Codex Arundel, is a bound collection of pages of notes written by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

 and dating mostly from between 1480 and 1518. The codex

Codex

A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...

 contains a number of treatise

Treatise

A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...

s on a variety of subjects, including mechanics

Mechanics

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....

 and geometry

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

. The name of the codex came from the Earl of Arundel

Earl of Arundel

The title Earl of Arundel is the oldest extant Earldom and perhaps the oldest extant title in the Peerage of England. It is currently held by the Duke of Norfolk, and is used by his heir apparent as a courtesy title. It was created in 1138 for the Norman baron Sir William d'Aubigny...

, who acquired it in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 in the 1630s. It forms part of the British Library Arundel Manuscripts

Arundel Manuscripts

The Arundel Manuscripts are a collection of manuscripts purchased by the British Museum in 1831 which are now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library.The manuscripts were collected by Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel...

.

Description

The manuscript contains 283 paper leaves of various size, most of them approximately 22 cm x 16 cm. Only a few of the leaves are blank. Two folios, 100 and 101, were incorrectly numbered twice. The codex is a collection of Leonardo's manuscripts originating from every period in his working life, a span of 40 years from 1478 to 1518. It contains short treatises, notes and drawings on a variety of subjects from mechanics to the flight of birds. From Leonardo's text, it appears that he gathered the pages together, with the intention of ordering and possibly publishing them. Leonardo customarily used a single folio sheet of paper for each subject, so that each folio presented as a small cohesive treatise on an aspect of the subject, spread across both back and front of a number of pages. This arrangement has been lost by later book binders who have cut the folios into pages and laid them on top of each other, thereby separating many subjects into several sections and resulting in an arrangement which appears random.

It is similar to the Codex Leicester

Codex Leicester

The Codex Leicester is a collection of largely scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The codex is named after Thomas Coke, later created Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1717...

, which is also a compilation of the notes, diagrams and sketches. The Codex Arundel is recognized as second in importance to the Codex Atlanticus

Codex Atlanticus

The Codex Atlanticus is a twelve-volume, bound set of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest such set; its name indicates its atlas-like breadth. It comprises 1,119 leaves dating from 1478 to 1519, the contents covering a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry to...

.

History

The manuscript was written at the end of the 15th century and in the beginning of the 16th century in Italy. Most of the pages can be dated to between 1480 and 1518. Very little is known about the early provenance of the codex until it was acquired by Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

.

The manuscript was purchased in the early 17th century by Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel (1585–1646), art collector and politician. Henry Howard

Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk

Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk was the second son of Henry Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel and Lady Elizabeth Stuart. He succeeded his brother Thomas Howard, 5th Duke of Norfolk after his death in 1677...

 (1628–1684), 6th Duke of Norfolk, presented to the Royal Society in 1667. The manuscript was first catalogued in 1681 by William Perry

William Perry

William James Perry is an American businessman and engineer who was the United States Secretary of Defense from February 3, 1994, to January 23, 1997, under President Bill Clinton...

, a librarian, as a scientific and mathematical notebook.

It was purchased by the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 from the Royal Society along with 549 other Arundel manuscripts (half of Arundel collection) in 1831. It was catalogued by the British Museum in 1834. It is housed in the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, (Arundel 263).

The most recent facsimile was published in 1998. On 30 January 2007 the manuscript became part of the British Library's project "Turning the Pages

Turning the Pages

Turning the Pages is software technology for viewing scanned books on-line in a realistic and detailed manner. It was developed by the British Library in partnership with Armadillo Systems.The original version, first released in 1997, uses Adobe Shockwave....

", when it was digitalised along with Codex Leicester

Codex Leicester

The Codex Leicester is a collection of largely scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The codex is named after Thomas Coke, later created Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1717...

, and became available in the 2.0 format. These two manuscript of Leonardo notebooks were reunited online.

External links

• Codex Arundel at the British Library
• Codex Arundel at The Book that closes a century and opens a new millennium
• Codex Arundel at the Art and music
• Carlo Pedretti, Introduction to Leonardo's Codex Arundel
• Page from the codex
• Turning the Pages 2.0^TM