# Leonardo's Private Notes

By [samcryp](https://paragraph.com/@samcryp) · 2022-11-07

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Not only did Leonardo write with a special kind of shorthand that he invented himself, he also mirrored his writing, starting at the right side of the page and moving to the left. Only when he was writing something intended for other people did he write in the normal direction.

The purpose of his mirror writing is unknown, but one idea is that it may have kept his hands clean. People who were contemporaries of Leonardo left records that they saw him write and paint left handed. He also made sketches showing his own left hand at work. As a lefty, this mirrored writing style would have prevented him from smudging his ink as he wrote.

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*Originally published on [samcryp](https://paragraph.com/@samcryp/leonardo-s-private-notes)*