OF THE SUPPORTS.
A pillar of which the thickness is increased will gain more than its due strength, in direct proportion to what its loses in relative height.
EXAMPLE.
If a pillar should be nine times as high as it is broad—that is to say, if it is one braccio thick, according to rule it should be nine braccia high—then, if you place 100 such pillars together in a mass this will be ten braccia broad and 9 high; and if the first pillar could carry 10000 pounds the second being only about as high as it is wide, and thus lacking 8 parts of its proper length, it, that is to say, each pillar thus united, will bear eight times more than when disconnected; that is to say, that if at first it would carry ten thousand pounds, it would now carry 90 thousand.
V.
ON THE RESISTANCE OF BEAMS.
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.