1. _Diodario._ This word is not to be found in any Italian

dictionary, and for a long time I vainly sought an explanation of it. The youthful reminiscences of my wife afforded the desired clue. The chief town of each Turkish Villayet, or province --such as Broussa, for instance, in Asia Minor, is the residence of a Defterdar, who presides over the financial affairs of the province. _Defterdar hane_ was, in former times, the name given to the Ministry of Finance at Constantinople; the Minister of Finance to the Porte is now known as the _Mallie-Nazri_ and the _Defterdars_ are his subordinates. A _Defterdar_, at the present day is merely the head of the finance department in each Provincial district. With regard to my suggestion that Leonardo's _Diodario_ might be identical with the Defterdar of former times, the late M. C. DEFREMERIE, Arabic Professor, and Membre de l'Institut de France wrote to me as follows: _Votre conjecture est parfaitement fondee; diodario est Vequivalent de devadar ou plus exactement devatdar, titre d'une importante dignite en Egypt'e, sous les Mamlouks._ The word however is not of Turkish, but of Perso-Arabie derivation. [Defter written in arab?]* literally _Defter_ (Arabic) meaning _folio_; for _dar_ (Persian) Bookkeeper or holder is the English equivalent; and the idea is that of a deputy in command. During the Mamelook supremacy over Syria, which corresponded in date with Leonardo's time, the office of Defterdar was the third in importance in the State. _Soltano di Babilonia_. The name of Babylon was commonly applied to Cairo in the middle ages. For instance BREIDENBACH, _Itinerarium Hierosolyma_ p. 218 says: "At last we reached Babylon. But this is not that Babylon which stood on the further shore of the river Chober, but that which is called the Egyptian Babylon. It is close by Cairo and the twain are but one and not two towns; one half is called Cairo and the other Babylon, whence they are called together Cairo-Babylon; originally the town is said to have been named Memphis and then Babylon, but now it is called Cairo." Compare No. 1085, 6. Egypt was governed from 1382 till 1517 by the Borgite or Tcherkessian dynasty of the Mamelook Sultans. One of the most famous of these, Sultan Kait Bey, ruled from 1468-1496 during whose reign the Gama (or Mosque) of Kait Bey and tomb of Kait Bey near the Okella Kait Bey were erected in Cairo, which preserve his name to this day. Under the rule of this great and wise prince many foreigners, particularly Italians, found occupation in Egypt, as may be seen in the 'Viaggio di Josaphat Barbaro', among other travellers. "Next to Leonardo (so I learn from Prof. Jac. Burckhardt of Bale) Kait Bey's most helpful engineer was a German who in about 1487, superintended the construction of the Mole at Alexandria. Felix Fabri knew him and mentions him in his _Historia Suevorum_, written in 1488."] shall be related to you in due order, showing first the effect and then the cause. [Footnote 4: The text here breaks off. The following lines are a fresh beginning of a letter, evidently addressed to the same person, but, as it would seem, written at a later date than the previous text. The numerous corrections and amendments amply prove that it is not a copy from any account of a journey by some unknown person; but, on the contrary, that Leonardo was particularly anxious to choose such words and phrases as might best express his own ideas.] Finding myself in this part of Armenia [Footnote 5: _Parti d'Erminia_. See No. 945, note. The extent of Armenia in Leonardo's time is only approximately known. In the XVth century the Persians governed the Eastern, and the Arabs the Southern portions. Arabic authors--as, for instance Abulfeda--include Cilicia and a part of Cappadocia in Armenia, and Greater Armenia was the tract of that country known later as Turcomania, while Armenia Minor was the territory between Cappadocia and the Euphrates. It was not till 1522, or even 1574 that the whole country came under the dominion of the Ottoman Turks, in the reign of Selim I. The Mamelook Sultans of Egypt seem to have taken a particular interest in this, the most Northern province of their empire, which was even then in danger of being conquered by the Turks. In the autumn of 1477 Sultan Kait Bey made a journey of inspection, visiting Antioch and the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates with a numerous and brilliant escort. This tour is briefly alluded to by _Moodshireddin_ p. 561; and by WEIL, _Geschichte der Abbasiden_ V, p. 358. An anonymous member of the suite wrote a diary of the expedition in Arabic, which has been published by R. V. LONZONE (_'Viaggio in Palestina e Soria di Kaid Ba XVIII sultano della II dinastia mamelucca, fatto nel 1477. Testo arabo. Torino 1878'_, without notes or commentary). Compare the critique on this edition, by J. GILDEMEISTER in _Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palaestina Vereins_ (Vol. Ill p. 246--249). Lanzone's edition seems to be no more than an abridged copy of the original. I owe to Professor Sche'fer, Membre de l'Institut, the information that he is in possession of a manuscript in which the text is fuller, and more correctly given. The Mamelook dynasty was, as is well known, of Circassian origin, and a large proportion of the Egyptian Army was recruited in Circassia even so late as in the XVth century. That was a period of political storms in Syria and Asia Minor and it is easy to suppose that the Sultan's minister, to whom Leonardo addresses his report as his superior, had a special interest in the welfare of those frontier provinces. Only to mention a few historical events of Sultan Kait Bey's reign, we find that in 1488 he assisted the Circassians to resist the encroachments of Alaeddoulet, an Asiatic prince who had allied himself with the Osmanli to threaten the province; the consequence was a war in Cilicia by sea and land, which broke out in the following year between the contending powers. Only a few years earlier the same province had been the scene of the so-called Caramenian war in which the united Venetian, Neapolitan and Sclavonic fleets had been engaged. (See CORIALANO CIPPICO, _Della guerra dei Veneziani nell' Asia dal_ 1469--1474. Venezia 1796, p. 54) and we learn incidentally that a certain Leonardo Boldo, Governor of Scutari under Sultan Mahmoud,--as his name would indicate, one of the numerous renegades of Italian birth--played an important part in the negotiations for peace. _Tu mi mandasti_. The address _tu_ to a personage so high in office is singular and suggests personal intimacy; Leonardo seems to have been a favourite with the Diodario. Compare lines 54 and 55. I have endeavoured to show, and I believe that I am also in a position to prove with regard to these texts, that they are draughts of letters actually written by Leonardo; at the same time I must not omit to mention that shortly after I had discovered] to carry into effect with due love and care the task for which you sent me [Footnote: ][6]; and to make a beginning in a place which seemed to me to be most to our purpose, I entered into **Is the following from previous page?** 3. _Il nuovo accidente accaduto_, or as Leonardo first wrote and then erased, _e accaduto un nuovo accidente_. From the sequel this must refer to an earthquake, and indeed these were frequent at that period, particularly in Asia Minor, where they caused immense mischief. See No. 1101 note. the city of Calindrafy[7], near to our frontiers. This city is situated at the base of that part of the Taurus mountains which is divided from the Euphrates and looks towards the peaks of the great Mount Taurus [8] to the West [9]. These peaks are of such a height that they seem to touch the sky, and in all the world there is no part of the earth, higher than its summit[10], and the rays of these texts in the Codex Atlanticus and publi- shed a paper on the subject in the _Zeit- schrift fur bildende Kunst (Vol. XVI)_, Prof. Govi put forward this hypothesis to account for their origin: _"Quanto alle notizie sul monte Tauro, sull'Armenia e sull' Asia minore che si contengono negli altri frammenti, esse vennero prese da qualche geografro o viaggiatore contemporaneo. Dall'indice imperfetto che accompagna quei frammenti, si potrebbe dedurre che Leonardo volesse farne un libro, che poi non venne compiuto. A ogni modo, non e possibile di trovare in questi brani nessun indizio di un viaggio di Leonardo in oriente, ne della sua conversione alla religione di Maometto, come qualcuno pretenderebbe. Leonardo amava con passione gli studi geografici, e nel suoi scritti s'incontran spesso itinerart, indicazioni, o descrizioni di luoghi, schizzi di carte e abbozzi topografici di varie regioni, non e quindi strano che egli, abile narratore com'era, si fosse proposto di scrivere una specie di Romanzo in forma epistolare svolgendone Pintreccio nell'Asia Minore, intorno alla quale i libri d'allora, e forse qualche viaggiatore amico suo, gli avevano somministrato alcuni elementi piu o meno_ fantastici. (See Transunti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei Voi. V Ser. 3). It is hardly necessary to point out that Prof. Govi omits to name the sources from which Leonardo could be supposed to have drawn his information, and I may leave it to the reader to pronounce judgment on the anomaly which is involved in the hypothesis that we have here a fragment of a Romance, cast in the form of a correspondence. At the same time, I cannot but admit that the solution of the difficulties proposed by Prof. Govi is, under the circumstances, certainly the easiest way of dealing with the question. But we should then be equally justified in supposing some more of Leonardo's letters to be fragments of such romances; particularly those of which the addresses can no longer be named. Still, as regards these drafts of letters to the Diodario, if we accept the Romance theory, as pro- posed by Prof. Govi, we are also compelled to assume that Leonardo purposed from the first to illustrate his tale; for it needs only a glance at the sketches on PI. CXVI to CXIX to perceive that they are connected with the texts; and of course the rest of Leonardo's numerous notes on matters pertaining to the East, the greater part of which are here published for the first time, may also be some- how connected with this strange romance.