A Full Digitization of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus, the Largest Assortment of His Drawings & Writings

No his­tor­i­cal fig­ure wager­ter suits the def­i­n­i­tion of “Renais­sance man” than Leonar­do da Vin­ci, however that time period has develop into so overused as to develop into mis­lead­ing. We use it to specific gentle sur­prise that one per­son might use each their left and proper hemi­spheres equal­ly properly. However in Leonardo’s day, peo­ple didn’t consider them­selves as hav­ing two brains, and the worlds of artwork and sci­ence weren’t to date aside as they’re now.

That Leonar­do was capable of com­bine high-quality arts and high-quality engi­neer­ing could not have been over­ly sur­pris­ing to his con­tem­po­raries, although he was an additional­or­di­nar­i­ly bril­liant examination­ple of the phe­nom­e­non. The extra we find out about him, the extra we see how shut­ly relat­ed the 2 pur­fits had been in his thoughts.

He approached each­factor he did as a tech­ni­cian. The uncan­ny results he achieved in paint­ing had been the end result, as in a lot Renais­sance artwork, of math­e­mat­i­cal pre­ci­sion, care­ful research, and first­hand obser­va­tion.

His artis­tic tasks had been additionally exper­i­ments. A few of them failed, as most exper­i­ments do, and a few he aban­doned, as he did so many sci­en­tif­ic tasks. No mat­ter what, he nev­er underneath­took any­factor, whether or not mechan­i­cal, anatom­i­cal, or artis­tic, with­out care­ful plan­ning and design, as his copi­ous be aware­books tes­ti­fy. As increasingly more of these be aware­books have develop into avail­in a position on-line, each Renais­sance schol­ars and laypeo­ple alike have discovered con­sid­er­ably extra about how Leonardo’s thoughts labored.

First, there was the Codex Arun­del. It’s, writes Jonathan Jones at The Guardian, “the liv­ing report of a uni­ver­sal thoughts”—but additionally, specif­i­cal­ly, the thoughts of a “technophile.” Then, the Vic­to­ria and Albert Nation­al Artwork Library introduced the dig­i­ti­za­tion of Codex Forster, which con­tains a few of Leonardo’s ear­li­est be aware­books. Now The Visu­al Company has launched a com­plete dig­i­ti­za­tion of Leonardo’s Codex Atlanti­cus, an enormous col­lec­tion of the artist, engi­neer, and inventor’s high-quality­ly-illus­trat­ed notes.

“No oth­er col­lec­tion counts extra orig­i­nal papers writ­ten by Leonar­do,” notes Google. The Codex Atlanti­cus “con­sists of 1119 papers, most of them drawn or writ­ten on each side.” Its title has “noth­ing to do with the Atlantic Ocean, or with some eso­teric, mys­te­ri­ous con­tent hid­den in its pages.” The 12-vol­ume col­lec­tion acquired its title as a result of the draw­ings and writ­ings had been certain with the identical measurement paper that was used for mak­ing atlases. Gath­ered within the sixteenth cen­tu­ry by sculp­tor Pom­peo Leoni, the papers descend­ed from Leonardo’s shut stu­dent Gio­van Francesco Melzi, who was entrust­ed with them after his trainer’s loss of life.

The his­to­ry of the Codex itself makes for a fas­ci­nat­ing nar­ra­tive, a lot of which you’ll be taught at Google’s Ten Key Info slideshow. The be aware­books span Leonardo’s profession, from 1478, when he was “nonetheless work­ing in his native Tus­cany, to 1519, when he died in France.” The col­lec­tion was tak­en from Milan by Napoleon and dropped at France, the place it remained within the Lou­vre till 1815, when the Con­gress of Vien­na dominated that every one artwork­works stolen by the for­mer Emper­or be returned. (The emis­sary tasked with return­ing the Codex couldn’t deci­pher Leonardo’s mir­ror writ­ing and took it for Chi­nese.)

The Codex con­tains not solely engi­neer­ing dia­grams, anato­my stud­ies, and artis­tic sketch­es, but additionally fables writ­ten by Leonar­do, impressed by Flo­ren­tine lit­er­a­ture. And it fea­tures Leonardo’s famed “CV,” a let­ter he wrote to the Duke of Milan describ­ing in 9 factors his qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the submit of mil­i­tary engi­neer. In level 4, he writes, “I nonetheless have very con­ve­nient bomb­ing meth­ods which might be simple to trans­port; they launch stones and sim­i­lar such in a tem­pest stuffed with smoke to fright­en the ene­my, caus­ing nice dam­age and con­fu­sion.”

As if in illus­tra­tion, else­the place within the Codex, the draw­ing above seems, “one of the vital cel­e­brat­ed” of the col­lec­tion.” It was “proven to trav­el­ing for­eign­ers vis­it­ing the Ambrosiana [the Bib­liote­ca Ambrosiana in Milan, where the Codex resides] because the 18th cen­tu­ry, usu­al­ly arous­ing a lot amaze­ment.” It’s nonetheless amaz­ing, espe­cial­ly if we con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that its artistry might need been some­factor of a byprod­uct for its cre­ator, whose pri­ma­ry moti­va­tion appears to have been solv­ing tech­ni­cal issues—in essentially the most ele­gant methods imag­in­in a position.

See the com­plete dig­i­ti­za­tion of Leonardo’s Codex Atlanti­cus right here.

Observe: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this submit appeared on our web site in 2019.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Ear­li­est Observe­books Now Dig­i­tized and Made Free On-line: Discover His Inge­nious Draw­ings, Dia­grams, Mir­ror Writ­ing & Extra

How Leonar­do da Vin­ci Drew an Accu­price Satel­lite Map of an Ital­ian Metropolis (1502)

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Hand­writ­ten Resume (Cir­ca 1482)

Leonar­do Da Vinci’s To-Do Listing from 1490: The Plan of a Renais­sance Man

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian primarily based in Durham, NC.