I left Milan for Rome on the 24th day of September, 1513, with Giovanni [Footnote 2: Giovan; it is not likely that Leonardo should have called Giovan’ Antonio Beltraffio at one time Giovanni, as in this note and another time Antonio, as in No. 1464 while in No. 1458 l. 16 we find Giovan’Antonio, and in No. 1436, l.6 Beltraffio. Possibly the Giovanni here spoken of is Leonardo’s less known pupil Giovan Pietrino (see No. 1467, 5).], Francesco di Melzi [Footnote 2,3: Francesco de’ Melzi is often mentioned, see Nos. 1350.], Salai [Footnote 3: Salai. See No. 1519 note.], Lorenzo and il Fanfoia.
[Footnote 4: Lorenzo. See No. 1351, l. 10 (p. 408). Amoretti gives the following note in Mem. Stor. XXIII: 1505. Martedi—sera a di 14 d’aprile. Venne Lorenzo a stare con mecho: disse essere d’eta d’anni 17 .. a di 15 del detto aprile ebbi scudi 25 d’oro dal chamerlingo di Santa Maria nuova. This, he asserts is derived from a MS. marked S, in quarto. This MS. seems to have vanished and left no trace behind; Amoretti himself had not seen it, but copied from a selection of extracts made by Oltrocchi before the Leonardo MSS. were conveyed to Paris on the responsibility of the first French Republic. Lorenzo, by this, must have been born in 1487. The sculptor Lorenzetto was born in 1490. Amoretti has been led by the above passage to make the following absurd observations:
Cotesto Lorenzo, che poi gli fu sempre compagno, almeno sin che stette in Italia, sarebb’ egli Lorenzo Lotto bergamasco? Sappiamo essere stato questo valente dipintore uno de’bravi scolari del Vinci (?).
Il Fafoia, perhaps a nickname. Cesare da Sesto, Leonardo’s pupil, seems to have been in Rome in these years, as we learn from a drawing by him in the Louvre.
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.