Note on the best pinion, and a houseleek-in-flames motto
Mirror-script notes over faint ornamental show-through
This page carries two blocks of Leonardo's mirror-script, with the ghost of ornamental designs showing faintly through the leaf beneath them. The supplied transcription records a note declaring a certain pinion the best kind that can be made, since the wheel can never turn (back-drive) it, together with the emblematic motto of a houseleek sprig among flames. The visible page holds more writing than these short passages, so further untranscribed text is present.
On this page
The best kind of pinion the wheel cannot back-drive
The note pronounces this carriage-pinion the finest that can be made, adding that here the wheel will never be able to turn such a pinion. It belongs to Leonardo's running study of wheel-and-worm-screw drives, where a driver that cannot be reversed is prized.
Impresa motto: 'Ever-living in fire'
The second entry is the motto for a device of a houseleek (sempervivum) sprig set among flames: 'Sempre vivo in foco', ever alive in the fire. It reads as a personal emblem rather than a technical note.
Ornamental designs showing through the leaf
Beneath the writing, faint decorative forms are visible as show-through from the reverse of the sheet. They are not transcribed and are noted here only as visual evidence of further material on the page.