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undertaking such a journey. We have no information as to Leonardo's
history between 1482 and 1486; it cannot be proved that he was
either in Milan or in Florence. On the other hand the tenor of this
letter does not require us to assume a longer absence than a year or
two. For, even if his appointment (offitio) as Engineer in Syria
had been a permanent one, it might have become untenable--by the
death perhaps of the Defterdar, his patron, or by his removal from
office--, and Leonardo on his return home may have kept silence on
the subject of an episode which probably had ended in failure and
disappointment.
From the text of No. 1379 we can hardly doubt that Leonardo intended
to make an excursion secretly from Rome to Naples, although so far
as has hitherto been known, his biographers never allude to it. In
another place (No. 1077) he says that he had worked as an Engineer
in Friuli. Are we to doubt this statement too, merely because no
biographer has hitherto given us any information on the matter? In
the geographical notes Leonardo frequently speaks of the East, and
though such passages afford no direct proof of his having been
there, they show beyond a doubt that, next to the Nile, the
Euphrates, the Tigris and the Taurus mountains had a special
interest in his eyes. As a still further proof of the futility of
the argument that there is nothing in his drawings to show that he
had travelled in the East, we find on Pl. CXX a study of oriental
heads of Armenian type,--though of course this may have been made in
Italy.
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