Codex Madrid (Leonardo)
The Codex Madrid is a bound collection of sheets of notes, sketches and drawings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 ).
Name
The name Codex Madrid received the manuscript by the locality, the Spanish National Library ( Biblioteca Nacional de España) in Madrid, in which structure, the work is still located.
History
Most manuscripts and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci were after his death by his pupil Francesco Melzi and heirs ( to 1491/92 - 1570 ) held in his villa at Vaprio d' Adda. His son Orazio Melzi inherited the documents in 1570th The Madrid- codes, as well as other manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, were sold by Orazio Melzi in 1590 the sculptor Pompeo Leoni ( 1533-1608 ).
The path of the volumes in the inventory of the Biblioteca Nacional is still unknown. Although it was known since the 19th century that the codes were in Madrid, they remained there untraceable by the end of the 1960s.
In February 1967, studied romance languages professor Jules Piccus, a specialist in early Spanish literature from the University of Massachusetts, in the Biblioteca Nacional by medieval ballads. He came across two volumes of manuscripts, which he identified as the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. The findings were called Codex Madrid I and II.
Content
The work consists of two volumes (Codex Madrid I and II) with a total of 349 sheets in the format of about 15 cm × 21 cm. The manuscript Madrid I ( 192 sheets) is dated to 1499 to the period about 1490, Madrid II (157 sheets) to about 1503 to 1505. Leonardo wrote the text in his characteristic mirror writing and provided him with numerous drawings and sketches.
The leaves of both codes show the wide range of Leonardo's interests. They deal with painting, geography, mechanics, mathematics and geometry, weapons technology and architecture, including the design of a bridge to cross the Golden Horn. According to the plans da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci Bridge was built as a pedestrian bridge in 2001 in the Norwegian place Ås.
During one of the drawings of the work it is evidently a transmission. The engineer and da Vinci expert Roberto Guatelli (1904-1993) compared the drawing with a similar sketch in manuscript Codex Atlanticus ( Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan ). In a controversial interpretation he suspected it as a construction detail of a counter, the first calculating machine in the world history.
Quotes
" Read me, reader, if I make you joy, because very rarely do I return to this world. "