{"id":3592,"date":"2017-07-28T12:04:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-28T12:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/?p=3592"},"modified":"2017-07-28T12:04:39","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T12:04:39","slug":"leonardo-da-vincis-visionary-notebooks-now-online-browse-570-digitized-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/2017\/07\/28\/leonardo-da-vincis-visionary-notebooks-now-online-browse-570-digitized-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Visionary Notebooks Now Online: Browse 570 Digitized Pages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"o-DAVINCIDIARIES-facebook\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Quick, what do you know about Leonardo da Vinci? He painted the\u00a0Mona Lisa<\/em>! He wrote his notes backwards! He designed\u00a0supercool bridges\u00a0and flying machines! He was a genius about, um\u2026 a lot of other\u2026 things\u2026 and, um, stuff…<\/p>\n

Okay, I\u2019m sure you know a bit more than that, but unless you\u2019re a Renaissance scholar, you\u2019re certain to find yourself amazed and surprised at how much you didn\u2019t know about the quintessential Renaissance man when you encounter a compilation of his notebooks\u2014Codex Arundel<\/a>\u2014which has been\u00a0digitized by the British Library and made available to the public<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The notebook,\u00a0writes Jonathan Jones at\u00a0The Guardian<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0represents \u201cthe living record of a universal mind.\u201d And yet, though a \u201ctechnophile\u201d himself, \u201cwhen it came to publication, Leonardo was a luddite\u2026. He made no effort to get his notes published.\u201d<\/p>\n

For hundreds of years, the huge, secretive collection of manuscripts remained mostly unseen by all but the most rarified of collectors. After Leonardo’s death in France,\u00a0writes the British Library<\/a>, his student Francesco Melzi \u201cbrought many of his manuscripts and drawings back to Italy. Melzi\u2019s heirs, who had no idea of the importance of the manuscripts, gradually disposed of them.\u201d Nonetheless, over 5,000 pages of notes \u201cstill exist in Leonardo\u2019s \u2018mirror writing\u2019, from right to left.\u201d In the notebooks, da Vinci drew \u201cvisions of the aeroplane, the helicopter, the parachute, the submarine and the car. It was more than 300 years before many of his ideas were improved upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The digitized notebooks debuted in 2007 as\u00a0a joint project of the British Library and Microsoft called \u201cTurning the Pages 2.0,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0an interactive feature that allows viewers to \u201cturn\u201d the pages of the notebooks with animations. Onscreen glosses explain the content of the cryptic notes surrounding the many technical drawings, diagrams, and schematics (see a\u00a0selection of the notebooks in this animated format here<\/a>). For an overwhelming amount of Leonardo, you can look through\u00a0570 digitized pages of Codex Arundel here<\/a>. For a slightly more digestible, and readable, amount of Leonardo, see the British Library\u2019s\u00a0brief series on his life and work<\/a>, including explanations of his diving apparatus, parachute, and glider.<\/p>\n

Read more here!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quick, what do you know about Leonardo da Vinci? He painted the\u00a0Mona Lisa! He wrote his notes backwards! He designed\u00a0supercool bridges\u00a0and flying machines! He was a genius about, um\u2026 a lot of other\u2026 things\u2026 and, um, stuff… Okay, I\u2019m sure you know a bit more than that, but unless you\u2019re a Renaissance scholar, you\u2019re certain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cool-site-of-the-month","7":"category-manuscripts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}