A square drum of which the parchment may be drawn tight or slackened by the lever a b [5].

A drum for harmony [6].

[7] A clapper for harmony; that is, three clappers together.

[9] Just as one and the same drum makes a deep or acute sound according as the parchments are more or less tightened, so these parchments variously tightened on one and the same drum will make various sounds [16].

Keys narrow and close together; (bicchi) far apart; these will be right for the trumpet shown above.

a must enter in the place of the ordinary keys which have the ... in the openings of a flute.

1130.

Tymbals to be played like the monochord, or the soft flute.

[6] Here there is to be a cylinder of cane after the manner of clappers with a musical round called a Canon, which is sung in four parts; each singer singing the whole round.  Therefore I here make a wheel with 4 teeth so that each tooth takes by itself the part of a singer.

[Footnote:  In the original there are some more sketches, to which the text, from line 6, refers.  They are studies for a contrivance exactly like the cylinder in our musical boxes.]

1131.

Of decorations.

White and sky-blue cloths, woven in checks to make a decoration.

Cloths with the threads drawn at a b c d e f g h i k, to go round the decoration.

XIX.

Philosophical Maxims.  Morals.  Polemics and Speculations.

Vasari indulges in severe strictures on Leonardo’s religious views.  He speaks, among other things, of his “capricci nel filosofar delle cose naturali” and says on this point: “Per il che fece nell’animo un concetto si eretico che e’ non si accostava a qualsi voglia religione, stimando per avventura assai piu lo esser filosofo che cristiano” (see the first edition of ’Le Vite’_).  But this accusation on the part of a writer in the days of the Inquisition is not a very serious one—­and the less so, since, throughout the manuscripts, we find nothing to support it._

Under the heading of “Philosophical Maxims” I have collected all the passages which can give us a clear comprehension of Leonardo’s ideas of the world at large.  It is scarcely necessary to observe that there is absolutely nothing in them to lead to the inference that he was an atheist.  His views of nature and its laws are no doubt very unlike those of his contemporaries, and have a much closer affinity to those which find general acceptance at the present day.  On the other hand, it is obvious from Leonardo’s will (see No. 1566_) that, in the year before his death, he had professed to adhere to the fundamental doctrines of the Roman Catholic faith, and this evidently from his own personal desire and impulse._