Leonardo's Cloud & the Shrine of Venus

A massive storm cloud touching down over the Sandia's, Albuquerque - June 10, 2025, 6:19 pm, DS.
(Note: While the memory of this cloud immediately came to my mind after reading Da Vinci's passage it is in no way representative of Leonardo's cloud.) (For more about this cloud see "The Cloud Matrix" at the end of the post.)

"Landscape with cloud effect

I have long had the opportunity of observing many different [atmospheric effects], and once, above Milan, over in the direction of Lake Maggiore, I saw a cloud shaped like a huge mountain made up of banks of fire, because the rays of the sun which was then setting red on the horizon had dyed it with their colour. This great cloud drew to itself all the little clouds which were round about it. And the great cloud remained stationary and retained the light of the sun on its apex for an hour and a half after sunset, so enormous was its size. And about two hours after night had fallen there arose a stupendous and phenomenal wind storm."

- Leonardo Da Vinci via Leonardo Da Vinci's Note-Books Arranged And Rendered Into English by Edward Mccurdy, 1923. (Book 2, Nature, p. 125).

Inset left is a chalk drawing by Leonardo - A Storm Over an Alpine Valley, 1480. A facsimile of this drawing accompanies the artist's text in Mccurdy's translation. There appears to be a few versions of this odd image on the web, mostly in red chalk. For example, this one was dated circa 1509.

I don't think that this drawing represents the mountain-shaped cloud Leonardo describes in his notebook. The cloud in the drawing seems to have the anvil-shape of a certain variety of cumulonimbus: the incus.

Admittedly, the drawing is difficult to make out. But, if you click on the image, you might find what is possibly the image of the artist with his beard and hat on the upper left side of the cloud... Leonardo's cameo appearance in the clouds!

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The Temple of Venus featured in one of Walter Crane's series of illustrations for Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, 1590.

"For the Shrine of Venus

You should make steps on four sides by which to ascend to a plateau formed by nature on the summit of a rock; and let this rock be hollowed out, and supported with pillars in front, and pierced beneath by a great portico, wherein water should be falling into various basins of granite and porphyry and serpentine, within recesses shaped like a half-circle ; and let the water in these be continually flowing over; and facing this portico towards the north, let there be a lake with a small island in the centre, and on this have a thick and shady wood. Let the waters at the top of the pillars be poured down into vases standing at their bases, and from these let there be flowing tiny rivulets."

-  This passage from Mccurdy's translation appears several pages later in Nature; The Earth an Organism - on page 131. It is then followed by The Realm of Venus. (Both are discussed below the jump.)(Photo source.)

(Continued below the jump...)

Venus and Cupid Fresco - Pompeii. Photo credit: 2024, Roger Ulrich.

"The Realm of Venus

From the southern sea-board of Cilicia may be seen to the south the beautiful island of Cyprus, which was the realm of the goddess Venus; and many there have been, who, impelled by her loveliness, have had their ships and rigging broken upon the rocks which lie amidst the seething waves.

Here the beauty of some pleasant hill invites the wandering mariners to take their ease among its flowery verdure, where the zephyrs continually come and go, filling with sweet odours the island and the encompassing sea. Alas! How many ships have foundered there! How many vessels have been broken upon these rocks! Here might be seen an innumerable host of ships; some broken in pieces and half buried in sand; here is visible the poop of one, and there a prow; here a keel and there a rib; and it seems like a day of judgment when there shall be a resurrection of dead ships, so great is the mass that covers the whole northern shore. There the northern winds resounding make strange and fearful noises."

- At first reading, this oddly passionate passage following The Shrine, sounds as if it might be a scene describing a traveler's observation... something Da Vinci may have actually witnessed. But, the line: "and many there have been, who, impelled by her loveliness, have had their ships and rigging broken upon the rocks" is clearly a fantasy.

Venus is a goddess, not a celebrity. And, in several Roman forms - Venus Euploia (Venus of the "fair voyage"), Venus Pescatrice ("Venus the Fisher-woman"), Venus Felix (Lucky Venus), and the patron goddess of Pompeii, Venus Pompeiana, (shown above with her son, Eros, holding a globe). She was the patron and protector of mariners, navigation and trade, and is shown holding a ship's rudder. (See Wiki's Venus.)

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I discovered Da Vinci's text while searching for the full passage of his thoughts on paredoilia and art quoted in the Wiki article  mentioned in The Cloud Agenda. I never found it - Da Vinci's notebooks are overwhelmingly extensive - but I was more than compensated with the text I did find.

The Cloud Effect was an intriguing document, describing a phenomenon Da Vinci witnessed and which must've been spectacular.

The Venus passages, however, written by an artist known for his depiction of Christian religious themes, is more remarkable. Their inclusion in "Nature" is also passing strange, although this may be the fault of the translator.

In any case, Da Vinci's Venus Shrine "recipe" reads like notes to himself regarding a vision he had of an image he intended to illuminate. There is, however, a problem with this hypothesis: if his instructions were followed, one would soon discover - as I did - that unless something was lost in translation, Da Vinci's shrine is an impossible structure... it can't be built or even fully imagined. One might ask, for instance, what is the source of the cascading water? Is it rain, the lake, or a proverbial vale of tears? Is the Shrine actually a surrealistic fountain... or a wry monument to a Lover's suffering?

Da Vinci's Venus, of course, is the poet's Venus, goddess of love and beauty. Da Vinci, himself, was an engineer as well as a painter, inventor, and a keen observer of the natural world; a true Renaissance Man. But, was he a successful Lover?

The answer to this question might shed a light on The Realm of Venus, which can be read as a parable or cautionary tale about the Land of Love. Here, the unfortunate sailors who launch themselves into their Beloved's harbor are torn to shreds upon her rocky shore, where "the northern winds resounding make strange and fearful noises."

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The birth of clouds; close-up of a storm cloud, Albuquerque - cellphone photo - June 10, 2025, 6:21 pm, DS.

The Cloud Matrix

Regarding the photo introducing this post,  the cloud portrayed was not merely a massive thunderhead; it also appeared to be a cloud factory - an incubator, or a cloud matrix - visibly spouting out relatively tiny clouds which circled around it like the flying brood of great bird.

Another close-up of the storm cloud with "cloudlets" - cellphone photo -  June 10, 2025, 6:20 pm, DS.

I've also witnessed a single cloud being born over the Sandia's. It's a peculiar sight because it first appears as a small lens of light... as if a white hole opened up in the sky. And then, slowly it begins to grow larger, slowly contorting into various shapes, sometimes growing large enough to divide into two clouds... a sort of cloud mitosis.

Anyway, it doesn't take a huge amount of an imagination to entertain the idea that clouds can exhibit the properties of an organism. They seem to possess a kind of life or animism. This was not lost on the ancient Greeks who interpreted their clouds as nymphs, the Nephelai.

For several scientific pages regarding cloud formation try here, here, or here.