History and route of the Codex
The Codices were brought to Spain by Pompeo Leoni, a sculptor of Philip II. After several changes of ownership, they were transferred to the Library of the Monastery of El Escorial, finally passing to the Royal Library, where they remained lost for 150 years.
These manuscripts are of great importance in Leonardo's work, as they contain about 15% of Leonardo's notes that are referenced today, but they are also important for the quality and relevance of the subjects they contain, which represent one of the most important engineering treatises of the time.
When Leonardo died, they passed to his friend Francesco Melzi. Some fifty years later Pompeo Leoni, a sculptor in the service of Philip II, acquired them from his son Orazio and took them with him to Spain.1 When Leoni died in 1608, the manuscripts passed into the hands of Juan de Espina, a friend of Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, according to gossip of the time: "a gentleman who lives alone in a mansion in Madrid and his servants are wooden automatons".
The Prince of Wales (Charles), on his visit to Madrid in 1623, was interested in the manuscripts, and Espina got out of the engagement by giving them to the King as a gift. The Codices arrived at the Royal Library in 1712, where for various reasons they remained lost until 1967, according to Martín Abad "due to the movement of the royal library to four different locations, to a fatal confusion of call numbers and to the aura of Leonardo da Vinci, which blinded many to attach their fame to that of the genius”.
A Treasure lost 150 years ago
It was a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, an expert in Medieval Castilian literature, who by chance, in 1967, discovered them, coming across two codices written by Leonardo Da Vinci in his own handwriting.
They had been lost in the archives of the National Library of Spain. An error made by the head librarian in the codification of their numbering meant that they had been lost for 150 years, until they were discovered by the American Jules Piccus, who was in the Library looking for medieval songbooks.
The Codex Madrid I is a treatise on mechanics, consisting of 12 booklets of 16 pages each.
Codex Madrid I has similarities with Codex Atlanticus, from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan: a series of elements (weights, gears, springs, clockwork, scales, screws, hinges, etc.) are sketched in Codex Atlanticus, and finally developed in Codex Madrid I, with drawings of great detail and quality.
Of Leonardo's work, bound collections, notebooks and loose notes are preserved...the Codex Madrid being a bound collection.
Leonardo was at the same time painter, anatomist, architect, paleontologist,3 botanist, writer, sculptor, philosopher, engineer, inventor, musician, poet and town planner.
Leonardo's death is the beginning of the dispersion and loss of two thirds of the fifty thousand original multidisciplinary documents written in old Tuscan and codified by him. Each manuscript, page, sketch, drawing, text and note was fully considered a work of art. Only about thirteen thousand documents remain, most of which are preserved in the Vatican City archives.
This Codex of Madrid I is one of his most important works.
