by Leonardo da Vinci
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Marcellus [Footnote 23: I have no means of identifying Marcello who is named in the margin. It may be Nonius Marcellus, an obscure Roman Grammarian of uncertain date (between the IInd and Vth centuries A. C.) the author of the treatise De compendiosa doctrina per litteras ad filium in which he treats de rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis. This was much read in the middle ages. The editto princeps is dated 1470 (H. MULLER-STRUBING).] and many others praise the sun.
881.
Epicurus perhaps saw the shadows cast by columns on the walls in front of them equal in diameter to the columns from which the shadows were cast; and the breadth of the shadows being parallel from beginning to end, he thought he might infer that the sun also was directly opposite to this parallel and that consequently its breadth was not greater than that of the column; not perceiving that the diminution in the shadow was insensibly slight by reason of the remoteness of the sun. If the sun were smaller than the earth, the stars on a great portion of our hemisphere would have no light, which is evidence against Epicurus who says the sun is only as large as it appears.
[Footnote: In the original the writing is across the diagram.]
882.
Epicurus says the sun is the size it looks. Hence as it looks about a foot across we must consider that to be its size; it would follow that when the moon eclipses the sun, the sun ought not to appear the larger, as it does. Then, the moon being smaller than the sun, the moon must be less than a foot, and consequently when our world eclipses the moon, it must be less than a foot by a finger's breadth; inasmuch as if the sun is a foot across, and our earth casts a conical shadow on the moon, it is inevitable that the luminous cause of the cone of shadow must be larger than the opaque body which casts the cone of shadow.
883.
To measure how many times the diameter of the sun will go into its course in 24 hours.
Make a circle and place it to face the south, after the manner of a sundial, and place a rod in the middle in such a way as that its length points to the centre of this circle, and mark the shadow cast in the sunshine by this rod on the circumference of the circle, and this shadow will be?let us say? as broad as from a to n. Now measure how many times this shadow will go into this circumference of a circle, and that will give you the number of times that the solar body will go into its orbit in 24 hours. Thus you may see whether Epicurus was [right in] saying that the sun was only as large as it looked; for, as the apparent diameter of the sun is about a foot, and as that sun would go a thousand times into the length of its course in 24 hours, it would have gone a thousand feet, that is 300 braccia, which is the sixth of a mile. Whence it would follow that the course of the sun during the day would be the sixth part of a mile and that this venerable snail, the sun will have travelled 25 braccia an hour.
884.
Posidonius composed books on the size of the sun. [Footnote: Poseidonius of Apamea, commonly called the Rhodian, because he taught in Rhodes, was a Stoic philosopher, a contemporary and friend of Cicero's, and the author of numerous works on natural science, among them.
Strabo quotes no doubt from one of his works, when he says that Poseidonius explained how it was that the sun looked larger when it was rising or setting than during the rest of its course (III, p. 135). Kleomedes, a later Greek Naturalist also mentions this observation of Poseidonius' without naming the title of his work; however, as Kleomedes' Cyclia Theorica was not printed till 1535, Leonardo must have derived his quotation from Strabo. He probably wrote this note in 1508, and as the original Greek was first printed in Venice in 1516, we must suppose him to quote here from the translation by Guarinus Veronensis, which was printed as early as 1471, also at Venice (H. MULLER-STRUBING).]
Of the nature of Sunlight.
885.
Of the nature of Sunlight.
