The Codex Windsor is a collection of manuscript sheets with artistic drawings and anatomical studies by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci.
The Codex Windsor is a collection of manuscript sheets with artistic drawings and anatomical studies by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci.
The Codex Windsor owes its name to its preservation in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, where it has been since the 17th century. [1]
The collection now comprises 606 individually catalogued sheets in various formats. The sheets of the codex are dated to the period between 1478 and 1518. [1] The texts and commentaries were written by Leonardo in mirror script. The sheets contain contributions to art and painting, studies of people, animals, plants, and landscapes, as well as mechanics, weaponry, and anatomy. [1]
The 153 sheets of anatomical drawings were previously grouped into three volumes: Anatomical Manuscript A (18 sheets), B (42 sheets), and C (93 sheets). Anatomical manuscript C was in turn divided into six anatomical quires, the Quaderni di anatomia I–VI. [2]
The image (left) shows the fetus in the right position within the excised uterus. Leonardo also accurately drew the uterine arteries and the vascular system of the cervix and vagina. [1] To prepare for these drawings, Leonardo studied human embryology with the help of the anatomist Marcantonio della Torre and saw a fetus in a dissected corpse. [3]
Leonardo da Vinci began studying the anatomy of the human body in the late 1470s and may have participated in the first dissections at the University of Padua. His records indicate that he began performing autopsies himself around 1505. [3] By the year 1518, he reported that he had performed a total of thirty autopsies during his lifetime. He seems to have been particularly interested in the movement and function of internal organs. [3]
Leonardo's drawings show representations of the entire human body in various stages of dissection, as well as individual limbs and organs. [1] He drew body parts through multiple incisions and is therefore often considered the historical founder of tomographic imaging in medicine. It is mentioned that the Codex Windsor also deals with Leonardo's incessant study of horses, their movements, their postures, etc. [1] [4] [5]
After Leonardo's death most of his manuscripts and drawings were kept at his villa near Vaprio d'Adda, Lombardy, by his student and heir Francesco Melzi. [2] His son, Orazio Melzi, inherited the documents in 1570. Around 1590, Orazio Melzi sold over 2,500 individual sheets to the sculptor and art collector Pompeo Leoni. [2]
Leoni attempted to organize the manuscripts thematically, separating Leonardo's artistic ideas from his technical and scientific drawings. [2] He cut out sheets and glued together others that were not originally part of the whole. [2] In this way, he grouped Leonardo's anatomical drawings with other manuscripts on different subjects into several volumes, which were later given the name Codex Windsor.
The origins of the Codex Windsor in the Royal Collection are still unclear. It was probably acquired by Charles I or Charles II in the 17th century. However, it is known that Mary II showed the codex to the Dutch statesman Constantijn Huygens at Kensington Palace in 1690. [1]
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci 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 on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.
The Codex Leicester is a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The codex is named after Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1717. The codex provides an insight into the mind of the Renaissance artist, scientist and thinker, as well as an exceptional illustration of the link between art and science and the creativity of the scientific process.
Francesco Melzi, or Francesco de Melzi (1491–1567), was an Italian painter born into a family of the Milanese nobility in Lombardy. He became a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci and remained as his closest professional assistant throughout his career. After da Vinci's death he became the literary executor of all da Vinci's papers, editing them into a manuscript on painting he published as Trattato della Pittura [Treatise on Painting] or a compilation entitled the Codex Urbinas.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, sometimes called the Burlington House Cartoon, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing is in charcoal and black and white chalk, on eight sheets of paper that are glued together. Because of its large size and format the drawing is presumed to be a cartoon for a painting. No painting by Leonardo exists that is based directly on this cartoon, although the drawing may have been in preparation for a now lost or unexecuted painting commissioned by Louis XII. The drawing is the only extant larger-scale drawing by the artist.
Saint John the Baptist is a High Renaissance oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Likely to have been completed between 1513 and 1516, it is believed to be his final painting. Its original size was 69 by 57 centimetres.
The Codex Trivulzianus is a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci that originally contained 62 sheets, but today only 55 remain. It documents Leonardo's attempts to improve his modest literary education, through long lists of learned words copied from authoritative lexical and grammatical sources. The manuscript also contains studies of military and religious architecture.
Giovanni Magenta was an Italian architect. He designed the cathedral of San Pietro at Bologna (1605). It was later modified by Alfonso Torreggiani (1765). He designed the church of San Salvatore in Bologna (1605–1623) and San Paolo.
Pompei Leoni was an Italian sculptor and medalist who was born in Milan in the early 1530s and died in Madrid in October 1608.
The Codex Atlanticus is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was used for atlases. It comprises 1,119 leaves dating from 1478 to 1519, the contents covering a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry to musical instruments and from mathematics to botany. This codex was gathered in the late 16th century by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who dismembered some of Leonardo's notebooks in its formation. It is now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
The story of Leda and the Swan was the subject of two compositions by Leonardo da Vinci from perhaps 1503–1510. Neither survive as paintings by Leonardo, but there are a number of drawings for both by him, and copies in oils, especially of the second composition, where Leda stands.
A Treatise on Painting is a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's writings entered in his notebooks under the general heading "On Painting". The manuscripts were begun in Milan while Leonardo was under the service of Ludovico Sforza and gathered together by his heir Francesco Melzi. An abridged version of the treatise was first published in France in 1651. After Melzi's manuscript was rediscovered in the Vatican Library, the treatise was published in its modern form in 1817.
Codex Arundel is a bound collection of pages of notes written by Leonardo da Vinci and dating mostly from between 1480 and 1518. The codex contains a number of treatises on a variety of subjects, including mechanics and geometry. The name of the codex came from the Earl of Arundel, who acquired it in Spain in the 1630s. It forms part of the British Library Arundel Manuscripts.
Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, better known as Salaì was an Italian artist and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci from 1490 to 1518. Salaì entered Leonardo's household at the age of ten. He created paintings under the name of Andrea Salaì. He was described as one of Leonardo's students and lifelong companion and servant and was the model for Leonardo's St. John the Baptist, Bacchus and Angelo incarnato.
The Madrid Codices I–II, are two manuscripts by Leonardo da Vinci which were discovered in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid in 1965 by Dr. Jules Piccus, Language Professor at the University of Massachusetts. The Madrid Codices I was finished during 1490 and 1499, and II from 1503 to 1505.
Horse and Rider is a beeswax sculpture depicting a rider on a horse. The history of the sculpture is unknown before the 20th century. The work has been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci by the Italian art historian Carlo Pedretti, though most historians have ignored or denied the attribution. A number of casts have been made, using a mold taken from the wax original.
Studies of the Fetus in the Womb are two coloured annotated sketches by Leonardo da Vinci made in around 1511. The studies correctly depict the human fetus in its proper position inside a dissected uterus. Leonardo depicted the uterus with one chamber, in contrast to theories that the uterus had multiple chambers which many believed divided fetuses into separate compartments in the case of twins. Leonardo also correctly drew the uterine artery and the vascular system of the cervix and vagina.
The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior or Budapest horse is a bronze sculpture attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Depicting Francis I of France on a destrier horse, it is estimated to have been cast from a clay or wax model in the first half of the 16th century. The sculpture is in the permanent exhibit of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.
The Study for the Virgin's Right Arm is a drawing by the Florentine painter Leonardo da Vinci that is kept at Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom. It is drawn in charcoal or black stone, grey chalk, ink, and white gouache highlights on red-tinted paper.
The Study for the Head of Saint Anne is a drawing on paper executed in black stone by Leonardo da Vinci and preserved at Windsor Castle. It is a portrait of a woman, and is considered to be the preparatory study for the head of Saint Anne in the painting Sainte Anne, la Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus jouant avec un agneau in the Louvre Museum.
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