Streaming Translation Active (Italian, antiquary 16th c.?) Fragmentary ....years ago, just after I completed the fresco on these walls, I first noticed the strange...shadow...that now seems to follow me everywhere. I'm sure the priests would be overjoyed to help me. The time of the Inquisitors is past, I trust, but for me to even hint at what I have been seeing would invite too much scrutiny from them...they are eager to point at demons or at witches, as long as they point away from themselves.
...besides, I almost feel as though this visitation (so vague) is here for a purpose. I remember when I first began to think about certain natural phenomena in a new way - acid dissolving metal, for example, and lightning, and that the two forces could be related - when I first had this thought, that same day was the first that I noticed the presence. I don't know quite how to describe it; shadow is not the best word, because there is nothing there to cast it. It is more like an absence, like the darkest spot in a darkened corridor, which only reveals itself... (/fragmentary?)
...the purpose, whatever it may be, of this thing is unclear. Perhaps I've spent too much time out of the light, probing into cadavers and other things the priests would forbid me, matters that should belong only 'to God.' Perhaps I've become morbid in my imaginings, and have conjured up a demon from my own mind.... ...I've been collecting my thoughts on the force inherent in acids, that they could dissolve metals so quickly, and other forces. The possibilities of a beginning here, but still vague...enough! I'm wandering off path here. I'll put these thoughts down in a manuscript in the convent's library. None of the gentle sisters of this order seem particularly interested in writings on the natural sciences, so I think it will be safe.
...I dreamt last night of this symbol, and of the disembodied shadow. What a vision! As I sat in the garden outside this convent - outside of my bedroom, I can look into it now - the shadowy visitor took on form, looking almost like my father, but dark and hidden, in a cloak...its voice! It spoke a strange language, a mixture of rough, almost childish phrases combined with mathematics and topology somehow made into language... ...the symbol has something to do with motion, but I fail to understand what the strange visitor meant. The symbol itself seems to relate to the work I did with Luca Pacioli, but as applied to the body. I hope that a dream like this comes again, so that I can begin to learn what the shadowy figure means... ...the shadow spoke a diagram, no, a map! Of course...a map, describing a journey, with the man-symbol describing the beginning point of the marked journey. What was the end? That was lost somewhere off the edge, but no matter. The strange thing about the spoken vision was that the surface of the map itself began to fold, as though the visitor were pulling it back into the folds of his cloak. Wondrous strange! What can this mean?...
Streaming Translation Active (Italian, antiquary 16th c.?) Fragmentary ....years ago, just after I completed the fresco on these walls, I first noticed the strange...shadow...that now seems to follow me everywhere. I'm sure the priests would be overjoyed to help me. The time of the Inquisitors is past, I trust, but for me to even hint at what I have been seeing would invite too much scrutiny from them...they are eager to point at demons or at witches, as long as they point away from themselves.
...besides, I almost feel as though this visitation (so vague) is here for a purpose. I remember when I first began to think about certain natural phenomena in a new way - acid dissolving metal, for example, and lightning, and that the two forces could be related - when I first had this thought, that same day was the first that I noticed the presence. I don't know quite how to describe it; shadow is not the best word, because there is nothing there to cast it. It is more like an absence, like the darkest spot in a darkened corridor, which only reveals itself... (/fragmentary?)
...the purpose, whatever it may be, of this thing is unclear. Perhaps I've spent too much time out of the light, probing into cadavers and other things the priests would forbid me, matters that should belong only 'to God.' Perhaps I've become morbid in my imaginings, and have conjured up a demon from my own mind.... ...I've been collecting my thoughts on the force inherent in acids, that they could dissolve metals so quickly, and other forces. The possibilities of a beginning here, but still vague...enough! I'm wandering off path here. I'll put these thoughts down in a manuscript in the convent's library. None of the gentle sisters of this order seem particularly interested in writings on the natural sciences, so I think it will be safe.
...I dreamt last night of this symbol, and of the disembodied shadow. What a vision! As I sat in the garden outside this convent - outside of my bedroom, I can look into it now - the shadowy visitor took on form, looking almost like my father, but dark and hidden, in a cloak...its voice! It spoke a strange language, a mixture of rough, almost childish phrases combined with mathematics and topology somehow made into language... ...the symbol has something to do with motion, but I fail to understand what the strange visitor meant. The symbol itself seems to relate to the work I did with Luca Pacioli, but as applied to the body. I hope that a dream like this comes again, so that I can begin to learn what the shadowy figure means... ...the shadow spoke a diagram, no, a map! Of course...a map, describing a journey, with the man-symbol describing the beginning point of the marked journey. What was the end? That was lost somewhere off the edge, but no matter. The strange thing about the spoken vision was that the surface of the map itself began to fold, as though the visitor were pulling it back into the folds of his cloak. Wondrous strange! What can this mean?...
