[Footnote:1371. Scrissi qui.  Leonardo does not say where; still we may assume that it was not in Milan.  Amoretti writes, Memorie Storiche, chap.  XIX:  Sembra pertanto che non nel 1499 ma nel 1500, dopo il ritorno e la prigionia del duca, sia da qui partito Lionardo per andare a Firenze; ed e quindi probabile, che i mesi di governo nuovo e incerto abbia passati coll’ amico suo Francesco Melzi a Vaprio, ove meglio che altrove studiar potea la natura, e soprattutta le acque, e l’Adda specialmente, che gia era stato l’ogetto delle sue idrostatiche ricerche.  At that time Melzi was only six years of age.  The next date is 1502; to this year belong No. 1034, 1040, 1042, 1048 and 1053.  The note No. 1525 belongs to the year 1503.]

1372.

On the 9th of July 1504, Wednesday, at seven o’clock, died Ser Piero da Vinci, notary at the Palazzo del Podesta, my father, —­at seven o’clock, being eighty years old, leaving behind ten sons and two daughters.

[Footnote:  This statement of Ser Piero’s age contradicts that of the Riassunto della portata di Antonio da Vinci (Leonardo’s grandfather), who speaks of Ser Piero as being thirty years old in 1457; and that of the Riassunto della portata di Ser Piero e Francesco, sons of Antonia da Vinci, where Ser Piero is mentioned as being forty in 1469.  These documents were published by G. UZIELLI, Ricerche intorno a L. da Vinci, Firenze, 1872, pp. 144 and 146.  Leonardo was, as is well known, a natural son.  His mother ‘La Catarina’ was married in 1457 to Acchattabriga di Piero del Vaccha da Vinci.  She died in 1519.  Leonardo never mentions her in the Manuscripts.  In the year of Leonardo’s birth Ser Piero married Albiera di Giovanni Amadoci, and after her death at the age of thirty eight he again married, Francesca, daughter of Ser Giovanni Lanfredi, then only fifteen.  Their children were Leonardo’s halfbrothers, Antonio (b. 1476), Ser Giuliano (b. 1479), Lorenzo (b. 1484), a girl, Violante (b. 1485), and another boy Domenico (b. 1486); Domenico’s descendants still exist as a family.  Ser Piero married for the third time Lucrezia di Guglielmo Cortigiani by whom he had six children:  Margherita (b. 1491), Benedetto (b. 1492), Pandolfo (b. 1494), Guglielmo (b. 1496), Bartolommeo (b. 1497), and Giovanni) date of birth unknown).  Pierino da Vinci the sculptor (about 1520-1554) was the son of Bartolommeo, the fifth of these children.  The dates of their deaths are not known, but we may infer from the above passage that they were all still living in 1505.]

1373.

On Wednesday at seven o’clock died Ser Piero da Vinci on the 9th of
July 1504.

[Footnote:  This and the previous text it may be remarked are the only mention made by Leonardo of his father; Nos. 1526, 1527 and No. 1463 are of the year 1504.]

1374.

Begun by me, Leonardo da Vinci, on the l2th of July 1505.

[Footnote:  Thus he writes on the first page of the MS. The title is on the foregoing coversheet as follows:  Libro titolato disstrafformatione coe (cioe) d’un corpo nvn (in un) altro sanza diminuitione e acresscemento di materia.]