On the 3rd day of January.
Benedetto came on the 17th of October; he stayed with me two months and 13 days of last year, in which time he earned 38 lire, 18 soldi and 8 dinari; he had of this 26 lire and 8 soldi, and there remains to be paid for the past year 12 lire 10 soldi.
Giodatti (?) came on the 8th day of September, at 4 soldi a month, and stayed with me 3 months and 24 days, and earned 59 lire 14 soldi and 8 dinari; he has had 43 lire, 4 soldi, there remains to pay 16 lire, 10 soldi and 8 dinari.
Benedetto, 24 grossoni.
[Footnote: This seems to be an account for two assistants. The name of the second is scarcely legible. The year is not given. The note is nevertheless of chronological value. The first line tells us the date when the note was registered, January 3d, and the observations that follow refer to events of the previous month ‘of last year’ (dell’anno passato). Leonardo cannot therefore have written thus in Florence where the year was, at that period, calculated as beginning in the month of March (see Vol. I, No. 4, note 2). He must then have been in Milan. What is more important is that we thus learn how to date the beginning of the year in all the notes written at Milan. This clears up Uzielli’s doubts: A Milano facevasi cominciar l’anno ab incarnatione, cioe il 25 Marzo e a nativitate, cioe il 25 Decembre. Ci sembra probabile che Leonardo dovesse prescegliere lo stile che era in uso a Firenze. (Ricerche, p. 84, note.)]
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.