Memoranda: Master Ludovico, Water Conduits and Wing-Load Sums
A reminder list, columnar calculations and winged creatures on the Ashburnham 100v leaf
This mixed leaf opens with a personal memorandum: find master Ludovico, look up amber in the Pandects, and ask master Ludovico for the water conduits, the furnace, the tinder, the perpetual motion, the bellows and the blowpipes. Below run columns of figures reckoning weights and spans, together with the twice-written Latin word circumcluso, and a caption for a butterfly and two dragonflies as creatures that flee from one element into another. The drawings include a rigged boat, a man working a treadmill-like frame, the winged insects and stepped mountain-like profiles. The sheet carries further mirror-script text in its lower half that the bundle does not transcribe.
On this page
Reminder list: find master Ludovico and the things to ask him for
A memorandum to find master Ludovico, to look up amber (carabe) in the Pandects, and a note of the vicar. Leonardo lists what to request from master Ludovico: the water conduits, the furnace, the tinder, the perpetual motion, the bellows and the blowpipes.
Columnar reckonings of weights and spans
Two blocks of figures multiply and sum numbers such as 24, 12, 48, 288, 1152 and 240, of the kind used elsewhere on these leaves to relate a creature's weight in ounces to its wing-span. They read as working calculations rather than continuous prose.
Butterfly and dragonflies between two elements
A caption beside a butterfly and two dragonflies describes an animal that flees from one element into the other, an observation of small flying creatures passing between water and air. A bat and a cloaked figure appear among the lower sketches.
The Latin word circumcluso, twice written
Three lines of special characters set down the Latin word circumcluso (enclosed round about), written twice, apparently as a word or letterform exercise.