Taccola was into civic waterworks, and at one point petitioned the Emperor to be appointed to such a role. The drawing that is crucial to us depicts a scenario where you want to get water across a chasm so it can reach your city (water availability being one of the main concerns for human inhabitation). From what I've read, most of such drawings are highly conceptual and wouldn't necessarily work in the way depicted.
The three images shared by Rafal are all unrelated to one another. One shows a problem where you want to get fresh water across a river, while still allowing ships to pass through. The one on the right shows a moat kind of situation. These are not failed copies, they just illustrate three different engineering problems.
As far as we understand (Marco also looked into this), there is no known copy of Palatino 766. There may have been a copy or partial copy made for the Emperor, but this is speculative. There may have been other copies made by who knows who at whatever time, but these are again completely speculative. There is no known copy of the images that are the most relevant to us: the Sun face and the "rainbow bridge" with angled river connecting to a larger, vertical stream with steep shores and undulating shorelines.
Marco and I did come across one source which suggested that Taccola may have made his notebook available to students at the University. In other words, we don't need to imagine it as being locked up in his nightstand drawer. For all we known, a hundred plus people could have spent time with the notebook, starting soon after its completion. (In all honesty, I did not take note of this source, so I'm going by memory here).
In other words, IF we consider Palatino 766 a source for the VM (which I almost certainly would), then our starting date is as soon as Taccola completed the MS, and availability could be to anyone visiting the university where he worked.
The one alternative for me personally is that Taccola himself lifted this particular drawing (and the Sun?) from a somewhat earlier source shared by him and the VM. Again completely speculative.
The three images shared by Rafal are all unrelated to one another. One shows a problem where you want to get fresh water across a river, while still allowing ships to pass through. The one on the right shows a moat kind of situation. These are not failed copies, they just illustrate three different engineering problems.
As far as we understand (Marco also looked into this), there is no known copy of Palatino 766. There may have been a copy or partial copy made for the Emperor, but this is speculative. There may have been other copies made by who knows who at whatever time, but these are again completely speculative. There is no known copy of the images that are the most relevant to us: the Sun face and the "rainbow bridge" with angled river connecting to a larger, vertical stream with steep shores and undulating shorelines.
Marco and I did come across one source which suggested that Taccola may have made his notebook available to students at the University. In other words, we don't need to imagine it as being locked up in his nightstand drawer. For all we known, a hundred plus people could have spent time with the notebook, starting soon after its completion. (In all honesty, I did not take note of this source, so I'm going by memory here).
In other words, IF we consider Palatino 766 a source for the VM (which I almost certainly would), then our starting date is as soon as Taccola completed the MS, and availability could be to anyone visiting the university where he worked.
The one alternative for me personally is that Taccola himself lifted this particular drawing (and the Sun?) from a somewhat earlier source shared by him and the VM. Again completely speculative.
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