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Leonardo da Vinci is quoted and credited as saying that “simplicity is the highest form of
sophistication”. We agree and believe that he lived by this statement in all that he did, and that
this precept is the basis for the creation of da Vinci’s most important hidden secrets; his
messages, that are simply cleverly masked second images (optical illusions) within his
artwork, or in some cases more secretive encryptions, complementary images, created by a
mirror imaging technique such that the images exist only when the original and the mirror
image are combined. The processes are simple in concept, but extraordinarily difficult to
achieve, especially using only the technologies and measuring capabilities available in the
Fifteen Hundreds. The processes are elegant ones befitting Leonard’s genius and modus
operandi.

The following findings from a variety of da Vinci’s works are but a small sampling of the
scores of individual constructs and hidden images found and documented by the da Vinci
Project Research Group™A complete documentation of all of the findings is being produced
for future release.

Quoted in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,
compiled and edited from the Original Manuscripts
By Jean Paul Richter VOL 1 AND 2

The Common Sense [senso comune], is that which
judges of things offered up to it by the other
senses. The ancient speculators have concluded
that that part of man which constitutes his
other five senses refer everything by means of
impressibility [impressiva]; and to this centre they
have given the name Common Sense. And they say
that this Sense is situated in the centre of the head
between Sensation and Memory. And this name of
Common Sense is given to it solely because it is
the common judge of all the other five senses i.e.
Seeing, Hearing, Touch, Taste and Smell. This
Common Sense is acted upon by means of
Sensation which is placed as a medium between it
and the senses. Sensation is acted upon by means
of the images of things presented to it by the
external instruments, that is to say the senses
which are the medium between external things and
Sensation. In the same way the senses are acted
upon by objects. Surrounding things transmit their
images to the senses and the senses transfer them
to the Sensation. Sensation sends them to the
Common Sense, and by it they are stamped upon
the memory and are there more or less retained
according to the importance or force of the
impression. That sense is most rapid in its function
which is nearest to the sensitive medium and the
eye, being the highest is chief of the others. Of this
then only we will speak, and the others we will
leave in order not to make our matter too long.
Experience tells us that the eye apprehends ten
different natures of things, that is: Light and
Darkness, one being the cause of the perception of
the nine others, and the other its absence:--Colour
and substance, form and place, distance and
nearness, motion and stillness.