''If you prize freedom, inquire no further; for my face is a dungeon of love''. Philological notes on Sigmund Freud's and Kurt Eissler's ''Leonardo''.

Although psychoanalysis tends to center on pain and suffering, Freud's study of Leonardo da Vinci is the description of an idyll, the idyll of an early mother-son relationship unaffected by any attempts at intimidation on the part of the father. Reemtsma compares and contrasts Freud's study with the one by Kurt Eissler, written some fifty pars later, For all Eissler's initial empressement in swearing his theoretical allegiance to Freud, the conclusions he comes to are radically different. Eissler's Leonardo is a man tormented by phobic anxieties and conflicts, constantly on the verge of psychic decompensation. After a philological discussion of the structural weaknesses, the contradictions, omissions and instances of erratic style identifiable In Eissler's book, the author suggests that these inconsistencies are connected with Eissler's covert and implicit hypothesis that Leonardo had been forced into performing acts of fellatio by his father.