The Galobart Books: Codex Madrid I
Leonardo - The Collector's Edition
Leonardo di Vinci’s works, paintings, and inventions have fascinated the world, inspired generations of engineers, and had long ago captivated our imagination. We have in our collection quite a few books about the genius, but none directly by the genius himself…until now!
Leonardo – gone NINE centuries (1519) and we’re STILL utterly intrigued by the guy!
It is ALWAYS exciting when we get a notice saying something is coming from Galobart Books. This time around, what arrived was the Madrid Codex I, a faithful reproduction of the first volume of the Leonardo da Vinci manuscripts.
The Madrid Codex I (1490-1505)
The Madrid Codices were created during the most productive period of Leonardo’s life (approximately 1490-1505). The first codex is a collection of notes and drawings, plus a treatise on statics and mechanics. The second codex is a treatise on fortification, statics, and geometry. Heaven!
Something super special came in that box and wrapped in that tissue paper…
A, um, mistake, by the head librarian at the National Library of Spain in Madrid resulted in the codices being lost for 150 years (the poor librarian, probably tore his hair out trying to remember where he put them).
Both codices were rediscovered in February of 1967, when Jules Piccus, a professor of Romance Studies at University of Massachusetts/Amherst, came upon them while looking for medieval songbooks in the archives of the National Library of Spain. Serendipity at it’s finest, and we’re sure Leonardo would have been tickled pink!
Red’s a good color for these; it’s like shouting, “Here! Leonardo’s stuff is in here! Take a look yourself!”
Aside from their incredible artistic and significant documentary value, the codices are also the only things in Spain that can absolutely be attributed to Leonardo.
What inside the package:
- An elegant, cloth-covered case numbered 001 to 999 in the collector’s edition,
- Exact reproductions of the original document (extent, color and size),
This is like winning the lottery – the Leonardo lottery!
- Hand-bound with ribs on the spine made with vegan leather alternative (we think it’s a shout-out to Leonardo’s vegetarianism),
- A companion book of expert commentary on the codices and Leonardo, and
So handsome – I’m sure Leonardo would be pleased.
Alot alot ALOT of sleuthing no doubt went into creating this diagram – and we are grateful for that!
What’s inside the book:
The Codex offers primary-source insight into:
- Leonardo’s approach to science and art,
- what he sought to understand, and
- how he applied his knowledge and understanding to the inventing and constructing ingeniously practical devices.
“So you take the thing, then take that other thing, put them together like in my drawing, and lookit that you’ve got yourself a new thing – that works better than the old things did by themselves!”
Leonardo wrote in the Tuscan dialect, and wrote using Mirrored writing, so all of his material needs to be read right-to-left in order to understand it (unless you can read words back-to-front). The Codices include a list of the 116 books used by Leonardo around the time of its writing, and some of those are basic Latin grammars.
The Codex’s physical books:
- reproduce the original material, stains and all,
- are made of high-quality art paper with serrated edges, and
- comprise 384 pages in its original 215 x 145 mm ( 8.46 x 5.70 in.) format.
So. Much. Genius. SO MUCH.
The diagrams and detailed drawings mostly concern mechanical and engineering concepts such as levers, pulleys, gears, and simple machines. Leonardo also explored questions relating to the balance of forces, the resistance of materials, and offered notes and thoughts on optics and astronomy.
And he didn’t even have a slide rule…
Prints for the wall
This codex contains the best and most detailed drawings, in black ink. There is a collection of ten prints, suitable for framing, which call out the notable ones.
They diagram various mechanisms: endless screws; drive chains; textile machines; clock-making machinery; and others. In some cases, the drawings take up almost the entire page!
If Leonardo hadn’t have thought about it, we doubt anyone else ever would’ve!
Final Thoughts
The quality of materials used, the care and attention to details needed to create this reproduction, and all the included extras, make this Collector’s Edition from Galobart Books worth treasuring as if it was the original…without the need for the insurance coverage, the climate-controlled room, or the security team!
Now that we have one codex in our Da Vinci collection, we are eager to get our hands on more. We hope to take a look at the Codex Madrid II next.
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