Moving houses and canalizing the river at Romorantin
Town-planning notes with building plans, an octagonal fountain, mills and river-scouring by current
The left page carries Leonardo's notes and plans for the town of Romorantin: prefabricated houses assembled on the squares, a fountain in every piazza, and the management of rivers, mills and canals. He proposes damming the river above the town so its descent drives many mills, keeping muddy water out of the central channel, and diverting a branch of the river Era to fertilize the fields and form a navigable, commercial canal. A note on hydraulics explains how a swift current scours its own bed and recalls a movable sluice-barrier he had devised at Friuli. Beside the text are plans of centralized and polygonal buildings, a gridded layout, an interlace ring and an octagonal fountain; the facing page is nearly blank apart from numerical calculations.
On this page
Prefabricated houses assembled on the squares
The houses are to be moved and set in order, which will be done easily because they are first built in pieces on the open squares and then joined together with their timbers on the site where they are to stand. A fountain is to be made in each square. This treats the town's dwellings as demountable, transportable units.
Mills fed by dammed water; keeping the central river clear
The middle river should carry no muddy water; that water is to run through ditches outside the town, with four mills at the entrance and four at the exit. The stream is to be dammed above Romorantin to such a height that in its descent it drives many mills, and the river of Villefranche is to be brought to the town, its timbers ferried by boat.
Diverting the Era into a navigable canal; scouring the bed
If the branch m n of the river Era is sent into the Romorantin river with its muddy water, it will enrich the fields and make a navigable, mercantile canal. In floods the mill sluices should be opened so the swift current scours the bed, and a movable barrier like the one he devised at Friuli is to be set between the mills so that, when a sluice is opened, the outrushing water digs away the bed.
Plans of centralized buildings and an octagonal fountain
Beside the text are drawn several building plans: a polygonal block with round corner towers, a central-plan structure ringed with columns, a rectangular gridded layout, an interlaced ring, and an octagonal fountain seen in plan. They set out the built forms of the ideal town alongside its water works.