Codex Italy
Alacoque Whitchurch
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 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 Codex Atlanticus is the largest single collection of drawings and writings (in Italian) by polymath Leonardo da Vinci, containing 1,119 paper leaves (2,238 pages)[a] arranged into 12 leather-bound volumes.[1] Its size and scope has led art historian Carlo Pedretti to recognize it as the most important of Leonardo's manuscripts.[2] The pages are in various sizes, "from folded sheets to minute fragments."[3] They range from 1478 to 1519 and cover Leonardo's entire professional career through Florence, Milan, Rome, and Amboise.[4]
The codex contains drawings and writings on a diverse range of subjects, including studies and sketches for paintings, works on mechanics, hydraulics, mathematics, astronomy as well as philosophical meditations and fables. It also has many inventions such as parachutes, war machineries and hydraulic pumps.[4]
When Napoleon conquered Milan in 1796, he seized about a dozen Leonardo manuscripts including the Codex and sent them to Paris, saying that "all men of genius ... are French, whatever the country which has given them birth." The manuscript was returned to Milan at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, but the other manuscripts remain in the Paris Institut de France.[5]
The codex was restored and rebound by the Basilian monks working in the Laboratory for the Restoration of Ancient Books and Manuscripts of the Exarchic Greek Abbey of St. Mary of Grottaferrata from 1968 to 1972.[9]
In 2019, an interactive website has been launched that allows exploration of the Codex Atlanticus in its entirety and to organize its 1,119 pages by subject, year and page number. 12 drawings of the Codex Atlanticus were on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. from June 21,2023 until August 20 2023.[14]
The Codex Mediceus of Virgil (Vergil) (Florence, Laur. 39.1 + Vatican lat. 3225, f.76), a fifth century manuscript written in rustic capitals, preserved in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurentiana) in Florence, with a single leaf preserved in the Vatican Library, contains the Ecologues from VI.48, the Georgics, and the Aeneid. A subscription at the end of the Ecologues records that the manuscript was corrected at Rome by Turcius Rufius Apronianus Asterius, consul in 494. Reynolds states that the manuscript "found its way to Bobbio, and was still there in 1467." Soon thereafter it was taken to the Vatican Library in Rome, and by 1471 it was in the hands of humanist Julius Pomponius Laetus (Pomponio Leto) who wrote emendations in the codex in red ink. The manuscript was first preserved in the Vatican Library, and later purchased by Cosimo de' Medici from the heirs of Cardinal Rodolpho Pio da Carpi, who died in 1564.
In 1741 the Codex Mediceus was first published in print in an extraordinary typographic reproduction, or typographic facsimile, planned and edited by Vatican librarian and philologist Pier Francesco Foggini. The edition, printed by Manniani in Florence, was printed with types imitating the uncial script of the original, in red and black. By combining different sizes of types, the printer was also able to include the annotations and emendations of Asterius and Laetus. The edition began with an engraved vignette that reproduced a fragment of the manuscript in more literal detail.
The Romans enjoyed many amenities for their day, including public toilets, underground sewage systems, fountains and ornate public baths. None of these aquatic innovations would have been possible without the Roman aqueduct. First developed around 312 B.C., these engineering marvels used gravity to transport water along stone, lead and concrete pipelines and into city centers. Aqueducts liberated Roman cities from reliance on nearby water supplies and proved priceless in promoting public health and sanitation.
Many ancient Roman structures like the Pantheon, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum are still standing today thanks to the development of Roman cement and concrete. The Romans first began building with concrete over 2,100 years ago and used it throughout the Mediterranean basin in everything from aqueducts and buildings to bridges and monuments.
Roman concrete was considerably weaker than its modern counterpart, but it has proved remarkably durable thanks to its unique recipe, which used slaked lime and volcanic ash known as pozzolana to create a sticky paste. Combined with volcanic rocks called tuff, this ancient cement formed concrete that could effectively endure chemical decay. Pozzolana helped Roman concrete set quickly even when submerged in seawater, enabling the construction of elaborate baths, piers and harbors.
For most of human history, literature took the form of unwieldy clay tablets and scrolls. The Romans streamlined the medium by creating the codex, a stack of bound pages that is recognized as the earliest incarnation of the book. The first codices were made of bound wax tablets, but these were later replaced by animal skin parchment that more clearly resembled pages. Ancient historians note that Julius Caesar created an early version of a codex by stacking pages of papyrus to form a primitive notebook, but bound codices did not become popular in Rome until the first century or thereabouts. Early Christians became some of the first to adopt the new technology, using it extensively to produce copies of the Bible.
Arches have existed for roughly 4,000 years, but the ancient Romans were the first to effectively harness their power in the construction of bridges, monuments and buildings. The ingenious design of the arch allowed the weight of buildings to be evenly distributed along various supports, preventing massive Roman structures like the Colosseum from crumbling under their own weight. Roman engineers improved on arches by flattening their shape to create what is known as a segmental arch and repeating them at various intervals to build stronger supports that could span large gaps when used in bridges and aqueducts. Along with columns, domes and vaulted ceilings, the arch became one of the defining characteristics of the Roman architectural style.
The modern Gregorian calendar is modeled very closely on a Roman version that dates back more than 2,000 years. Early Roman calendars were likely cribbed from Greek models that operated around the lunar cycle. But because the Romans considered even numbers unlucky, they eventually altered their calendar to ensure that each month had an odd number of days. This practice continued until 46 B.C. when Julius Caesar and the astronomer Sosigenes instituted the Julian system to align the calendar with the solar year. Caesar lengthened the number of days in a year from 355 to the now-familiar 365 and eventually included the 12 months as we know them today. The Julian calendar was almost perfect, but it miscalculated the solar year by 11 minutes. These few minutes ultimately threw the calendar off by several days. This led to the adoption of the nearly identical Gregorian calendar in 1582, which fixed the discrepancy by altering the schedule of leap years.
The Romans invented many surgical tools and pioneered the use of the cesarean section, but their most valuable contributions to medicine came on the battlefield. Under the leadership of Augustus, they established a military medical corps that was one of the first dedicated field surgery units. These specially trained medics saved countless lives through the use of Roman medical innovations like hemostatic tourniquets and arterial surgical clamps to curb blood loss.
Roman field doctors also performed physicals on new recruits and helped stem the spread of disease by overseeing sanitation in military camps. They were even known to disinfect instruments in hot water before use, pioneering a form of antiseptic surgery that was not fully embraced until the 19th century. Roman military medicine proved so advanced at treating wounds and promoting wellness that soldiers tended to live longer than the average citizen despite constantly facing the hazards of combat.
Peter Aicher, a classics professor at the University of Southern Maine, reintroduced Mussolini's Forum in a 2000 paper, where he first mentioned the forgotten codex. His work led two classical scholars, Bettina Reitz-Joosse and Han Lamers to analyze the text. Though the codex itself is still buried at the bottom of the obelisk, Reitz-Joosee and Lamers were able to reconstruct it using archival sources. They tell Branford that they believe the text was not intended for Italians of the time at all, but rather to serve as a kind of time capsule that glorified and eulogized the feats of Roman Fascism for the future.
A 16th-century manuscript is getting a modern-day update and will now live online. The text, the Florentine Codex, is a visual and written encyclopedia of the history of the Aztec people in Mexico, pre- and post-colonialism. As an online source, the codex, initially written in Nahuatl and Spanish, was translated into English. Viewers can search the 12 books online for specific texts and images within the manuscript.
The Florentine Codex, also called the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espaa (General History of the Things of New Spain), was written by Spanish Franciscan Friar Bernadino de Sahagn between 1545 to 1590 in collaboration with Nahua elders, scribes, artists, and grammarians. Writing the codex between Sahagn, his students, and Nahua collaborators at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco took nearly three decades.
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