The motion of falling water and where its violent motion ends
Questions on water that disunites and reunites, with a vessel pouring a jet (a-b-d-n)
A set of questions probes at what point moving water breaks apart, where it loses its violent (forced) impetus, which water never disunites, and which repeatedly reunites and divides in its course, together with the difference between water that has a head (battente) and water that lacks one. A quarter-circle diagram of a vessel pouring water, lettered a-b-c-d-n-f-e, carries the answer: where the curving jet leaves the spout and enters the air, its forced motion ends and its natural downward motion begins, and at the point n the water pressed out by the vessel a b loses all its vigor. The blue-tinted fragment bears mirror-script text arranged around the drawn arc.
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Questions on water disuniting and the head (battente)
Leonardo asks in what part of its motion water disunites, where it loses its violent portion, which water never disunites, and which reunites and divides several times in its course. He also asks what difference lies between water that has a head [battente] and water that has none.
Where violent motion ends and natural motion begins
In the lettered figure a-b-c-d-n-f-e, where the spherical rectangle d meets the rectilinear angle n the force of the water pressed from vessel a b fails, so at n it has no more vigor. Where the curve of the water pouring from its spout into the air begins its natural motion, its violent motion ends.