Codex Arundel

On 22 March 1508, in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli in Florence, Leonardo began to gather his notes into a book. He wrote that it would be "a collection without order", taken from many papers, which he hoped to arrange later. He apologised in advance to the reader for repeating himself.

The Codex Arundel is that kind of collection. Its pages run from the 1480s to his last years, on mechanics, weights, water, light, mirrors, and the geometry of curved shapes. The writing is right to left, as it is everywhere in his notes.

It is named after the Earl of Arundel, who bought it in Spain in the seventeenth century. It went to the British Museum in 1831 and is now in the British Library.