Folio cebc247f

Italiano

Illustrissimo Signor mio,

I write from Cesena, where the work on the eastern rampart proceeds but not as I had reckoned. The slope of the counterscarp is too steep for the soil here — this earth is clay mixed with river gravel, and after rain it slides. I have ordered the angle reduced to one in three, which will cost an additional forty ducats in stone facing but will save the wall from undermining within two winters. The masons resist. They say the old angle is the proper angle. I tell them the proper angle is the one that stands.

The canal approach from the north — I have walked it again with the chain and the level. The bed drops two braccia over the distance of three hundred paces, which is sufficient for a mill-race if we dam at the point I have marked on the map I sent last month. The dam would require oak pilings, twelve braccia long, driven in pairs. Timber is dear here. I have written to the factor at Faenza for a price. If he cannot supply by the first of June, we must look to the Romagna forests, which adds fifteen days and the cost of cartage.

The artillery placement on the southern bastion covers the approach from the road adequately, but the platform I designed is too narrow for the culverin you specified. The recoil will crack the merlon within a fortnight. I have widened it by one braccia and added a second traverse. The drawing is enclosed.

I do not know if you will read this. I write it because the page is patient, and because what is not written escapes.

Di Vostra Illustrissima Signoria, devotissimo servitore, Leonardo