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Photo: Scientific Itineraries in Tuscany

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Codex Atlanticus, 918r. - Study for a map of Tuscany (and adjacent areas), c. 1502. Hydrography in pencil, place names in pen and ink on paper. Codex Atlanticus, f. 910r. Surroundings of Castiglion Fiorentino (Aretino): "Montanina / Mammi / Chasstiglione aretino / a / b / c / to c is 1000 braccia / Cilone / road / Vingone / Renello / Monterchio / road [today SS 71] / road / road / 1380 braccia / 2024 braccia / Rucano / Chiane / road / 2208 braccia / 1472 braccia / 1704 braccia / f. Renello / f. Renello / 1104 braccia / road / the high 16 braccia / 1288 braccia / 650 braccia / Lock / [S]anto Antonio / Lake", c. 1502.

Codex Atlanticus, 918r. - Study for a map of Tuscany (and adjacent areas), c. 1502. Hydrography in pencil, place names in pen and ink on paper. Codex Atlanticus, f. 910r. Surroundings of Castiglion Fiorentino (Aretino): "Montanina / Mammi / Chasstiglione aretino / a / b / c / to c is 1000 braccia / Cilone / road / Vingone / Renello / Monterchio / road [today SS 71] / road / road / 1380 braccia / 2024 braccia / Rucano / Chiane / road / 2208 braccia / 1472 braccia / 1704 braccia / f. Renello / f. Renello / 1104 braccia / road / the high 16 braccia / 1288 braccia / 650 braccia / Lock / [S]anto Antonio / Lake", c. 1502.

Alessandro Vezzosi

<< Pag. 4 di 12 >>

Codex Atlanticus, 909v. - Brunelleschi's screws for the work of Santa Liberata (Florence Cathedral) in a project for a device to break through the keels of ships, c. 1487.

Codex Atlanticus, 910r. - Twelve localities in Casentino, c. 1502. The territory in question corresponds to the Windsor map (RL 12277) as does the hydrographic sketch (as if traced). Instead of the names of rivers, only those of 12 localities in Casentino appear: "Durbohc, Palagio, Porciano, Pratovechio, Stia, Fornace, Romena, Collina, Paglarecco, Bastinocco, Ponpana, Castel Castagnaio". Eleven place names have been identified in modern cartography, while "Bastinoccio" is present also on the earlier map of Massaio, between Pagliericcio and Castel Castagnaio, but has not been located on the terrain. It seems that Leonardo began this map in replacement of or as supplement to the preceding, mainly 'physical' one, with the intention of indicating cities and strongholds on it; the drawing remained unfinished but the cities most closely involved in the project for deviating the Arno (Florence, Prato, Pistoia, Pisa and perhaps Lucca) are already indicated by a conventional circle.

Codex Atlanticus, 918r. - Study for a map of Tuscany (and adjacent areas), c. 1502. Hydrography in pencil, place names in pen and ink on paper. Codex Atlanticus, f. 910r. Surroundings of Castiglion Fiorentino (Aretino): "Montanina / Mammi / Chasstiglione aretino / a / b / c / to c is 1000 braccia / Cilone / road / Vingone / Renello / Monterchio / road [today SS 71] / road / road / 1380 braccia / 2024 braccia / Rucano / Chiane / road / 2208 braccia / 1472 braccia / 1704 braccia / f. Renello / f. Renello / 1104 braccia / road / the high 16 braccia / 1288 braccia / 650 braccia / Lock / [S]anto Antonio / Lake", c. 1502.

Codex Atlanticus, 938 v. - Apograph letter on the quarrel with his brothers over his uncle Francesco's inheritance, c. 1508.

Codex Atlanticus, 952r. - Study for the lake of San Lorenzo in Arniano near Vinci, c. 1504. The properties owned by "Giovanni Betti, Lazzero del Volpe, the Commune, and Ser Piero [Leonardo's father]" are indicated.

Codex Atlanticus, 1006 r. - Tuscany in the drawing of Europe, from Spain to "Rossia" (Russia), c. 1493.

Codex Atlanticus, 1024 v. - Florentine friends: "Giuliano Gondi, Tomaso Ridolfi, Tomaso Capponi, Gerardo Paganelli, Nicolò del Nero, Simon Zati, Nasi, heir to Lionardo Manelli, Guglielmo di ser Martino, Bartolomeo del Tovaglia, Andrea Arrigucci, Nicolò Capponi and Giovan Portinari", c. 1495.

Codex Atlanticus, 1069 r. - Vision of the Valdarno and hydraulic devices, c. 1490.

Codex Atlanticus, 1106r. - Tower of Palazzo della Signoria, Florence, and Mediterranean routes from Venice to Asia Minor, detail, c. 1496.

Codex Atlanticus, 1107 r. - "The wool merchants' guild should make the canal, and take the profit from it, said canal passing through Prato, Pistoia, and Serravalle", c. 1495.

Codex Atlanticus, 1112v. - The miniator "Vante di Francesco da Castello Fiorentino and companions", c. 1478.

Codex Atlanticus, 1113r. - Distances and cost for a shipment from Milan to Florence and then to Rome ("Thirteen ducats for 500 pounds from here to Rome: it is 120 miles from Florence to Rome and 180 miles from here to Florence"), c. 1513.

Codex Forster II, 38v. - "Have sent from Florence big spikes of grain", c. 1495-1497.

Codex Forster II, 101r. - "The motion of some instruments used by women, made to gather their threads, which are called 'arcolai' (wool-winders) by the Florentines and 'bicocche' by the Lombards", c. 1495.

Codex Leicester, 6v. - "Of ebb and flow" is the title of this page, which deals especially with the phenomenon of the tides. The folio concludes with a note on the diverse nature of the stone materials, progressively reduced in size, that, entrained downstream from the mountains, end up on the seabed: originally rocks, then pebbles and sand, and lastly "clay to make jugs with" (cf. ff. 6A - 31v e 18A - 19v). Writes Leonardo: "The river (Vin) [Vincio pistoiese? Cf. Madrid II, f. 23r], that flows down from the mountains, brings a great quantity of large stones in its riverbed, which stones still have some sharp corners and edges; and as it flows on, the stones it brings are smaller with the edges more consumed, that is, the big stones become smaller; and further on, it deposits large pebbles, and then smaller ones ..."

Codex Leicester, 8v. - Page without illustrations, with observations geology, palaeontology and physical geography, preceded by a title: "Concerning the Deluge and fossil seashells". The presence of fossil seashells on the high mountains of Northern Italy, far from the sea, could not be attributed to the Biblical Flood, according to Leonardo. The seashells had lived in the sea and being "no faster in motion that snails out of the water, and even a bit slower" could not have travelled the 250 miles from the Adriatic Sea to Monferrato in the 40 days of the Biblical event. Furthermore, their weight kept them on the bottom, while Leonardo had found them on the mountaintops and in the lakes amidst the mountains, such as Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (and here he also mentions the lake of Fiesole and that of Perugia). Further on, as an example of the rivers that fall to the sea from a great height, he mentions the Arno at Golfolina, near Montelupo; he also describes the agglomerations of pebble and various stones, and the tufa rock as the "congealing of sand" at Castelfiorentino. Lastly, he recalls the fossil shells found "with various other marine things" in "bluish mud'", in the gorge cut by the Arno near Collegonzi (Vinci). The orderly arrangement of the layers of fossils shows that they had not been projected this far in the vortexes of the Biblical Flood (cf. ff. 9A - 9r, 9B - 9v, 10A - 10r, 10B - 10v).

Codex Leicester, 9v. - Page with two drawings, which is dedicated, as stated already in the premise, to confuting the theories on fossil shells hypothesising that they had been transported far from the sea by the Biblical Flood Among his personal recollections, Leonardo mentions a "great sack" of fossil shells and corrals collected on the mountains around Parma and Piacenza by some peasants who had brought them to his "factory" where he was working on the "great Horse" for the Sforza. And then the timber found at Castelfiorentino ("in my time", that is, in his youth). In the margin of the folio he adds two experiments conducted in a "hole" with plates of glass at the sides: that of the deep wave and the wind [fig. 1]; and that of the surface wave. Interesting is the memorandum on making a terracotta shower: "Have it made here at the jug-maker".

Codex Leicester, 13r. - Page with nine figures and eighteen propositions ("16 cases" pertaining to river currents, navigation, and the tides, with a memorandum added at the top on two books, the "De navi" by Leon Battista Alberti and the "De acqujdotti" (i.e., the "De aquis urbis Romae") by Sextus Julius Frontino. A system for facilitating the deviation of rivers is inspired by a method used in Flanders, reported to Leonardo da Niccolò by Forzore Spinelli (a goldsmith). The observations on the Arno, described in the figures, refer to the Florentine section of the river delineated by the Ponte Rubaconte (today's Ponte alle Grazie), Palazzo Bisticci and Palazzo Canigiani, the "della Giustizia" weir and the island of the Cocomeri "in the middle of the Arno".

Codex Leicester, 15r. - Page with twenty-seven studies ("26 cases") and five drawings in the margin on the confluences of lesser watercourses with the Arno River, with three diagrams on the level of equilibrium and an added note (with three figures) on experiments with steam. The first figure shows how the Rifredi flows into the Arno, whose line of current runs close to the opposite bank. The second figure represents the confluence of the Mugnone (see the "anatomy" of this section of the river on folios 148v and 149r of the Codex Arundel, and on RL 12677, 12678, dating from 1503). The third instead compares the positions of three different tributaries, one of which, the Ombrone (in the Golfolina), enters at an acute angle, unfavourable, resulting in a "maximum backflow" at its mouth. Similar demonstrations are found on folio 18B - 18v, for the Mensola torrent in particular.

Codex Leicester, 16v. - Page with eight drawings and 19 observations ("18 cases") on the courses of rivers and the typologies of "objectives". Leonardo includes observations on how to collect the silt during and after inundations; on the crossing of tributaries that augments the force of the current depending on the acute angle, which in turn is changed (Fig. 1 relevant to the course of the Arno at Florence near Ponte alle Grazie). He then illustrates the forms, functions and opportunities of the different "objectives": oblique, circular, squared, flexible (to limit erosion and increase the deposit of soil), placed against the bank (as in Florence at the level of the "Spedale del Ceppo", to form a protective shield).

<< Pag. 4 di 12 >>

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Codex Atlanticus, 909v. - Brunelleschi's screws for the work of Santa Liberata (Florence Cathedral) in a project for a device to break through the keels of ships, c. 1487.

Codex Atlanticus, 910r. - Twelve localities in Casentino, c. 1502. The territory in question corresponds to the Windsor map (RL 12277) as does the hydrographic sketch (as if traced). Instead of the names of rivers, only those of 12 localities in Casentino appear: "Durbohc, Palagio, Porciano, Pratovechio, Stia, Fornace, Romena, Collina, Paglarecco, Bastinocco, Ponpana, Castel Castagnaio". Eleven place names have been identified in modern cartography, while "Bastinoccio" is present also on the earlier map of Massaio, between Pagliericcio and Castel Castagnaio, but has not been located on the terrain. It seems that Leonardo began this map in replacement of or as supplement to the preceding, mainly 'physical' one, with the intention of indicating cities and strongholds on it; the drawing remained unfinished but the cities most closely involved in the project for deviating the Arno (Florence, Prato, Pistoia, Pisa and perhaps Lucca) are already indicated by a conventional circle.

Codex Atlanticus, 918r. - Study for a map of Tuscany (and adjacent areas), c. 1502. Hydrography in pencil, place names in pen and ink on paper. Codex Atlanticus, f. 910r. Surroundings of Castiglion Fiorentino (Aretino): "Montanina / Mammi / Chasstiglione aretino / a / b / c / to c is 1000 braccia / Cilone / road / Vingone / Renello / Monterchio / road [today SS 71] / road / road / 1380 braccia / 2024 braccia / Rucano / Chiane / road / 2208 braccia / 1472 braccia / 1704 braccia / f. Renello / f. Renello / 1104 braccia / road / the high 16 braccia / 1288 braccia / 650 braccia / Lock / [S]anto Antonio / Lake", c. 1502.

Codex Atlanticus, 938 v. - Apograph letter on the quarrel with his brothers over his uncle Francesco's inheritance, c. 1508.

Codex Atlanticus, 952r. - Study for the lake of San Lorenzo in Arniano near Vinci, c. 1504. The properties owned by "Giovanni Betti, Lazzero del Volpe, the Commune, and Ser Piero [Leonardo's father]" are indicated.

Codex Atlanticus, 1006 r. - Tuscany in the drawing of Europe, from Spain to "Rossia" (Russia), c. 1493.

Codex Atlanticus, 1024 v. - Florentine friends: "Giuliano Gondi, Tomaso Ridolfi, Tomaso Capponi, Gerardo Paganelli, Nicolò del Nero, Simon Zati, Nasi, heir to Lionardo Manelli, Guglielmo di ser Martino, Bartolomeo del Tovaglia, Andrea Arrigucci, Nicolò Capponi and Giovan Portinari", c. 1495.

Codex Atlanticus, 1069 r. - Vision of the Valdarno and hydraulic devices, c. 1490.

Codex Atlanticus, 1106r. - Tower of Palazzo della Signoria, Florence, and Mediterranean routes from Venice to Asia Minor, detail, c. 1496.

Codex Atlanticus, 1107 r. - "The wool merchants' guild should make the canal, and take the profit from it, said canal passing through Prato, Pistoia, and Serravalle", c. 1495.

Codex Atlanticus, 1112v. - The miniator "Vante di Francesco da Castello Fiorentino and companions", c. 1478.

Codex Atlanticus, 1113r. - Distances and cost for a shipment from Milan to Florence and then to Rome ("Thirteen ducats for 500 pounds from here to Rome: it is 120 miles from Florence to Rome and 180 miles from here to Florence"), c. 1513.

Codex Forster II, 38v. - "Have sent from Florence big spikes of grain", c. 1495-1497.

Codex Forster II, 101r. - "The motion of some instruments used by women, made to gather their threads, which are called 'arcolai' (wool-winders) by the Florentines and 'bicocche' by the Lombards", c. 1495.

Codex Leicester, 6v. - "Of ebb and flow" is the title of this page, which deals especially with the phenomenon of the tides. The folio concludes with a note on the diverse nature of the stone materials, progressively reduced in size, that, entrained downstream from the mountains, end up on the seabed: originally rocks, then pebbles and sand, and lastly "clay to make jugs with" (cf. ff. 6A - 31v e 18A - 19v). Writes Leonardo: "The river (Vin) [Vincio pistoiese? Cf. Madrid II, f. 23r], that flows down from the mountains, brings a great quantity of large stones in its riverbed, which stones still have some sharp corners and edges; and as it flows on, the stones it brings are smaller with the edges more consumed, that is, the big stones become smaller; and further on, it deposits large pebbles, and then smaller ones ..."

Codex Leicester, 8v. - Page without illustrations, with observations geology, palaeontology and physical geography, preceded by a title: "Concerning the Deluge and fossil seashells". The presence of fossil seashells on the high mountains of Northern Italy, far from the sea, could not be attributed to the Biblical Flood, according to Leonardo. The seashells had lived in the sea and being "no faster in motion that snails out of the water, and even a bit slower" could not have travelled the 250 miles from the Adriatic Sea to Monferrato in the 40 days of the Biblical event. Furthermore, their weight kept them on the bottom, while Leonardo had found them on the mountaintops and in the lakes amidst the mountains, such as Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (and here he also mentions the lake of Fiesole and that of Perugia). Further on, as an example of the rivers that fall to the sea from a great height, he mentions the Arno at Golfolina, near Montelupo; he also describes the agglomerations of pebble and various stones, and the tufa rock as the "congealing of sand" at Castelfiorentino. Lastly, he recalls the fossil shells found "with various other marine things" in "bluish mud'", in the gorge cut by the Arno near Collegonzi (Vinci). The orderly arrangement of the layers of fossils shows that they had not been projected this far in the vortexes of the Biblical Flood (cf. ff. 9A - 9r, 9B - 9v, 10A - 10r, 10B - 10v).

Codex Leicester, 9v. - Page with two drawings, which is dedicated, as stated already in the premise, to confuting the theories on fossil shells hypothesising that they had been transported far from the sea by the Biblical Flood Among his personal recollections, Leonardo mentions a "great sack" of fossil shells and corrals collected on the mountains around Parma and Piacenza by some peasants who had brought them to his "factory" where he was working on the "great Horse" for the Sforza. And then the timber found at Castelfiorentino ("in my time", that is, in his youth). In the margin of the folio he adds two experiments conducted in a "hole" with plates of glass at the sides: that of the deep wave and the wind [fig. 1]; and that of the surface wave. Interesting is the memorandum on making a terracotta shower: "Have it made here at the jug-maker".

Codex Leicester, 13r. - Page with nine figures and eighteen propositions ("16 cases" pertaining to river currents, navigation, and the tides, with a memorandum added at the top on two books, the "De navi" by Leon Battista Alberti and the "De acqujdotti" (i.e., the "De aquis urbis Romae") by Sextus Julius Frontino. A system for facilitating the deviation of rivers is inspired by a method used in Flanders, reported to Leonardo da Niccolò by Forzore Spinelli (a goldsmith). The observations on the Arno, described in the figures, refer to the Florentine section of the river delineated by the Ponte Rubaconte (today's Ponte alle Grazie), Palazzo Bisticci and Palazzo Canigiani, the "della Giustizia" weir and the island of the Cocomeri "in the middle of the Arno".

Codex Leicester, 15r. - Page with twenty-seven studies ("26 cases") and five drawings in the margin on the confluences of lesser watercourses with the Arno River, with three diagrams on the level of equilibrium and an added note (with three figures) on experiments with steam. The first figure shows how the Rifredi flows into the Arno, whose line of current runs close to the opposite bank. The second figure represents the confluence of the Mugnone (see the "anatomy" of this section of the river on folios 148v and 149r of the Codex Arundel, and on RL 12677, 12678, dating from 1503). The third instead compares the positions of three different tributaries, one of which, the Ombrone (in the Golfolina), enters at an acute angle, unfavourable, resulting in a "maximum backflow" at its mouth. Similar demonstrations are found on folio 18B - 18v, for the Mensola torrent in particular.

Codex Leicester, 16v. - Page with eight drawings and 19 observations ("18 cases") on the courses of rivers and the typologies of "objectives". Leonardo includes observations on how to collect the silt during and after inundations; on the crossing of tributaries that augments the force of the current depending on the acute angle, which in turn is changed (Fig. 1 relevant to the course of the Arno at Florence near Ponte alle Grazie). He then illustrates the forms, functions and opportunities of the different "objectives": oblique, circular, squared, flexible (to limit erosion and increase the deposit of soil), placed against the bank (as in Florence at the level of the "Spedale del Ceppo", to form a protective shield).