The Codex Leicester is a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The Codex is named after Thomas Coke, who purchased it in 1717; he later became the Earl of Leicester. The manuscript currently holds the record for the fifth highest sale price of any book: it was sold to Bill Gates at Christie's auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for US$30,802,500.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is an unfinished oil painting by High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1501–1519. It depicts Saint Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.
The viola organista is a musical instrument designed by Leonardo da Vinci. It uses a friction belt to vibrate individual strings, with the strings selected by pressing keys on a keyboard. Leonardo's design has intrigued instrument makers for more than 400 years, but though similar instruments have been built, no extant instrument constructed directly from Leonardo's incomplete designs is known. Sometimes it is mistakenly referred to as the harpsichord viola, which is a different instrument.
The lirone is the bass member of the lira family of instruments that was popular in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It is a bowed string instrument with between 9 and 16 gut strings and a fretted neck. When played, it is held between the legs in the manner of a cello or viol.
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.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an Italian polymath, regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in numerous diverse areas of study. Whilst most famous for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, Leonardo is also renowned in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology.
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.
Codex on the Flight of Birds is a relatively short codex from c. 1505 by Leonardo da Vinci. It comprises 18 folios and measures 21 × 15 centimetres. Now held at the Royal Library of Turin, the codex begins with an examination of the flight behavior of birds and proposes mechanisms for flight by machines. Leonardo constructed a number of these machines, and attempted to launch them from a hill near Florence. However, his efforts failed.
Mario Taddei is an Italian academic. He is an expert in multimedia and edutainment for museums, a Leonardo da Vinci devotee and scholar, and an expert in the codexes and machines of da Vinci and ancient books of technology.
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.
Leonardo's crossbow designs are a series of shooting weapon schematics designed by Leonardo da Vinci that are in the Codex Atlanticus. One version, a self-spanning infantry weapon called the Rapid Fire Crossbow, is found on sheets 143r, 153r and 155r. The other is the Giant Crossbow design intended to be a mounted siege weapon found on sheet 149a in the Codex.
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.
The wheelharp is a musical instrument with bowed strings controlled by a keyboard and foot-controlled motor, similar to Leonardo da Vinci's viola organista, a keyboard-operated string instrument for continuously sounding strings by rubbing the strings with spinning wheels, powered by a treadle controlled by one foot of the musician. Created by Jon Jones and Mitchell Manger, the wheelharp debuted at the 2013 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California.
Carlo Vecce is Professor of Italian Literature in the University of Naples "L'Orientale", he taught also in the University of Pavia, the D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara and the University of Macerata. Abroad he was visiting professor at Paris 3 (2001) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) (2009).
A perspective machine is an optical instrument designed to help artists create perspective drawings. The earliest machines were built centuries ago when the theory of perspective was being worked out, and modern versions are still in use.
Monte Ceceri is a hill near Fiesole, Tuscany. It is part of a 44-hectare (110-acre) nature reserve to the northeast of the city of Florence, within the Metropolitan City of Florence.
Tabula scalata are pictures with two images divided into strips on different sides of a corrugated carrier. Each image can be viewed correctly from a certain angle. Most tabula scalata have the images in vertical lines so the picture seems to change from one image to another while walking past it. The top image on versions with horizontal strips could be seen via a mirror placed above the picture.
Leonardo3 is an interactive museum and exhibition center at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Piazza della Scala, Milano, Italy. The museum is devoted to Italy’s notable personality Leonardo da Vinci and portrays him both as an artist and inventor.
The Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci drew his design for an "aerial screw" in the late 1480s, while he was employed as a military engineer by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499. The original drawing is part of a manuscript dated to 1487 to 1490 and appears on folio 83-verso of Paris Manuscript B, part of the papers removed from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1795 by Napoleon and still held by the Institut de France in Paris.
