I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone, and why a bird sustains itself in the air.

Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well.

Opposite the castle of Bellagio is an insignificant stream which falls from a height of more than a hundred braccia from the spring where it rises sheer into the lake with inconceivable din and uproar. This spring flows only in August and September.

The water wears away the mountains and fills up the valleys, and if it had the power it would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere.

All the branches of trees at every stage of their height, united to-gether, are equal to the thickness of their trunk.

The cicatrices of trees grow in thickness more than the sap that flows through them and nourishes them requires.