Castles in the 9-rosette diagram...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

While I can certainly see that the 9-rosette diagram could be read as a 
folding key, or even as a map of embryonic developmental biology, I'm more 
concerned with trying to identify the castles and towers - basically, 
whatever else the diagram is, its main function is probably as a map. :-)

Looking at other castles on this page (most are barely visible on the 
Copyflo):-

(1)-(2) NE rosette (with the main castle). This contains two additional 
towers: if the main castle is at 9 o'clock, these are at 7.30 and 6. These 
are both fairly simple unadorned towers, and my initial guess is that these 
are staging posts along a road connecting two main towns.

(3)-(5) Causeway between NE and E rosettes. This has three towers 
side-by-side, with the central tower being much taller than the other two. 
There's also indication (very faint) of some kind of building just below 
them (if you have the copyflo upside down). The town containing this should 
be fairly easy to identify.

(6) Causeway between NE and N rosettes. This has what appears to be some 
houses along the edge of the "road" - but the clarity of the CopyFlo is, 
frankly, minimal. Interesting, but (IMHO) not really enough to get excited 
about. :-(

(7) Causeway between N and NW rosettes. This contains - albeit extremely 
faintly - a *most* interesting structure! Having examined Filarete's 
Sforzinda in some depth, I was struck by the similarity between this tower 
and Filarate's drawings of extended (and elaborate) multi-stage towers.

The Bramante tower (in Vigevano, home of a Castello Sforzesco and the 
Sforza court, and the place that Duke Ludovico Il Moro planned to 
restructure), completed at the end of the fifteenth century, is one example 
of this "filaretiana" multi-layered style of architecture, but my guess 
ithat these are quite rare - so should also be easy to track down.

I'm currently emailing people (who would probably know about this kind of 
thing) what other examples of filaretiana towers are known to have been 
built around 1500 - fingers crossed that this moves us forward. :-)

Also note that a twelve-sided castle from this date at nearby Sartirana 
(known as Terraforte in the Middle Ages) was on the estate of Cicco 
Simonetta, the Sforza advisor and cryptographer, though I can't see any 
twelve-sided castles on the CopyFlo (but that doesn't mean they aren't there).

My current hypothesis: that the central rosette represents a mountain, and 
the N & S (and perhaps E & W) rosettes represent watermills, driven by the 
runoff from it. After all, their abstract resemblance to windmills has been 
noted many times, and the diagram is *filled* with pipes. (Also: Leonardo 
extensively compared wind and water in his notebooks).

So: could this page be no more than a design to specify how to channel 
water from a natural source down to a town's baths? This would need to say 
(1) where the water was coming from, (2) where it was going to, and (3) the 
route it takes to get there: and this would seem to match this general 
template.

Another benefit would be that this would also strongly link this with the 
whole balneological section (which immediately precedes it).

http://www.vigevano.net/citta/uk3.htm#sforzesca notes:-

	Sforzesca, the hunting residence and farm built on the
	orders of Ludovico il Moro in 1486, is in the immediate
	vicinity of Vigevano and rises up on a high natural
	terrace which overlooks the Ticino valley.

	In terms of structure, it is reminiscent of a traditional
	castle lay-out with four walls around a central courtyard
	which is almost square in shape and has four large
	buildings, known as "colombaroni", one at each corner.
	These are decorated with ogival windows and
	jagged-edged friezes. The residence is surrounded by
	an expanse of cultivated land, irrigation channels and
	water-mills designed by none other than Leonardo da
	Vinci who was a guest here at the end of the fifteenth
	century.

Now, I'm not suggesting that this Sforza hunting residence is represented 
on this page: but large-scale water engineering (such as dams, 
canalisation, flooding for defence, etc) was one of the key challenges of 
the day, that wealthy patrons looked to talented people like Leonardo da 
Vinci to solve - so we shouldn't be at all surprised if this turns out to 
be the case here.

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

PS: Leonardo didn't always get it right: when he tried to automate the Duke 
of Milan's kitchens (with conveyor belts etc), he made a right mess of it. :-)