[Footnote:  This statement of Ser Piero’s age contradicts that of the Riassunto della portata di Antonio da Vinci (Leonardo’s grandfather), who speaks of Ser Piero as being thirty years old in 1457; and that of the Riassunto della portata di Ser Piero e Francesco, sons of Antonia da Vinci, where Ser Piero is mentioned as being forty in 1469.  These documents were published by G. UZIELLI, Ricerche intorno a L. da Vinci, Firenze, 1872, pp. 144 and 146.  Leonardo was, as is well known, a natural son.  His mother ‘La Catarina’ was married in 1457 to Acchattabriga di Piero del Vaccha da Vinci.  She died in 1519.  Leonardo never mentions her in the Manuscripts.  In the year of Leonardo’s birth Ser Piero married Albiera di Giovanni Amadoci, and after her death at the age of thirty eight he again married, Francesca, daughter of Ser Giovanni Lanfredi, then only fifteen.  Their children were Leonardo’s halfbrothers, Antonio (b. 1476), Ser Giuliano (b. 1479), Lorenzo (b. 1484), a girl, Violante (b. 1485), and another boy Domenico (b. 1486); Domenico’s descendants still exist as a family.  Ser Piero married for the third time Lucrezia di Guglielmo Cortigiani by whom he had six children:  Margherita (b. 1491), Benedetto (b. 1492), Pandolfo (b. 1494), Guglielmo (b. 1496), Bartolommeo (b. 1497), and Giovanni) date of birth unknown).  Pierino da Vinci the sculptor (about 1520-1554) was the son of Bartolommeo, the fifth of these children.  The dates of their deaths are not known, but we may infer from the above passage that they were all still living in 1505.]

1373.

On Wednesday at seven o’clock died Ser Piero da Vinci on the 9th of
July 1504.

[Footnote:  This and the previous text it may be remarked are the only mention made by Leonardo of his father; Nos. 1526, 1527 and No. 1463 are of the year 1504.]

1374.

Begun by me, Leonardo da Vinci, on the l2th of July 1505.

[Footnote:  Thus he writes on the first page of the MS. The title is on the foregoing coversheet as follows:  Libro titolato disstrafformatione coe (cioe) d’un corpo nvn (in un) altro sanza diminuitione e acresscemento di materia.]

1375.

Begun at Milan on the l2th of September 1508.

[Footnote:  No. 1528 and No. 1529 belong to the same year.  The text Vol.  I, No. 4 belongs to the following year 1509 (1508 old style); so also does No. 1009.—­ Nos. 1022, 1057 and 1464 belong to 1511.]

1376.

On the 9th of January 1513.

[Footnote:  No. 1465 belongs to the same year.  No. 1065 has the next date 1514.]

1377.

The Magnifico Giuliano de’ Medici left Rome on the 9th of January 1515, just at daybreak, to take a wife in Savoy; and on the same day fell the death of the king of France.

[Footnote:  Giuliano de Medici, brother to Pope Leo X.; see note to Nos. 1351-1353.  In February, 1515, he was married to Filiberta, daughter of Filippo, Duke of Savoy, and aunt to Francis I, Louis XII’s successor on the throne of France.  Louis XII died on Jan. 1st, and not on Jan. 9th as is here stated.—­ This addition is written in paler ink and evidently at a later date.]