The compilation of the Codex Leicester. An insight into Leonardo's research style

Domenico Laurenza

2022-01-01

---

Abstract

Understanding the compilation methods of the Codex Leicester, the most complex and mature of Leonardo's manuscripts, has been a challenge for specialists since the time of Gerolamo Calvi at the beginning of the last century. In the course of the preparation of the new edition of the Codex Leicester, unpublished evidence emerged that allowed new hypotheses to be formulated on the genesis and structure of this difficult manuscript, and on the relationship between text and images, confirming the usefulness of material and philological analysis only if supplemented by that of content. The philological data collected also concerned the life of the manuscript after Leonardo, i.e. its ‘readers’ between the 16th and 18th centuries, almost always artist-scientists: another little-known chapter of the Codex Leicester.