by Leonardo da Vinci
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The thickness at the muzzle of small guns should be from a half to one third of the diameter of the ball, and the length from 30 to 36 balls.
740.
The furnace must be luted before you put the metal in it, with earth from Valenza, and over that with ashes.
[Footnote 1. 2.: Terra di Valenza.?Valenza is north of
Alessandria on the Po.]
When you see that the bronze is congealing take some willow-wood cut in small chips and make up the fire with it.
I say that the cause of this congealing often proceeds from too much fire, or from ill-dried wood.
You may know when the fire is good and fit for your purpose by a clear flame, and if you see the tips of the flames dull and ending in much smoke do not trust it, and particularly when the flux metal is almost fluid.
Metal for guns must invariably be made with 6 or even 8 per cent, that is 6 of tin to one hundred of copper, for the less you put in, the stronger will the gun be.
The tin should be put in with the copper when the copper is reduced to a fluid.
You can hasten the melting when 2/3ds of the copper is fluid; you can then, with a stick of chestnut-wood, repeatedly stir what of copper remains entire amidst what is melted.
Introductory Observations on the Architectural Designs (XII), and Writings on Architecture (XIII).
Until now very little has been known regarding Leonardo's labours in the domain of Architecture. No building is known to have been planned and executed by him, though by some contemporary writers incidental allusion is made to his occupying himself with architecture, and his famous letter to Lodovico il Moro,?which has long been a well-known document,?in which he offers his service as an architect to that prince, tends to confirm the belief that he was something more than an amateur of the art. This hypothesis has lately been confirmed by the publication of certain documents, preserved at Milan, showing that Leonardo was not only employed in preparing plans but that he took an active part, with much credit, as member of a commission on public buildings; his name remains linked with the history of the building of the Cathedral at Pavia and that of the Cathedral at Milan.
Leonardo's writings on Architecture are dispersed among a large number of MSS., and it would be scarcely possible to master their contents without the opportunity of arranging, sorting and comparing the whole mass of materials, so as to have some comprehensive idea of the whole. The sketches, when isolated and considered by themselves, might appear to be of but little value; it is not till we understand their general purport, from comparing them with each other, that we can form any just estimate of their true worth.
Leonardo seems to have had a project for writing a complete and separate treatise on Architecture, such as his predecessors and contemporaries had composed?Leon Battista Alberti, Filarete, Francesco di Giorgio and perhaps also Bramante. But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that possibly no such scheme was connected with the isolated notes and researches, treating on special questions, which are given in this work; that he was merely working at problems in which, for some reason or other he took a special interest.
A great number of important buildings were constructed in Lombardy during the period between 1472 and 1499, and among them there are several by unknown architects, of so high an artistic merit, that it is certainly not improbable that either Bramante or Leonardo da Vinci may have been, directly or indirectly, concerned in their erection.
