1055.

At Candia in Lombardy, near Alessandria della Paglia, in making a well for Messer Gualtieri [Footnote 2:  Messer Gualtieri, the same probably as is mentioned in Nos. 672 and 1344.] of Candia, the skeleton of a very large boat was found about 10 braccia underground; and as the timber was black and fine, it seemed good to the said Messer Gualtieri to have the mouth of the well lengthened in such a way as that the ends of the boat should be uncovered.

1056.

At Alessandria della Paglia in Lombardy there are no stones for making lime of, but such as are mixed up with an infinite variety of things native to the sea, which is now more than 200 miles away.

The Alps (1057-1062).

1057.

At Monbracco, above Saluzzo,—­a mile above the Certosa, at the foot of Monte Viso, there is a quarry of flakey stone, which is as white as Carrara marble, without a spot, and as hard as porphyry or even harder; of which my worthy gossip, Master Benedetto the sculptor, has promised to give me a small slab, for the colours, the second day of January 1511.

[Footnote:  Saluzzo at the foot of the Alps South of Turin.]

[Footnote 9. 10.:  Maestro Benedetto scultore; probably some native of Northern Italy acquainted with the place here described.  Hardly the Florentine sculptor Benedetto da Majano.  Amoretti had published this passage, and M. Ravaisson who gave a French translation of it in the Gazette des Beaux Arts (1881, pag. 528), remarks as follows:  Le maitre sculpteur que Leonard appelle son “compare” ne serait-il pas Benedetto da Majano, un de ceux qui jugerent avec lui de la place a donner au David de Michel-Ange, et de qui le Louvre a acquis recemment un buste d’apres Philippe Strozzi? To this it may be objected that Benedetto da Majano had already lain in his grave fourteen years, in the year 1511, when he is supposed to have given the promise to Leonardo.  The colours may have been given to the sculptor Benedetto and the stone may have been in payment for them. >From the description of the stone here given we may conclude that it is repeated from hearsay of the sculptor’s account of it.  I do not understand how, from this observation, it is possible to conclude that Leonardo was on the spot.]

1058.

That there are springs which suddenly break forth in earthquakes or other convulsions and suddenly fail; and this happened in a mountain in Savoy where certain forests sank in and left a very deep gap, and about four miles from here the earth opened itself like a gulf in the mountain, and threw out a sudden and immense flood of water which scoured the whole of a little valley of the tilled soil, vineyards and houses, and did the greatest mischief, wherever it overflowed.

1059.

The river Arve, a quarter of a mile from Geneva in Savoy, where the fair is held on midsummerday in the village of Saint Gervais.