Re: Sforza / Borgia / da Vinci / Imola...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

> In the top right, you can clearly see the castle, with an extra turret on 
> the far side on the (grey) moat, which is actually the black blob just 
> below the castle on the CopyFlo. This is the same one as depicted in the 
> "Castelli, roche, e torri di Romagna" book as a half-turret, but this 
> would appear (on the face of it) to be inaccurate - Leonardo's diagram 
> clearly shows a *full* turret, which would be consistent with the VMS.

On further reflection, it would seem quite likely that the turret - as it 
stood alone on the far side of the moat - would have been a fairly easy 
first target for any attacking force of size.

The "half-turret" may well then have been all that remained after the 
engineers had placed their petards under the back of the whole turret - so 
the diagram (marked as being for 1500) would have been accurate. Leonardo's 
map would have been of the foundations or outline of the turret - it wasn't 
a perspective drawing, but a simulated aerial photograph - unless you 
believe he invented the hang-glider :-).

Given all that, the diagram in the VMS would need to date from 1499 or 
before - or 1502 or after if it was rebuilt (but I suspect that it wasn't). 
If so, this would rule out the Borgias (Cesare was only born in 1475, so 
would have been far too young to have compiled a large herbal by then, as 
well as Isabella Cortese (who is thought to have lived some decades 
later... probably).

My current hypothesis, then, is that the VMS were commissioned by Catherina 
Sforza in the Fortress Ravaldino in late 1499 (12th Jan 1502 at the very 
latest), while it was being besieged by Cesare Borgia's forces. I believe 
that her #1 fear was that if the contents of her library (not only her Gli 
Experimenti, but her lab and garden notes, plus other potentially heretical 
documents) were subsequently to be made public, her persecutors would have 
no hesitation in finding her guilty of witchcraft - and would have her 
burnt at the stake.

However, she had invested so much of her own time and effort - some 15+ 
years of her life by then - that, rather than simply destroy them, she 
instead decided to commission the most abstruse coding system yet devised, 
and had those same critical documents encoded using it (before destroying 
the originals).

Later, once she settled in Florence (after having renounced her claim to 
Imola and Forli in return for her life), she would have some (or all) of 
those documents (especially her precious Gli Experimenti) decoded so that 
she could add to them - but in that critical period while she was in chains 
in Rome, it was vital (literally) that her secrets should also remain under 
lock and key... a cryptographic lock and key.

Is all this far too much to infer from a single picture? Probably... but 
it's quite a nice theory all the same. :-)

I'll research the history of Imola in more detail and get back to you... :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....