“Most Illustrious Lord…” Da Vinci in the Self-Promotion Department

I don’t like promotion. It doesn’t come easily to me and yet, it’s a necessary part of the work a writer has to do..

On my bookshelf is a slender volume titled Lives of Leonardo da Vinci. It’s a compilation of contemporary biographies, letters and eyewitness accounts. Among the most fascinating is the draft of a letter Leonardo wrote, c. 1482, to Lodovico Sforza, the all-powerful Duke of Milan.

The letter opens, “Most Illustrious Lord…” It then details a numbered list of 10 reasons to hire the writer.

Excerpt:

2. “I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trenches and make endless variety of bridges and covered ways and ladders, and other machines pertaining to such expeditions.”

Item 5 mentions “secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise” to reach a destination.

Covered chariots, big guns, catapults and other “machines of marvellous efficacy” are all listed tidily.

In case none of these pleases, the last paragraph suggests that experiments are not only possible but will be happily undertaken.

It’s a charming piece of writing, a bit of 15th century correspondence about rustling up a little work. Who couldn’t relate?

It reminds me of another commentary on writerly self-promo, the submissions process. You know it. Of course you do. Paperback Writer by the Beatles, also written in epistolary form.