King of the animals--as thou hast described him--I should rather say
king of the beasts, thou being the greatest--because thou hast
spared slaying them, in order that they may give thee their children
for the benefit of the gullet, of which thou hast attempted to make
a sepulchre for all animals; and I would say still more, if it were
allowed me to speak the entire truth [5]. But we do not go outside
human matters in telling of one supreme wickedness, which does not
happen among the animals of the earth, inasmuch as among them are
found none who eat their own kind, unless through want of sense (few
indeed among them, and those being mothers, as with men, albeit they
be not many in number); and this happens only among the rapacious
animals, as with the leonine species, and leopards, panthers lynxes,
cats and the like, who sometimes eat their children; but thou,
besides thy children devourest father, mother, brothers and friends;
nor is this enough for thee, but thou goest to the chase on the
islands of others, taking other men and these half-naked, the ...
and the ... thou fattenest, and chasest them down thy own
throat[18]; now does not nature produce enough simples, for thee to
satisfy thyself? and if thou art not content with simples, canst
thou not by the mixture of them make infinite compounds, as Platina
wrote[Footnote 21: _Come scrisse il Platina_ (Bartolomeo Sacchi, a
famous humanist). The Italian edition of his treatise _De arte
coquinaria_, was published under the title _De la honestra
voluptate, e valetudine, Venezia_ 1487.], and other authors on
feeding?

[Footnote: We are led to believe that Leonardo himself was a
vegetarian from the following interesting passage in the first of
Andrea Corsali's letters to Giuliano de'Medici: _Alcuni gentili
chiamati Guzzarati non si cibano di cosa, alcuna che tenga sangue,
ne fra essi loro consentono che si noccia ad alcuna cosa animata,
come il nostro Leonardo da Vinci_.

5-18. Amerigo Vespucci, with whom Leonardo was personally
acquainted, writes in his second letter to Pietro Soderini, about
the inhabitants of the Canary Islands after having stayed there in
1503: "_Hanno una scelerata liberta di viuere; ... si cibano di
carne humana, di maniera che il padre magia il figliuolo, et
all'incontro il figliuolo il padre secondo che a caso e per sorte
auiene. Io viddi un certo huomo sceleratissimo che si vantaua, et si
teneua a non piccola gloria di hauer mangiato piu di trecento
huomini. Viddi anche vna certa citta, nella quale io dimorai forse
ventisette giorni, doue le carni humane, hauendole salate, eran
appicate alli traui, si come noi alli traui di cucina_ _appicchiamo
le carni di cinghali secche al sole o al fumo, et massimamente
salsiccie, et altre simil cose: anzi si marauigliauano gradem ete
che noi non magiaissimo della carne de nemici, le quali dicono
muouere appetito, et essere di marauiglioso sapore, et le lodano
come cibi soaui et delicati (Lettere due di Amerigo Vespucci
Fiorentino drizzate al magnifico Pietro Soderini, Gonfaloniere della
eccelsa Republica di Firenze_; various editions).]