Leonardo's war machines
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 The ostensible reason why Leonardo remained in Milan is to be found in a letter of self-recommendation to Ludovico which has come down to us in the Codice Atlantico. It is not in Leonardo's own handwriting, but most scholars are persuaded that it is genuine. Leonardo recommends himself almost entirely as a military engineer. "Most illustrious Lord," he says, "having now fully studied the work of all those who claim to be masters and artificers of instruments of war . . . I will lay before your Lordship my secret inventions, and then offer to carry them into execution at your pleasure." He then proceeds to detail under nine headings the different instruments of war which he is prepared to construct: "An extremely light and strong bridge. An endless variety of battering rams. A method of demolishing fortresses built on a rock. A kind of bombard, which hurls showers of small stones and the smoke of which strikes terror into the enemy. A secret winding passage constructed without noise. Covered wagons, behind which whole armies can hide and advance." Under a tenth heading he says: "In time of peace, I believe myself able to vie successfully with any in the designing of public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another. Item: I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze or clay, and also in painting I can do as well as any man. Again, I can undertake to work on the bronze horse, which will be a monument . . . to the eternal honour of the Prince your father, and the illustrious house of Sforza."
The fact that Leonardo only speaks of himself as an artist in six lines out of thirty-four is so much at variance with the opinion of posterity as to seem like a piece of elaborate irony. We may be sure that it was not so intended. In the Renaissance war was the most vitally important of all the arts, and demanded the services of the most skilful artists. Giotto had designed the fortifications of Florence early in the fourteenth century, Michelangelo was to re-design them during the siege of 1529. Of such warlike arts the casting of cannon needed skill and experience in the handling of material found only in the most accomplished craftsmen. It was natural that Verrocchio should have been so employed by Lorenzo di Medici; and natural that his pupil with an especial love of ingenious design should have begun early to draw guns and ballistas. About twenty-five sheets of such drawings in the Codice Atlantico seem to have been done in Florence: in a slightly later style there are over forty, and since they represent all the military devices mentioned in his letter to Ludovico we can see that Leonardo's offer of help was serious.
During five years Leonardo's war machines improved. Those done in Florence are in the dry, diagrammatic style of other fifteenth-century engineering drawings, such as those by Francesco di Giorgio, and display the same rather primitive notion of cause and effect. Later the drawings become much more ambitious and so elaborate that it seems doubtful if they could ever have been constructed. In particular a series of gigantic catapults and crossbows seem to be beyond the technical skill of the period. It would be interesting to know if Leonardo's war machines added to the efficacy of the Milanese forces; but that is no part of my present subject.
Of Leonardo's activities as an artist during his first years in Milan, we have most interesting proof in a list of his pictures, drawings and sculpture, drawn up in his own hand, and certainly dating from this period, which is to be found on a sheet in the Codice Atlantico. From the number of markedly Florentine subjects it contains, it may even be the list of the work taken with him from Florence to Milan: though it includes una testa del duca--presumably Ludovico. This list is so important for the study of Leonardo's painting that I shall make no excuse for analysing it at some length.
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