the promise of unlimited 
tenderness1 and sinister threat 7in the 
words of ,pater71 he remained true even 
in this to the content of his earliest  
reminiscence4 ,for the love of the      

mother became his destiny1 it determined
 his fate and the privations which were 
in store for him4 ,the impetuosity of   
the caressing to which the vulture      
phantasy points was only too natural4   
,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 affection2   
she was forced to it1 not only in order 
to compensate herself for not having a  
husband1 but also the child for not     
having a father who wanted to love it4  
,in the manner of all ungratified       
mothers she thus took her little son in 
place of her husband1 and robbed him of 
a part of his virility by the too early 
maturing of his eroticism4 ,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 child4 ,it is 
of the nature of a fully gratified love 
affair1 which fulfills not only all the 
psychic wishes but also all physical    

needs1 and when it represents one of the
 forms of happiness attainable by man it
 is due1 in no little measure1 to the   
possibility of gratifying without       
reproach also wish feelings which were  
long repressed and designated as        
perverse4#fc ,even in the happiest      
recent marriage the father feels that   
his child1 especially the little boy has
 become his rival1 and this gives origin
 to an antagonism against the favorite  
one which is deeply rooted in the       
unconscious4  ,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    
caressing1 he had long been under the   
ban of an inhibition1 forbidding him    
ever again to desire such tenderness    
from women's lips4 ,but as he had become
 a painter he endeavored to reproduce   
this smile with his brush and furnish   
all his pictures with it1 whether he    
executed them himself or whether they   
were done by his pupils under his       

direction1 as in ,leda1 ,john1 and      
,bacchus4 ,the latter two are variations
 of the same type4 ,muther says3 ,from  
the locust eater of the ,bible ,leonardo
 made a ,bacchus1 an ,apollo1 who with a
 mysterious smile on his lips1 and with 
his soft thighs crossed1 looks on us    
with infatuated eyes4 ,these pictures   
breathe a mysticism into the secret of  
which one dares not penetrate2 at most  
one can make the effort to construct the
 connection to ,leonardo's earlier      
productions4 ,the figures are again     
androgynous but no longer in the sense  
of the vulture phantasy1 they are pretty
 boys of feminine tenderness with       
feminine forms2 they do not cast down   
their eyes but gaze mysteriously        
triumphant1 as if they knew of a great  
happy issue concerning which one must   
remain quiet2 the familiar fascinating  
smile leads us to infer that it is a    
love secret4 ,it is possible that in    
these forms ,leonardo disavowed and     
artistically conquered the unhappiness  

of his love life1 in that he represented
 the wish fulfillment of the boy        
infatuated with his mother in such      
blissful union of the male and female   
nature4  ,illustration3 ,,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 error4 ,in ,july1 #aejd1 
he wrote3  ,adi #i ,luglio1 #aejd1      
mercoledi1 a ore #g mori ,ser ,piero da 
,vinci notalio al palazzo del ,potesta1 
mio padre1 a ore #g4 ,era d'eta d'anni  
#hj1 lascio #aj figlioli maschi e #b    
feminine4#fd  ,the notice as we see     
deals with the death of ,leonardo's     
father4 ,the slight error in its form   
consists in the fact that in the        
computation of the time at #g o'clock is
 repeated two times1 as if ,leonardo had
 forgotten at the end of the sentence   
that he had already written it at the   
beginning4 ,it is only a triviality to  
which any one but a psychoanalyst would 

pay no attention4 ,perhaps he would not 
even notice it1 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 meaning4  ,the 
psychoanalyst thinks differently2 to him
 nothing is too trifling as a           
manifestation of hidden psychic         
processes2 he has long learned that such
 forgetting or repetition is full of    
meaning1 and that one is indebted to the
 absent-mindedness when it makes        
possible the betrayal of otherwise      
concealed feelings4  ,we would say that1
 like the funeral account of ,caterina  
and the expense account of the pupils1  
this notice1 too1 corresponds to a case 
in which ,leonardo was unsuccessful in  
suppressing his affects1 and the long   
hidden feeling forcibly obtained a      
distorted expression4 ,also the form is 
similar1 it shows the same pedantic     
precision1 the same pushing forward of  
numbers4#fe  ,we call such a repetition 

a perseveration4 ,it is an excellent    
means to indicate the affective         
accentuation4 ,one recalls for example  
,saint ,peter's angry speech against his
 unworthy representative on earth1 as   
given in ,dante's ,paradiso3#ff         
,quegli ch'usurpa in terra il luoga mio 
,il luoga mio1 il luogo mio1 che vaca   
,nella presenza del ,figliuol di ,dio1  
,fatto ha del cimiterio mio cloaca4     
,without ,leonardo's affective          
inhibition the entry into the diary     
could perhaps have read as follows3     
,to-day at #g o'clock died my father1   
,ser ,piero da ,vinci1 my poor father6  
,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        
suppress4  ,ser ,piero da ,vinci1 notary
 and descendant of notaries1 was a man  
of great energy who attained respect and
 affluence4 ,he was married four times1 

the two first wives died childless1 and 
not till the third marriage has he      
gotten the first legitimate son1 in     
#adgf1 when ,leonardo was #bd years old1
 and had long ago changed his father's  
home for the studio of his master       
,verrocchio4 ,with the fourth and last  
wife whom he married when he was already
 in the fifties he begot nine sons and  
two daughters4#fg  ,to be sure the      
father also assumed importance in       
,leonardo's psychosexual development1   
and what is more1 it was not only in a  
negative sense1 through his absence     
during the boy's first childhood years1 
but also directly through his presence  
in his later childhood4 ,he who as a    
child desires his mother1 cannot help   
wishing to put himself in his father's  
place1 to identify himself with him in  
his phantasy and later make it his      
life's task to triumph over him4 ,as    
,leonardo was not yet five years old    
when he was received into his paternal  
home1 the young step-mother1 ,albiera1  

certainly must have taken the place of  
his mother in his feeling1 and this     
brought him into that relation of       
rivalry to his father which may be      
designated as normal4 ,as is known1 the 
preference for homosexuality did not    
manifest itself till near the years of  
puberty4 ,when ,leonardo accepted this  
preference the identification with the  
father lost all significance for his    
sexual life1 but continued in other     
spheres of non-erotic activity4 ,we hear
 that he was fond of luxury and pretty  
raiments1 and kept servants and horses1 
although according to ,vasari's words he
 hardly possessed anything and worked   
little4 ,we shall not hold his artistic 
taste entirely responsible for all these
 special likings2 we recognize in them  
also the compulsion to copy his father  
and to excel him4 ,he played the part of
 the great gentleman to the poor peasant
 girl1 hence the son retained the       
incentive that he also play the great   
gentleman1 he had the strong feeling to 

out-herod ,herod1 and to show his father
 exactly how the real high rank looks4  
,whoever works as an artist certainly   
feels as a father to his works4 ,the    
identification with his father had a    
fateful result in ,leonardo's works of  
art4 ,he created them and then troubled 
himself no longer about them1 just as   
his father did not trouble himself about
 him4 ,the later worriments of his      
father could change nothing in this     
compulsion1 as the latter originated    
from the impressions of the first years 
of childhood1 and the repression having 
remained unconscious was incorrigible   
through later experiences4  ,at the time
 of the ,renaissance1 and even much     
later1 every artist was in need of a    
gentleman of rank to act as his         
benefactor4 ,this patron was wont to    
give the artist commissions for work and
 entirely controlled his destiny4       
,leonardo found his patron in ,lodovico 
,sforza1 nicknamed ,il ,moro1 a man of  
high aspirations1 ostentations1         

diplomatically astute1 but of an        
unstable and unreliable character4 ,in  
his court in ,milan1 ,leonardo spent the
 best period of his life1 while in his  
service he evinced his most uninhibited 
productive activity as is evidenced in  
,the ,last ,supper1 and in the          
equestrian statue of ,francesco ,sforza4
 ,he left ,milan before the catastrophe 
struck ,lodovico ,moro1 who died a      
prisoner in a ,french prison4 ,when the 
news of his benefactor's fate reached   
,leonardo he made the following entry in
 his diary3 ,the duke has lost state1   
wealth1 and liberty1 not one of his     
works will be finished by himself4#fh   
,it is remarkable and surely not without
 significance that he here raises the   
same reproach to his benefactor that    
posterity was to apply to him1 as if he 
wanted to lay the responsibility to a   
person who substituted his              
father-series1 for the fact that he     
himself left his works unfinished4 ,as a
 matter of fact he was not wrong in what

 he said about the ,duke4  ,however1 if 
the imitation of his father hurt him as 
an artist1 his resistance against the   
father was the infantile determinant of 
his perhaps equally vast accomplishment 
as an artist4 ,according to             
,merejkowski's beautiful comparison he  
was like a man who awoke too early in   
the darkness1 while the others were all 
still asleep4 ,he dared utter this bold 
principle which contains the            
justification for all independent       
investigation3 ,chi dispute allegando   
l'autorita non adopra l'ingegno ma      
piuttosto la memoria 7,whoever refers to
 authorities in disputing ideas1 works  
with his memory rather than with his    
reason74#fi ,thus he became the first   
modern natural philosopher1 and his     
courage was rewarded by an abundance of 
cognitions and suggestions2 since the   
,greek period he was the first to       
investigate the secrets of nature1      
relying entirely on his observation and 
his own judgment4 ,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 wisdom1 he  
only repeated in the highest sublimation
 attainable to man1 which had already   
obtruded itself on the little boy who   
surveyed the world with wonder4 ,to     
retranslate the scientific abstractions 
into concrete individual experiences1 we
 would say that the ancients and        
authority only corresponded to the      
father1 and nature again became the     
tender mother who nourished him4 ,while 
in most human beings to-day1 as in      
primitive times1 the need for a support 
of some authority is so imperative that 
their world becomes shaky when their    
authority is menaced1 ,leonardo alone   
was able to exist without such support2 
but that would not have been possible   
had he not been deprived of his father  
in the first years of his life4 ,the    
boldness and independence of his later  
scientific investigation presupposes    

that his infantile sexual investigation 
was not inhibited by his father1 and    
this same spirit of scientific          
independence was continued by his       
withdrawing from sex4  ,if any one like 
,leonardo escapes in his childhood his  
father's intimidation and later throws  
off the shackles of authority in his    
scientific investigation1 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 religion4 ,psychoanalysis has  
taught us the intimate connection       
between the father complex and belief in
 ,god1 and daily demonstrates to us how 
youthful persons lose their religious   
belief as soon as the authority of the  
father breaks down4 ,in the parental    
complex we thus recognize the roots of  
religious need2 the almighty1 just ,god1
 and kindly nature appear to us as grand
 sublimations of father and mother1 or  
rather as revivals and restorations of  
the infantile conceptions of both       

parents4 ,religiousness is biologically 
traced to the long period of            
helplessness and need of help of the    
little child4 ,when the child grows up  
and realizes his loneliness and weakness
 in the presence of the great forces of 
life1 he perceives his condition as in  
childhood and seeks to disavow his      
despair through a regressive revival of 
the protecting forces of childhood4  ,it
 does not seem that ,leonardo's life    
disproves this conception of religious  
belief4 ,accusations charging him with  
irreligiousness1 which in those times   
was equivalent to renouncing            
,christianity1 were brought against him 
already in his lifetime1 and were       
clearly described in the first biography
 given by ,vasari4#gj ,in the second    
edition of his ,vite 7#aefh7 ,vasari    
left out this observation4 ,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 notes4 ,as investigator he did  
not permit himself to be misled by the  
account of the creation of the holy     
scriptures2 for instance1 he disputed   
the possibility of a universal flood1   
and in geology he was as unscrupulous in
 calculating with hundred thousands of  
years as modern investigators4  ,among  
his prophecies one finds some things    
that would perforce offend the sensitive
 feelings of a religious ,christian1    
e4g4 ,praying to the images of ,saints1 
reads as follows3#ga  ,people talk to   
people who perceive nothing1 who have   
open eyes and see nothing2 they shall   
talk to them and receive no answer2 they
 shall adore those who have ears and    
hear nothing2 they shall burn lamps for 
those who do not see4  ,or3 ,concerning 
mourning on ,good ,friday 7p4 #big73    
,in all parts of ,europe great peoples  
will bewail the death of one man who    
died in the ,orient4  ,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 feelings4     
,muther praises him for having overcome 
the feeling of decadence1 and for having
 returned to man the right of sensuality
 and pleasurable enjoyment4 ,the notices
 which show ,leonardo absorbed in       
fathoming the great riddles of nature do
 not lack any expressions of admiration 
for the creator1 the last cause of all  
these wonderful secrets1 but nothing    
indicates that he wished to hold any    
personal relation to this divine force4 
,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 ,god4 ,there is hardly any 
doubt that ,leonardo had vanquished     
dogmatic as well as personal religion1  
and through his work of investigation he
 had withdrawn far from the world aspect

 of the religious ,christian4  ,from our
 views mentioned before in the          
development of the infantile psychic    
life1 it becomes clear that also        
,leonardo's first investigations in     
childhood occupied themselves with the  
problems of sexuality4 ,but he himself  
betrays it to us through a transparent  
veil1 in that he connects his impulse to
 investigate with the vulture phantasy1 
and in emphasizing the problem of the   
flight of the bird as one whose         
elaboration devolved upon him through   
special concatenations of fate4 ,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       
imitate1 the art of flying3 ,the human  
bird shall take his first flight1       
filling the world with amazement1 all   
writings with his fame1 and bringing    
eternal glory to the nest whence he     

sprang4 ,he probably hoped that he      
himself would sometimes be able to fly1 
and we know from the wish fulfilling    
dreams of people what bliss one expects 
from the fulfillment of this hope4  ,but
 why do so many people dream that they  
are able to fly8 ,psychoanalysis answers
 this question by stating that to fly or
 to be a bird in the dream is only a    
concealment of another wish1 to the     
recognition of which one can reach by   
more than one linguistic or objective   
bridge4 ,when the inquisitive child is  
told that a big bird like the stork     
brings the little children1 when the    
ancients have formed the phallus winged1
 when the popular designation of the    
sexual activity of man is expressed in  
,german by the word to bird 7voegeln71  
when the male member is directly called 
l'uccello 7bird7 by the ,italians1 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 accomplishment4 ,this is an     
early infantile wish4 ,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 wishes1 it is for this      
reason that he envies children4 ,but if 
children themselves could inform us     
about it they would probably give       
different reports4 ,it seems that       
childhood is not that blissful ,idyl    
into which we later distort it1 that on 
the contrary children are lashed through
 the years of childhood by the wish to  
become big1 and to imitate the grown    
ups4 ,this wish instigates all their    
playing4 ,if in the course of their     
sexual investigation children feel that 
the grown up knows something wonderful  
in the mysterious and yet so important  
realm1 what they are prohibited from    
knowing or doing1 they are seized with a
 violent wish to know it1 and dream of  
it in the form of flying1 or prepare    

this disguise of the wish for their     
later flying dreams4 ,thus aviation1    
which has attained its aim in our times1
 has also its infantile erotic roots4   
,by admitting that he entertained a     
special personal relation to the problem
 of flying since his childhood1         
,leonardo bears out what we must assume 
from our investigation of children of   
our times1 namely1 that his childhood   
investigation was directed to sexual    
matters4 ,at least this one problem     
escaped the repression which has later  
estranged him from sexuality4 ,from     
childhood until the age of perfect      
intellectual maturity this subject1     
slightly varied1 continued to hold his  
interest1 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  
matters1 that both wishes were denied to
 him4  ,as a matter of fact the great   
,leonardo remained infantile in some    
ways throughout his whole life2 it is   

said that all great men retain something
 of the infantile4 ,as a grown up he    
still continued playing1 which sometimes
 made him appear strange and            
incomprehensible to his contemporaries4 
,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    
stuff4 ,he himself did not seem averse  
to giving his time to such things4      
,vasari reports that he did similar     
things even when not urged to it by     
request3 ,there 7in ,rome7 he made a    
doughy mass out of wax1 and when it     
softened he formed thereof very delicate
 animals filled with air2 when he blew  
into them they flew in the air1 and when
 the air was exhausted they fell to the 
ground4 ,for a peculiar lizard caught by
 the wine-grower of ,belvedere ,leonardo
 made wings from skin pulled off from   
other lizards1 which he filled with     
mercury so that they moved and trembled 

when it walked2 he then made for it     
eyes1 a beard and horns1 tamed it and   
put it in a little box and terrified all
 his friends with it4#gb ,such playing  
often served him as an expression of    
serious thoughts3 ,he had often cleaned 
the intestines of a sheep so well that  
one could hold them in the hollow of the
 hand2 he brought them into a big room1 
and attached them to a blacksmith's     
bellows which he kept in an adjacent    
room1 he then blew them up until they   
filled up the whole room so that        
everybody had to crowd into a corner4   
,in this manner he showed how they      
gradually became transparent and filled 
up with air1 and as they were at first  
limited to very little space and        
gradually became more and more extended 
in the big room1 he compared them to a  
genius4#gc ,his fables and riddles      
evince the same playful pleasure in     
harmless concealment and artistic       
investment1 the riddles were put into   
the form of prophecies2 almost all are  

rich in ideas and to a remarkable degree
 devoid of wit4  ,the plays and jumps   
which ,leonardo allowed his phantasy    
have in some cases quite misled his     
biographers who misunderstood this part 
of his nature4 ,in ,leonardo's ,milanese
 manuscripts one finds1 for example1    
outlines of letters to the ,diodario of 
,sorio 7,syria71 viceroy of the holy    
,sultan of ,babylon1 in which ,leonardo 
presents himself as an engineer sent to 
these regions of the ,orient in order to
 construct some works4 ,in these letters
 he defends himself against the reproach
 of laziness1 he furnishes geographical 
descriptions of cities and mountains1   
and finally discusses a big elementary  
event which occurred while he was       
there4#gd  ,in #ahha1 ,j4 ,p4 ,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    
,egypt1 and that while in the ,orient he
 embraced the ,mohammedan religion4     

,this sojourn in the ,orient should have
 taken place in the time of #adhc1 that 
is1 before he removed to the court of   
the ,duke of ,milan4 ,however1 it was   
not difficult for other authors to      
recognize the illustrations of this     
supposed journey to the ,orient as what 
they really were1 namely1 phantastic    
productions of the youthful artist which
 he created for his own amusement1 and  
in which he probably brought to         
expression his wishes to see the world  
and experience adventures4  ,a          
phantastic formation is probably also   
the ,academia ,vinciana1 the acceptance 
of which is due to the existence of five
 or six most clever and intricate       
emblems with the inscription of the     
,academy4 ,vasari mentions these        
drawings but not the ,academy4#ge       
,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 ,vinciana4  ,it 
is probable that this impulse to play   

disappeared in ,leonardo's maturer      
years1 that it became discharged in the 
investigating activity which signified  
the highest development of his          
personality4 ,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 unattainable4     ,,vi   ,it  
would be futile to delude ourselves that
 at present1 readers find every         
pathography unsavory4 ,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 attainments1 that
 it is therefore useless mischief to    
study in him things which could just as 
well be found in the first comer4       
,however1 this criticism is so clearly  
unjust that it can only be grasped when 
viewed as a pretext and a disguise for  
something4 ,as a matter of fact         
pathography does not aim at making      

comprehensible the attainments of the   
great man2 no one should really be      
blamed for not doing something which one
 never promised4 ,the real motives for  
the opposition are quite different4 ,one
 finds them when one bears in mind that 
biographers are fixed on their heroes in
 quite a peculiar manner4 ,frequently   
they take the hero as the object of     
study because1 for reasons of their     
personal emotional life1 they bear him a
 special affection from the very outset4
 ,they then devote themselves to a work 
of idealization which strives to enroll 
the great men among their infantile     
models1 and to revive through him1 as it
 were1 the infantile conception of the  
father4 ,for the sake of this wish they 
wipe out the individual features in his 
physiognomy1 they rub out the traces of 
his life's struggle with inner and outer
 resistances1 and do not tolerate in him
 anything of human weakness or          
imperfection2 they then give us a cold1 
strange1 ideal form instead of the man  

to whom we could feel distantly related4
 ,it is to be regretted that they do    
this1 for they thereby sacrifice the    
truth to an illusion1 and for the sake  
of their infantile phantasies they let  
slip the opportunity to penetrate into  
the most attractive secrets of human    
nature4#gf  ,leonardo himself1 judging  
from his love for the truth and his     
inquisitiveness1 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 nature4 ,we respect him  
by learning from him4 ,it does no injury
 to his greatness to study the          
sacrifices which his development from   
the child must have entailed1 and to the
 compile factors which have stamped on  
his person the tragic feature of        
failure4  ,let us expressly emphasize   
that we have never considered ,leonardo 
as a neurotic or as a nervous person in 
the sense of this awkward term4 ,whoever

 takes it amiss that we should even dare
 apply to him viewpoints gained from    
pathology1 still clings to prejudices   
which we have at present justly given   
up4 ,we no longer believe that health   
and disease1 normal and nervous1 are    
sharply distinguished from each other1  
and that neurotic traits must be judged 
as proof of general inferiority4 ,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 man1 that
 we all produce such substitutive       
formations1 and that only the amount1   
intensity1 and distribution of these    
substitutive formations justify the     
practical conception of illness and the 
conclusion of constitutional            
inferiority4 ,following the slight signs
 in ,leonardo's personality we would    
place him near that neurotic type which 
we designate as the compulsive type1 and
 we would compare his investigation with

 the reasoning mania of neurotics1 and  
his inhibitions with the so-called      
abulias of the latter4  ,the object of  
our work was to explain the inhibitions 
in ,leonardo's sexual life and in his   
artistic activity4 ,for this purpose we 
shall now sum up what we could discover 
concerning the course of his psychic    
development4  ,we were unable to gain   
any knowledge about his hereditary      
factors1 on the other hand we recognize 
that the accidental circumstances of his
 childhood produced a far reaching      
disturbing effect4 ,his illegitimate    
birth deprived him of the influence of a
 father until perhaps his fifth year1   
and left him to the tender seduction of 
a mother whose only consolation he was4 
,having been kissed by her into sexual  
prematurity1 he surely must have entered
 into a phase of infantile sexual       
activity of which only one single       
manifestation was definitely evinced1   
namely1 the intensity of his infantile  
sexual investigation4 ,the impulse for  

looking and inquisitiveness were most   
strongly stimulated by his impressions  
from early childhood2 the enormous      
mouth-zone received its accentuation    
which it had never given up4 ,from his  
later contrasting behavior1 as the      
exaggerated sympathy for animals1 we can
 conclude that this infantile period did
 not lack in strong sadistic traits4    
,an energetic shift of repression put an
 end to this infantile excess1 and      
established the dispositions which      
became manifest in the years of puberty4
 ,the most striking result of this      
transformation was a turning away from  
all gross sensual activities4 ,leonardo 
was able to lead a life of abstinence   
and made the impression of an asexual   
person4 ,when the floods of pubescent   
excitement came over the boy they did   
not make him ill by forcing him to      
costly and harmful substitutive         
formations2 owing to the early          
preference for sexual inquisitiveness1  
the greater part of the sexual needs    

could be sublimated into a general      
thirst after knowledge and so elude     
repression4 ,a much smaller portion of  
the libido was applied to sexual aims1  
and represented the stunted sexual life 
of the grown up4 ,in consequence of the 
repression of the love for the mother   
this portion assumed a homosexual       
attitude and manifested itself as ideal 
love for boys4 ,the fixation on the     
mother1 as well as the happy            
reminiscences of his relations with her1
 was preserved in his unconscious but   
remained for the time in an inactive    
state4 ,in this manner the repression1  
fixation1 and sublimation participated  
in the disposal of the contributions    
which the sexual impulse furnished to   
,leonardo's psychic life4  ,from the    
obscure age of boyhood ,leonardo appears
 to us as an artist1 a painter1 and     
sculptor1 thanks to a specific talent   
which was probably enforced by the early
 awakening of the impulse for looking in
 the first years of childhood4 ,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 here4 ,we   
content ourselves by emphasizing the    
fact1 concerning which hardly any doubt 
still exists1 that the productions of   
the artist give outlet also to his      
sexual desire1 and in the case of       
,leonardo we can refer to the           
information imparted by ,vasari1 namely1
 that heads of laughing women and pretty
 boys1 or representations of his sexual 
objects1 attracted attention among his  
first artistic attempts4 ,it seems that 
during his flourishing youth ,leonardo  
at first worked in an uninhibited       
manner4 ,as he took his father as a     
model for his outer conduct in life1 he 
passed through a period of manly        
creative power and artistic productivity
 in ,milan1 where favored by fate he    
found a substitute for his father in the
 duke ,lodovico ,moro4 ,but the         
experience of others was soon confirmed 

in him1 to wit1 that the almost complete
 suppression of the real sexual life    
does not furnish the most favorable     
conditions for the activity of the      
sublimated sexual strivings4 ,the       
figurativeness of his sexual life       
asserted itself1 his activity and       
ability to quick decisions began to     
weaken1 the tendency to reflection and  
delay was already noticeable as a       
disturbance in ,the ,holy ,supper1 and  
with the influence of the technique     
determined the fate of this magnificent 
work4 ,slowly a process developed in him
 which can be put parallel only to the  
regressions of neurotics4 ,his          
development at puberty into the artist  
was outstripped by the early infantile  
determinant of the investigator1 the    
second sublimation of his erotic        
impulses turned back to the primitive   
one which was prepared at the first     
repression4 ,he became an investigator1 
first in service of his art1 later      
independently and away from his art4    

,with the loss of his patron1 the       
substitute for his father1 and with the 
increasing difficulties in his life1 the
 regressive displacement extended in    
dimension4 ,he became impacientissimo al
 pennello 7most impatient with the      
brush7 as reported by a correspondent of
 the countess ,isabella d',este who     
desired to possess at any cost a        
painting from his hand4#gg ,his         
infantile past had obtained control over
 him4 ,the investigation1 however1 which
 now took the place of his artistic     
production1 seems to have born certain  
traits which betrayed the activity of   
unconscious impulses2 this was seen in  
his insatiability1 his regardless       
obstinacy1 and in his lack of ability to
 adjust himself to actual conditions4   
,at the summit of his life1 in the age  
of the first fifties1 at a time when the
 sex characteristics of the woman have  
already undergone a regressive change1  
and when the libido in the man not      
infrequently ventures into an energetic 

advance1 a new transformation came over 
him4 ,still deeper strata of his psychic
 content became active again1 but this  
further regression was of benefit to his
 art which was in a state of            
deterioration4 ,he met the woman who    
awakened in him the memory of the happy 
and sensuously enraptured smile of his  
mother1 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 woman4 ,he painted ,monna ,lisa1
 ,saint ,anne1 and a number of mystic   
pictures which were characterized by the
 enigmatic smile4 ,with the help of his 
oldest erotic feelings he triumphed in  
conquering once more the inhibition in  
his art4 ,this last development faded   
away in the obscurity of the approaching
 old age4 ,but before this his intellect
 rose to the highest capacity of a view 
of life1 which was far in advance of his
 time4  ,in the preceding chapters ,i   
have shown what justification one may   

have for such representation of         
,leonardo's course of development1 for  
this manner of arranging his life and   
explaining his wavering between art and 
science4 ,if after accomplishing these  
things ,i should provoke the criticism  
from even friends and adepts of         
psychoanalysis1 that ,i have only       
written a psychoanalytic romance1 ,i    
should answer that ,i certainly did not 
overestimate the reliability of these   
results4 ,like others ,i succumbed to   
the attraction emanating from this great
 and mysterious man1 in whose being one 
seems to feel powerful propelling       
passions1 which after all can only      
evince themselves so remarkably subdued4
  ,but whatever may be the truth about  
,leonardo's life we cannot relinquish   
our effort to investigate it            
psychoanalytically before we have       
finished another task4 ,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 failure4             
,psychoanalytic investigation has at its
 disposal the data of the history of the
 person's life1 which on the one hand   
consists of accidental events and       
environmental influences1 and on the    
other hand of the reported reactions of 
the individual4 ,based on the knowledge 
of psychic mechanisms it now seeks to   
investigate dynamically the character of
 the individual from his reactions1 and 
to lay bare his earliest psychic motive 
forces as well as their later           
transformations and developments4 ,if   
this succeeds then the reaction of the  
personality is explained through the    
cooeperation of constitutional and      
accidental factors or through inner and 
outer forces4 ,if such an undertaking1  
as perhaps in the case of ,leonardo1    
does not yield definite results then the
 blame for it is not to be laid to the  
faulty or inadequate psychoanalytic     
method1 but to the vague and fragmentary

 material left by tradition about this  
person4 ,it is1 therefore1 only the     
author who forced psychoanalysis to     
furnish an expert opinion on such       
insufficient material1 who is to be held
 responsible for the failure4  ,however1
 even if one had at his disposal a very 
rich historical material and could      
manage the psychic mechanism with the   
greatest certainty1 a psychoanalytic    
investigation could not possibly furnish
 the definite view1 if it concerns two  
important questions1 that the individual
 could turn out only so and not         
differently4 ,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 fate1 through  
the fact that the sexual repression     
following this infantile phase caused   
him to sublimate his libido into a      
thirst after knowledge1 and thus        
determined his sexual inactivity for his

 entire later life4 ,the repression1    
however1 which followed the first erotic
 gratification of childhood did not have
 to take place1 in another individual it
 would perhaps not have taken place or  
it would have turned out not nearly as  
profuse4 ,we must recognize here a      
degree of freedom which can no longer be
 solved psychoanalytically4 ,one is as  
little justified in representing the    
issue of this shift of repression as the
 only possible issue4 ,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   
knowledge2 under the same influences as 
,leonardo another person might have     
sustained a permanent injury to his     
intellectual work or an uncontrollable  
disposition to compulsion neurosis4 ,the
 two characteristics of ,leonardo which 
remained unexplained through            
psychoanalytic effort are first1 his    
particular tendency to repress his      

impulses1 and second1 his extraordinary 
ability to sublimate the primitive      
impulses4  ,the impulses and their      
transformations are the last things that
 psychoanalysis can discern4 ,henceforth
 it leaves the place to biological      
investigation4 ,the tendency to         
repression1 as well as the ability to   
sublimate1 must be traced back to the   
organic bases of the character1 upon    
which alone the psychic structure       
springs up4 ,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 us4 ,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 sense2  
,leonardo's physical beauty as well as  
his left-handedness furnish here some   
support4 ,however1 we do not wish to    

leave the ground of pure psychologic    
investigation4 ,our aim remains to      
demonstrate the connection between outer
 experiences and reactions of the person
 over the path of the activity of the   
impulses4 ,even if psychoanalysis does  
not explain to us the fact of           
,leonardo's artistic accomplishment1 it 
still gives us an understanding of the  
expressions and limitations of the same4
 ,it does seem as if only a man with    
,leonardo's childhood experiences could 
have painted ,monna ,lisa and ,saint    
,anne1 and could have supplied his works
 with that sad fate and so obtain       
unheard of fame as a natural historian2 
it seems as if the key to all his       
attainments and failures was hidden in  
the childhood phantasy of the vulture4  
,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 person1 which1 for     
example1 subordinates ,leonardo's fate  

to his illegitimate birth and to the    
sterility of his first step-mother      
,donna ,albiera8 ,i believe that one has
 no right to feel so2 if one considers  
accident as unworthy of determining our 
fate1 it is only a relapse to the pious 
aspect of life1 the overcoming of which 
,leonardo himself prepared when he put  
down in writing that the sun does not   
move4 ,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 age4 ,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 ovum1 accident1 which   
nevertheless participates in the        
lawfulness and fatalities of nature1 and
 lacks only the connection to our wishes
 and illusions4 ,the division of life's 
determinants into the fatalities of our 
constitution and the accidents of our   
childhood may still be indefinite in    

individual cases1 but taken altogether  
one can no longer entertain any doubt   
about the importance of precisely our   
first years of childhood4 ,we all still 
show too little respect for nature1     
which in ,leonardo's deep words         
recalling ,hamlet's speech is full of   
infinite reasons which never appeared in
 experience4#gh ,every one of us human  
beings corresponds to one of the        
infinite experiments in which these     
reasons of nature force themselves into 
experience4   ,,the ,,end   ,,footnotes3
  #a ,in the words of ,j4 ,burckhard1   
cited by ,alexandra ,konstantinowa1 ,die
 ,entwicklung des ,madonnentypus by     
,leonardo da ,vinci1 ,strassburg1 #aijg4
  #b ,vite1 etc4 ,,lxxxiii4 #aeej-aehd4 
#c ,traktat von der ,malerei1 new       
edition and introduction by ,marie      
,herzfeld1 ,e4 ,diederichs1 ,jena1      
#aiji4  #d ,solmi4 ,la resurrezione     
dell' opera di ,leonardo in the         
collected work2 ,leonardo da ,vinci4    
,conferenze ,florentine1 ,milan1 #aiaj4 

#e ,scognamiglio ,ricerche e ,documenti 
sulla giovinezza di ,leonardo da ,vinci4
 ,napoli1 #aijj4  #f ,w4 v4 ,seidlitz4  
,leonardo da ,vinci1 der ,wendepunkt der
 ,renaissance1 #aiji1 ,bd4 ,i1 p4 #bjc4 
#g ,w4 v4 ,seidlitz1 l4 c4 ,bd4 ,,ii1 p4
 #dh  #h ,w4 ,pater4 ,the ,renaissance1 
p4 #ajg1 ,the ,macmillan ,co41 #aiaj4   
,but it is certain that at one period of
 his life he had almost ceased to be an 
artist4  #i ,cf4 v4 ,seidlitz1 ,bd4 ,i  
die ,geschichte der ,restaurations--und 
,rettungsversuche4  #aj ,muentz4        
,leonard de ,vinci1 ,paris1 #ahii1 p4   
#ah4 7,a letter of a contemporary from  
,india to a ,medici alludes to this     
peculiarity of ,leonardo4 ,given by     
,richter3 ,the literary ,works of       
,leonardo da ,vinci47  #aa ,f4 ,botazzi4
 ,leonardo biologo e anatomico4         
,conferenze ,florentine1 p4 #ahf1 #aiaj4
  #ab ,e4 ,solmi3 ,leonardo da ,vinci4  
,german ,translation by ,emmi           
,hirschberg4 ,berlin1 #aijh4  #ac ,marie
 ,herzfeld3 ,leonardo da ,vinci der     

,denker1 ,forscher und ,poet4 ,second   
edition4 ,jena1 #aijf4  #ad ,his        
collected witticisms--belle             
facezie1--which are not translated1 may 
be an exception4 ,cf4 ,herzfeld1        
,leonardo da ,vinci1 p4 #aea4  #ae      
,according to ,scognamiglio 7l4 c4 p4   
#di7 reference is made to this episode  
in an obscure and even variously        
interpreted passage of the ,codex       
,atlanticus3 ,quando io feci ,domeneddio
 putto voi mi metteste in prigione1 ora 
s'io lo fo grande1 voi mi farete peggio4
  #af ,merejkowski3 ,the ,romance of    
,leonardo da ,vinci1 translated by      
,herbert ,trench1 ,g4 ,p4 ,putnam ,sons1
 ,new ,york4 ,it forms the second of the
 historical ,trilogy entitled ,christ   
and ,anti-,christ1 of which the first   
volume is ,julian ,apostata1 and the    
third volume is ,peter the ,great and   
,alexei4  #ag ,solmi l4 c4 p4 #df4  #ah 
,filippo ,botazzi1 l4 c4 p4 #aic4  #ai  
,marie ,herzfeld3 ,leonardo da ,vinci1  
,traktat von der ,malerei1 ,jena1 #aiji 

7,chap4 ,i1 #fd74  #bj ,such            
transfiguration of science and of nature
 into emotions1 or one might say1       
religion1 is one of the characteristic  
traits of da ,vinci's manuscripts1 which
 one finds expressed hundreds of times4 
,solmi3 ,la resurrezione1 etc1 p4 #aa4  
#ba ,la resurrezione1 etc41 p4 #h3      
,leonardo placed the study of nature as 
a precept to painting 444 later the     
passion for study became dominating1 he 
no longer wished to acquire science for 
art1 but science for science' sake4  #bb
 ,for an enumeration of his scientific  
attainments see ,marie ,herzfeld's      
interesting introduction 7,jena1 #aijf7 
to the essays of the ,conference        
,florentine1 #aiaj1 and elsewhere4  #bc 
,for a corroboration of this improbable 
sounding assertion see the ,analysis of 
the ,phobia of a ,five-year-old ,boy1   
,jahrbuch fuer ,psychoanalytische und   
,psychopathologische ,forschungen1 ,bd4 
,i1 #aiji1 and the similar observation  
in ,bd4 ,,ii1 #aiaj4 ,in an essay       

concerning ,infantile ,theories of ,sex 
7,sammlungen kleiner ,schriften zur     
,neurosenlehre1 p4 #afg1 ,second        
,series1 #aiji71 ,i wrote3 ,but this    
reasoning and doubting serves as a model
 for all later intellectual work in     
problems1 and the first failure acts as 
a paralyzer for all times4  #bd         
,scognamiglio #a4 c41 p4 #ae4  #be      
,cited by ,scognamiglio from the ,codex 
,atlanticus1 p4 #fe4  #bf ,cf4 here the 
,bruchstueck einer ,hysterieanalyse1 in 
,neurosenlehre1 ,second series1 #aiji4  
#bg ,horapollo3 ,hieroglyphica ,i1 ,,ii4
 ,greek3 ,metera de graphontex 444 gupa 
zographonsin4  #bh ,roscher3 ,ausf4     
,lexicon der griechischen und roemischen
 ,mythologie4 ,artikel ,mut1 ,,ii ,bd41 
#ahid-ahig4--,lanzone4 ,dizionario di   
,mitologia egizia4 ,torino1 #ahhb4  #bi 
,h4 ,hartleben1 ,champollion4 ,sein     
,leben und sein ,werk1 #aijf4  #cj      
,greek3 gypa de arrena ou phasigenesthai
 pote1 aila pheleias apasas1 cited by v4
 ,roemer4 ,ueber die androgynische ,idee

 des ,lebens1 ,jahrb4 f4 ,sexuelle      
,zwischenstufen1 ,v1 #aijc1 p4 #gcb4    
#ca ,plutarch3 ,veluti scarabaeos mares 
tantum esse putarunt ,aegyptii sic inter
 vultures mares non inveniri statuerunt 
#cb ,horapollinis ,niloi ,hieroglyphica 
edidit ,conradus ,leemans ,amstelodami1 
#ahce4 ,the words referring to the sex  
of the vulture read as follows 7p4 #ad73
 ,greek3 petera men hepeide arren en    
touto genei ton zoon ouch hyparchei44   
#cc ,e4 ,muentz1 #a4 c41 p4 #bhb4  #cd  
,e4 ,muentz1 #a4 c4  #ce ,see the       
illustrations in ,lanzone l4 c4 ,t4     
,,cxxxvi-,,viii4  #cf v4 ,roemer l4 c4  
#cg ,cf4 the observations in the        
,jahrbuch fuer ,psychoanalytische und   
,psychopathologische ,forschungen1 ,vol4
 ,i1 #aiji4  #ch ,cf4 ,richard ,payne   
,knight3 ,the ,cult of ,priapus4  #ci   
,prominently among those who undertook  
these investigations are ,i4 ,sadger1   
whose results ,i can essentially        
corroborate from my own experience4 ,i  
am also aware that ,stekel of ,vienna1  

,ferenczi of ,budapest1 and ,brill of   
,new ,york1 came to the same            
conclusions4  #dj ,edm4 ,solmi3         
,leonardo da ,vinci1 ,german            
translation1 p4 #aeb4  #da ,solmi1 #a4  
c4 p4 #bjc4  #db ,leonardo thus behaves 
like one who was in the habit of making 
a daily confession to another person    
whom he now replaced by his diary4 ,for 
an assumption as to who this person may 
have been see ,merejkowski1 p4 #cji4    
#dc ,m4 ,herzfeld3 ,leonardo da ,vinci1 
#aijf1 p4 #ada4  #dd ,the wording is    
that of ,merejkowski1 #a4 c4 p4 #bcg4   
#de ,the equestrian monument of         
,francesco ,sforza4  #df ,the full      
wording is found in ,m4 ,herzfeld1 #a4  
c4 p4 #de4  #dg ,merejkowski #a4 c4--,as
 a disappointing illustration of the    
vagueness of the information concerning 
,leonardo's intimate life1 meager as it 
is1 ,i mention the fact that the same   
expense account is given by ,solmi with 
considerable variation 7,german         
translation1 p4 #ajd74 ,the most serious

 difference is the substitution of      
florins by soldi4 ,one may assume that  
in this account florins do not mean the 
old gold florins1 but those used at a   
later period which amounted to #a-b_/c  
lira or #cc-a_/b soldi4--,solmi         
represents ,caterina as a servant who   
had taken care of ,leonardo's household 
for a certain time4 ,the source from    
which the two representations of this   
account were taken was not accessible to
 me4  #dh ,caterina came in ,july1      
#adic4  #di ,the manner of expression   
through which the repressed libidio     
could manifest itself in ,leonardo1 such
 as circumstantiality and marked        
interest in money1 belongs to those     
traits of character which emanate from  
anal eroticism4 ,cf4 ,character und     
,analerotik in the second series of my  
,sammlung zur ,neurosenlehre1 #aiji1    
also ,brill's ,psychoanalysis1 its      
,theories and ,practical ,applications1 
,chap4 ,,xiii1 ,anal ,eroticism and     
,character1 ,saunders1 ,philadelphia4   

#ej ,seidlitz3 ,leonardo da ,vinci1 ,,ii
 ,bd41 p4 #bhj4  #ea ,geschichte der    
,malerei1 ,bd4 ,i1 p4 #cad4  #eb l4 c4  
p4 #dag4  #ec ,a4 ,conti3 ,leonardo     
pittore1 ,conferenze ,fiorentine1 l4 c4 
p4 #ic4  #ed l4 c4 p4 #de4  #ee ,w4     
,pater3 ,the ,renaissance1 p4 #abd1 ,the
 ,macmillan ,co41 #aiaj4  #ef ,m4       
,herzfeld3 ,leonardo da ,vinci1 p4 #hh4 
#eg ,scognamiglio1 l4 c4 p4 #cb4  #eh   
,l4 ,schorn1 ,bd4 ,,iii1 #ahdc1 p4 #f4  
#ei ,the same is assumed by             
,merejkowski1 who imagined a childhood  
for ,leonardo which deviates in the     
essential points from ours1 drawn from  
the results of the vulture phantasy4    
,but if ,leonardo himself had displayed 
this smile1 tradition hardly would have 
failed to report to us this coincidence4
  #fj l4 c4 p4 #cji4  #fa ,a4           
,konstantinowa1 l4 c41 says3 ,mary looks
 tenderly down on her beloved child with
 a smile that recalls the mysterious    
expression of la ,gioconda4 ,elsewhere  
speaking of ,mary she says3 ,the smile  

of ,gioconda floats upon her features4  
#fb ,cf4 v4 ,seidlitz1 l4 c4 ,bd4 ,,ii1 
p4 #bgd4  #fc ,cf4 ,three ,contributions
 to the ,theory of ,sex1 translated by  
,a4 ,a4 ,brill1 #bnd edition1 #aiaf1    
,monograph series4  #fd ,on the #ith of 
,july1 #aejd1 ,wednesday at #g o'clock  
died ,ser ,piero da ,vinci1 notary at   
the palace of the ,podesta1 my father1  
at #g o'clock4 ,he was #hj years old1   
left #aj sons and #b daughters4 7,e4    
,muentz1 l4 c4 p4 #ac47  #fe ,i shall   
overlook a greater error committed by   
,leonardo in his notice in that he gives
 his #gg-year-old father #hj years4  #ff
 ,he who usurps on earth my place1 my   
place1 my place1 which is void in the   
presence of the ,son of ,god1 has made  
out of my cemetery a sewer4 ,canto      
,,xxxvii4  #fg ,it seems that in that   
passage of the diary ,leonardo also     
erred in the number of his sisters and  
brothers1 which stands in remarkable    
contrast to the apparent exactness of   
the same4  #fh v4 ,seidlitz1 l4 c41     

,,ii1 p4 #bgj4  #fi ,solmi1 ,conf4 fior1
 p4 #ac4  #gj ,muentz1 l4 c41 ,la       
,religion de ,leonardo1 p4 #bib1 etc4   
#ga ,herzfeld1 p4 #bib4  #gb ,vasari1   
translated by ,schorn1 #ahdc4  #gc      
,ebenda1 p4 #ci4  #gd ,concerning these 
letters and the combinations connected  
with them see ,muentz1 l4 c41 p4 #hb2   
for the wording of the same and for the 
notices connected with them see         
,herzfeld1 l4 c41 p4 #bbc4  #ge         
,besides1 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 other1 until it formed a 
perfectly circular figure2 a very       
difficult and beautiful drawing of this 
kind is engraved on copper1 in the      
center of it one can read the words3    
,leonardus ,vinci ,academia 7p4 #h74    
#gf ,this criticism holds quite         
generally and is not aimed at           
,leonardo's biographers in particular4  
#gg ,seidlitz ,,ii1 p4 #bga4  #gh ,la   
natura e piena d'infinite ragione che   

non furono mai in isperienza1 ,m4       
,herzfeld1 l4 c4 p4 ,,ii4