Notes bearing Dates (1369—­1378).

1369.

The day of Santa Maria della Neve [of the Snows] August the 2nd 1473. [Footnote:  W. An.  I. 1368. 1369.  This date is on a drawing of a rocky landscape.  See Chronique des Arts 1881 no. 23:  Leonard de Vinci a-t-il ete au Righi le 5 aout 1473? letter by H. de Geymuller.  The next following date in the MSS. is 1478 (see No. 663).

1370.

On the 2nd of April 1489, book entitled ‘Of the human figure’. [Footnote:  While the letters in the MS. notes of 1473 and 1478 are very ornate, this note and the texts on anatomy on the same sheet (for instance No. 805) are in the same simple hand as we see on Pl.  CXVI and CXIX.  No 1370 is the only dated note of the years between 1480 and 1489, and the characters are in all essential points identical with those that we see in the latest manuscripts written in France (compare the facsimiles on Pl.  CXV and p. 254), so that it is hardly possible to determine exactly the date of a manuscript from the style of the handwriting, if it does not betray the peculiarities of style as displayed in the few notes dated previous to l480.—­Compare the facsimile of the manuscripts 1479 on Pl.LXII, No. 2; No. 664, note, Vol.  I p. 346.  This shows already a marked simplicity as compared with the calligraphy of I478.

The text No. 720 belongs to the year 1490; No. 1510 to the year 1492; No. 1459, No. 1384 and No. 1460 to the year 1493; No. 1463, No. 1517, No. 1024, 1025 and 1461 to the year 1494; Nos. 1523 and 1524 to the year 1497.

1371.

On the 1st of August 1499, I wrote here of motion and of weight.

[Footnote:1371. Scrissi qui.  Leonardo does not say where; still we may assume that it was not in Milan.  Amoretti writes, Memorie Storiche, chap.  XIX:  Sembra pertanto che non nel 1499 ma nel 1500, dopo il ritorno e la prigionia del duca, sia da qui partito Lionardo per andare a Firenze; ed e quindi probabile, che i mesi di governo nuovo e incerto abbia passati coll’ amico suo Francesco Melzi a Vaprio, ove meglio che altrove studiar potea la natura, e soprattutta le acque, e l’Adda specialmente, che gia era stato l’ogetto delle sue idrostatiche ricerche.  At that time Melzi was only six years of age.  The next date is 1502; to this year belong No. 1034, 1040, 1042, 1048 and 1053.  The note No. 1525 belongs to the year 1503.]

1372.

On the 9th of July 1504, Wednesday, at seven o’clock, died Ser Piero da Vinci, notary at the Palazzo del Podesta, my father, —­at seven o’clock, being eighty years old, leaving behind ten sons and two daughters.