It is hardly necessary to point out that Prof.  Govi omits to name the sources from which Leonardo could be supposed to have drawn his information, and I may leave it to the reader to pronounce judgment on the anomaly which is involved in the hypothesis that we have here a fragment of a Romance, cast in the form of a correspondence.  At the same time, I cannot but admit that the solution of the difficulties proposed by Prof.  Govi is, under the circumstances, certainly the easiest way of dealing with the question.  But we should then be equally justified in supposing some more of Leonardo’s letters to be fragments of such romances; particularly those of which the addresses can no longer be named.  Still, as regards these drafts of letters to the Diodario, if we accept the Romance theory, as pro- posed by Prof.  Govi, we are also compelled to assume that Leonardo purposed from the first to illustrate his tale; for it needs only a glance at the sketches on PI.  CXVI to CXIX to perceive that they are connected with the texts; and of course the rest of Leonardo’s numerous notes on matters pertaining to the East, the greater part of which are here published for the first time, may also be somehow connected with this strange romance.

7. Citta de Calindra (Chalindra).  The position of this city is so exactly determined, between the valley of the Euphrates and the Taurus range that it ought to be possible to identify it.  But it can hardly be the same as the sea port of Cilicia with a somewhat similar name Celenderis, Kelandria, Celendria, Kilindria, now the Turkish Gulnar.  In two Catalonian Portulans in the Bibliotheque Natio- nale in Paris-one dating from the XV’h century, by Wilhelm von Soler, the other by Olivez de Majorca, in l584-I find this place called Calandra.  But Leonardo’s Calindra must certainly have lain more to the North West, probably somewhere in Kurdistan.  The fact that the geographical position is so care- fully determined by Leonardo seems to prove that it was a place of no great importance and little known.  It is singular that the words first written in 1. 8 were divisa dal lago (Lake Van?), altered afterwards to dall’Eitfrates.

Nostri confini, and in 1. 6 proposito nostro.  These refer to the frontier and to the affairs of the Mamelook Sultan, Lines 65 and 66 throw some light on the purpose of Leonardo’s mission.

8. I corni del gra mote Tauro.  Compare the sketches PI.  CXVI-CXVIII.  So long as it is im- possible to identify the situation of Calindra it is most difficult to decide with any certainty which peak of the Taurus is here meant; and I greatly regret that I had no foreknowledge of this puzzling topographical question when, in 1876, I was pursuing archaeological enquiries in the Provinces of Aleppo and Cilicia, and had to travel for some time in view of the imposing snow-peaks of Bulghar Dagh and Ala Tepessi.

9-10.  The opinion here expressed as to the height of the mountain would be unmeaning, unless it had been written before Leonardo moved to Milan, where Monte Rosa is so conspicuous an object in the landscape. 4 ore inanzi seems to mean, four hours before the sun’s rays penetrate to the bottom of the valleys.]