Incendiary lances, a bombard battery and paired bastions
With a ballistic trick for a hidden target and small plans for a cross-church and octagon
A dense military sheet opening with two special lances: a forked lance that must strike any enemy who enters its fork, and a syringe-like lance that on impact drives into itself and injects burning liquid through the joints of an enemy's cuirass. Below, Leonardo lays out a ballistic trick for lobbing an arrow over a palace into an unseen cap, a fan of eight bombards concentrating fire on a bastion, and two coupled bastions forty braccia across that defend one another with their artillery behind a three-braccia ditch. Interleaved among the war matter are two small architectural plans, a Latin-cross church and an octagonal building, characteristic of this notebook.
On this page
A forked lance for close combat
Drawn at the top of the sheet, this lance is fitted with a fork so that every time an enemy enters the fork the lance is bound to touch and wound him.
A self-injecting incendiary lance
A syringe-like lance whose front, on striking, drives into itself and carries fire within; the impact ignites a liquid mixture sealed in the shaft, which smears the armor, seeps through the joints of the cuirass, and burns whatever it finds.
A ballistic trick: shooting an arrow into an unseen cap
To hit a cap hidden behind a palace, aim the crossbow at a mark on the palace's summit so the arrow clears it and falls behind; place the cap where it lands, then shoot again from the same spot at the same mark and the arrow repeats its path into the cap. The scheme is drawn as an arcing trajectory over a wall.
Eight bombards fired at once on a bastion
A fan of eight bombards is arranged to concentrate its fire against a single bastion. Leonardo directs that they all be given fire at the same time, and they will bear good fruit.
Two mutually defending bastions with a sally-ditch
Two bastions, each forty braccia in diameter, are set so that each can defend the other with its artillery. The ditch is made at least three braccia deep so that skirmishing infantry, when chased, can save themselves by leaping into it.
Plans for a Latin-cross church and an octagon
Amid the military drawings Leonardo sketches a Latin-cross church plan, its piers marked by rows of dots, and a detail of an octagonal building plan. Such centralized and cruciform church studies are typical of this notebook.
