[Footnote:  680. 9. Molti disegni di gruppi.  VASARI in his life of Leonardo (IV, 21, ed.  MILANESI 1880) says:  “Oltreche perse tempo fino a disegnare gruppi di corde fatti con ordine, e che da un capo seguissi tutto il resto fino all’ altro, tanto che s’empiessi un tondo; che se ne vede in istampa uno difficilissimo e molto bello, e nel mezzo vi sono queste parole:  Leonardus Vinci Accademia”. Gruppi must here be understood as a technical expression for those twisted ornaments which are well known through wood cuts.  AMORETTI mentions six different ones in the Ambrosian Library.  I am indebted to M. DELABORDE for kindly informing me that the original blocks of these are preserved in his department in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.  On the cover of these volumes is a copy from one of them.  The size of the original is 23 1/2 centimetres by 26 1/4.  The centre portion of another is given on p. 361.  G. Govi remarks on these ornaments (Saggio p. 22):  “Codesti gruppi eran probabilmente destinati a servir di modello a ferri da rilegatori per adornar le cartelle degli scolari (?).  Fregi somigliantissimi a questi troviamo infatti impressi in oro sui cartoni di vari volumi contemporanei, e li vediam pur figurare nelle lettere iniziali di alcune edizioni del tempo.”

Durer who copied them, omitting the inscription, added to the second impressions his own monogram.  In his diary he designates them simply as “Die sechs Knoten” (see THAUSING, Life of A. Durer I, 362, 363).  In Leonardo’s MSS. we find here and there little sketches or suggestions for similar ornaments.  Compare too G. MONGERI, L’Arte in Milano, p. 315 where an ornament of the same character is given from the old decorations of the vaulted ceiling of the Sacristy of S. Maria delle Grazie.]

[Footnote:  680, 17.  The meaning in which the word coppi, literally pitchers, is here used I am unable to determine; but a change to copie seems to me too doubtful to be risked.]

681.

  Stubborn rigour. 
  Doomed rigour.

[Footnote:  See PI.  LXII, No. 2, the two upper pen and ink drawings.  The originals, in the Windsor collection are slightly washed with colour.  The background is blue sky; the plough and the instrument with the compass are reddish brown, the sun is tinted yellow].

682.

Obstacles cannot crush me Every obstacle yields to stern resolve He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

[Footnote:  This text is written to elucidate two sketches which were obviously the first sketches for the drawings reproduced on PL LXII, No. 2.]

683.

Ivy is [a type] of longevity.

[Footnote:  In the original there is, near this text, a sketch of a coat wreathed above the waist with ivy.]

684.