On the cost of the casting.

Bells and bombards are of little workmanship, because they are made on the lathe, and once they leave the lathe their mastery and workmanship is finished. The molds of figures are of great workmanship, because chiefly the figure requires great study and ingenuity from its maker. Besides this, the mold, with its various protrusions, is of great workmanship and dangerous in the casting, on account of the various paths and lengths made by the bronze — which does not happen in bombards and bells. After this, the cleaning, hammering, filing, scraping and pumicing must be done with great diligence, because they are operations upon the surface of the work, which surface holds within itself the excellence and rank of the work.

[Note: the manuscript has 'peragione' instead of 'per ragione' (on account of).]

n, a, a, Mark of the rising of the bronze

Because the bronze that happens to fall in the cut of the table of the horse, the horse being laid down, is much lower than the legs and body of the horse — whence it would happen that the bronze which rains outside that cut of the table, or base, would all run toward that cut of the table lower than itself; and running to that place it would not stop where it falls, as is my desire, and moving by a crosswise and level path its motion would be slow, and being slow it could cool and block the passage of the rest that comes. Therefore one must first unstop the furnace with the holes of the channel that answer only to the base. And when the bronze has filled the low part of the cut up to the height of the legs, make that bronze touch a hole filled with fine bombard powder, which hole breathes above, so that above may appear the mark of the height of the bronze, as appears above at a n. And having seen this, unstop the other holes of the channel that lead to the other tap-holes of the furnaces.