The Catastrophe Letter, with Notes on Bormio and Valsassina
A literary letter on a disaster of wind, avalanche, flood, storm and fire, with notes on the Pliniana spring and mountains
The larger fragment carries Leonardo's celebrated 'catastrophe' letter, cast as a message to a distant friend: a mountain community is assailed in turn by furious winds, avalanches of snow that fill the valleys and shatter the town, sudden floods, a ruinous tempest of water, sand, mud and stones, and finally a fire from heaven, leaving the survivors huddled dazed in the ruins of churches. Marginal additions heighten the account and note that neighbours, once enemies, brought them food out of pity. The second fragment returns to topography: the baths of Bormio, the Pliniana spring that ebbs and flows every six hours, the great bare rocks of Mandello with a cave of 200 steps, and the Troggia falls of Valsassina near workings of copper, silver and iron.
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A letter recounting an overwhelming natural catastrophe
Writing as a friend, the author describes days of troubles that made them envy the dead: first the fury of the winds, then avalanches of snow filling the valleys and shattering the city, then sudden floods, then a ruinous tempest of water, sand, mud and stones tangled with roots and boughs, and at last a fire from heaven as if borne by thirty thousand devils, which has burned the whole country and has not yet ceased.
Marginal additions to the catastrophe letter
Notes in the right margin sharpen the account: it was undone by the lightning flash; all this is nothing compared with the evil newly promised; and the neighbours, who before were our enemies, out of pity have succoured us with victuals.
The Pliniana spring that ebbs and flows every six hours
Above Como, eight miles off, is the Pliniana, which rises and falls every six hours; its rising yields water enough to turn two mills and more, while its falling dries the spring two miles higher up. Nearby a river falls with great violence through a vast cleft in the mountain.
The great bare rocks of Mandello and the Grigna
The greatest bare rocks of these countries are the mountains of Mandello, near those of Lecco and Gravedona toward Bellinzona, and those of Val Chiavenna; the greatest is Mandello, which has at its base a hole toward the lake going down 200 steps, where at all times are ice and wind. The Grigna is the highest mountain here, and it is bare.
Valsassina: the Troggia falls and the metal mines
In Valsassina, between Vimogno and Introbio on the right entering from Lecco, is the Troggia, a river that falls from a very high rock and, in falling, goes underground and there ends. Three miles farther are the workings of the vein of copper and silver near Prato San Pietro, with veins of iron and fantastic things.