4) Again I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these causing great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion.

9) [8] And when the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most efficient for offence and defence; and vessels which will resist the attack of the largest guns and powder and fumes.

5) Item.  I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise to reach a designated [spot], even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river.

6) Item.  I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them.  And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance.

7) Item.  In case of need I will make big guns, mortars and light ordnance of fine and useful forms, out of the common type.

8) Where the operation of bombardment should fail, I would contrive catapults, mangonels, trabocchi and other machines of marvellous efficacy and not in common use.  And in short, according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of offence and defence.

10) In time of peace I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal of any other in architecture and the composition of buildings public and private; and in guiding water from one place to another.

Item:  I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze or clay, and also in painting whatever may be done, and as well as any other, be he whom he may.

[32] Again, the bronze horse may be taken in hand, which is to be to the immortal glory and eternal honour of the prince your father of happy memory, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.

And if any one of the above-named things seem to any one to be impossible or not feasible, I am most ready to make the experiment in your park, or in whatever place may please your Excellency—­to whom I commend myself with the utmost humility &c.

1341.

To my illustrious Lord, Lodovico, Duke of Bari, Leonardo da Vinci of
Florence—­ Leonardo.

[Footnote:  Evidently a note of the superscription of a letter to the Duke, and written, like the foregoing from left to right.  The manuscript containing it is of the year 1493.  Lodovico was not proclaimed and styled Duke of Milan till September 1494.  The Dukedom of Bari belonged to the Sforza family till 1499.]

1342.

You would like to see a model which will prove useful to you and to me, also it will be of use to those who will be the cause of our usefulness.

[Footnote:  1342. 1343.  These two notes occur in the same not very voluminous MS. as the former one and it is possible that they are fragments of the same letter.  By the Modello, the equestrian statue is probably meant, particularly as the model of this statue was publicly exhibited in this very year, 1493, on tne occasion of the marriage of the Emperor Maximilian with Bianca Maria Sforza.]