gable canal from Pisa to Florence. He made designs of
flour-mills, fulling-mills, and engines, which might be driven by
the force of water: and since he wished that his profession should
be painting, he studied much in drawing after nature, and sometimes
in making models of figures in clay, over which he would lay soft
pieces of cloth dipped in clay, and then set himself patiently to
draw them on a certain kind of very fine Rheims cloth, or prepared
linen: and he executed them in black and white with the point of his
brush, so that it was a marvel, as some of them by his hand, which I
have in our book of drawings, still bear witness; besides which, he
drew on paper with such diligence and so well, that there is no one
who has ever equalled him in perfection of finish; and I have one, a
head drawn with the style in chiaroscuro, which is divine.

And there was infused in that brain such grace from God, and a power
of expression in such sublime accord with the intellect and memory
that served it, and he knew so well how to express his conceptions
by draughtsmanship, that he vanquished with his discourse, and
confuted with his reasoning, every valiant wit. And he was
continually making models and designs to show men how to remove
mountains with ease, and how to bore them in order to pass from one
level to another; and by means of levers, windlasses, and screws, he
showed the way to raise and draw great weights, together with
methods for emptying harbours, and pumps for removing water from low
places, things which his brain never ceased from devising; and of
these ideas and labours many drawings may be seen, scattered abroad
among our craftsmen; and I myself have seen not a few. He even went
so far as to waste his time in drawing knots of cords, made
according to an order, that from one end all the rest might follow
till the other, so as to fill a round; and one of these is to be
seen in stamp, most difficult and beautiful, and in the middle of it
are these words, "Leonardus Vinci Accademia." And among these models
and designs, there was one by which he often demonstrated to many
ingenious citizens, who were then governing Florence, how he
proposed to raise the Temple of S. Giovanni in Florence, and place
steps under it, without damaging the building; and with such strong
reasons did he urge this, that it appeared possible, although each
man, after he had departed, would recognize for himself the
impossibility of so vast an