On Vulcanos

Creatures shall be seen on the earth who will always be fighting one with another, with the greatest losses and frequent deaths on either side. There will be no bounds to their malice; by their strong limbs a great portion of the trees of the vast forests of the world shall be laid low; and when they are filled with food, the gratification of their desire shall be to deal out death, affliction, labour, terror, and banishment to every living thing; and from their boundless pride they will desire to rise toward heaven, but the excessive weight of their limbs will hold them down. Nothing shall remain on earth, or under the earth, or in the waters that shall not be pursued, disturbed or spoiled, and that which is in one country removed into another. And their bodies shall be made the tomb and the means of transit of all the living bodies which they have slain.

O earth, why do you not open and hurl them into the deep fissures of thy vast abysses and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven so cruel and horrible a monster.

-From Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.