Codex Arundel (

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

Arundel MS 263) is a bound collection of pages of notes written by

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

and dating mostly from between 1480 and 1518. The

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

contains a number of

treatise A treatise is a Formality, formal and systematic written discourse on some subject concerned with investigating or exposing the main principles of the subject and its conclusions."mwod:treatise, Treatise." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Acc ...

s on a variety of subjects, including

mechanics Mechanics () is the area of physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among Physical object, physical objects. Forces applied to objects may result in Displacement (vector), displacements, which are changes of ...

and

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

. The name of the codex came from the

Earl of Arundel Earl of Arundel is a title of nobility in England, and one of the oldest extant in the English peerage. It is currently held by the Duke of Norfolk, and it is used (along with the earldom of Surrey) by his heir apparent as a courtesy title ...

, who acquired it in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

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

Description

The manuscript contains 283 paper leaves of various sizes, most of them around 22 cm × 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.Carlo Pedretti
Introduction to Leonardo's Codex Arundel
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.Katrina Dean, ''Keeping books of nature: An introduction to Leonardo da Vinci’s Codices Arundel and Leicester'', British Librar

It is similar to the

Codex Leicester The Codex Leicester (also briefly known as the Codex Hammer) is a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The codex is named after Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1719. The codex provides an insight into the m ...

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

Codex Atlanticus The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was u ...

History

The manuscript was written in Italy at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century. Most of the pages can be dated to between 1480 and 1518. The manuscript was purchased in the early 17th century by

Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel KG, (7 July 1585 – 4 October 1646) was an English magistrate, diplomat and courtier who lived during the reigns of James I and Charles I. He made his name as a Grand Tourist and art collector rather tha ...

(1585–1646), art collector and politician. His grandson,

Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk (12 July 162813 January 1684) was an English nobleman and politician. He was the second son of Henry Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel, and Lady Elizabeth Stuart. He succeeded his brother Thomas Howard, 5th Duke ...

(1628–1684), presented it to the newly-founded

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1667. The manuscript was first catalogued in 1681 by William Perry, a librarian, as a scientific and mathematical notebook. It was purchased by the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

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

as MS Arundel 263 when the library separated from the British Museum in 1973. 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 is software technology for viewing scanned books on-line in a realistic and detailed manner. It was developed by the British Library in partnership witArmadillo Systems The original version, first released in 1997, used Adobe Sho ...

", when it was digitised along with

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

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Leonardo da Vinci, ''Il Codice Arundel 263 nella British Library'', ed. by Carlo Pedretti, 2 vols (Florence: Giunti, 1998) * Nicholl Ch., ''Leonardo da Vinci, Lot wyobraźni'', Warsaw 2006, W.A.B., * Philip Howard, ''The British Library: A Treasure House of Knowledge'' (London: Scala Publishers, 2008), no. 41.

External links

The Codex Arundel: mapping Leonardo's working life
– via

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Codex Arundel
on the British Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts * A full digital version of th
Codex Arundel
on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts website

at ''The Book that closes a century and opens a new millennium'' * at the ''Art and music'' * Carlo Pedretti
Introduction to Leonardo's Codex Arundel

Page from the codex

''Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle''
exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Codex Arundel (see index) {{Authority control 15th-century manuscripts British Library Arundel collection Codices by Leonardo da Vinci Scientific illuminated manuscripts