Ashburnham Codex
The Codex Ashburnham is a collection of sheets with notes, sketches and drawings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).
Surname
The name Codex Ashburnham was given to the manuscript by the Earl of Ashburnham , who acquired it in the mid-19th century.
Content and scope
The work consists of two volumes ( Codex Ashburnham I and II ) with a total of 44 sheets. Ashburnham I consists of 34 sheets of approximately 15 cm × 22 cm, Ashburnham II of ten sheets of 16 cm × 23 cm. The manuscripts are dated from around 1487 to 1490 and contain contributions to architecture , art and painting . Ashburnham II is exclusively devoted to painting.
history
Most of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts and drawings were kept in his villa near Vaprio d'Adda by his pupil and heir Francesco Melzi (around 1491/92 - around 1570) after his death . His son Orazio Melzi inherited the documents in 1570. Around 1590, the sculptor and art collector Pompeo Leoni (1531-1608) was able to acquire a large part of Orazio Melzi's records and finally sold them to Count Galeazzo Arconati. In 1637, the extensive collection was donated to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
In 1795 twelve of Leonardo's manuscripts, designated Manuscripts A to M , and the so-called Codex Atlanticus , were transferred to the library of the Institut de France in Paris as Napoleon's spoils of war . Only the Codex Atlanticus returned to the Ambrosiana in 1815 after the fall of Napoleon.
In the 1840s, the Italian mathematician and book thief Guglielmo Libri (1803-1869) cut out pages 81 to 114 of Manuscript A and pages 91 to 100 of Manuscript B , stole them and sold them to the British collector and librarian Bertram Ashburnham, 4 Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878). Through his son they were returned to the Institut de France in 1890. There they are still bound today separately from the original manuscripts and form the Codex Ashburnham I and II .
literature
- Charles Nicholl : Leonardo da Vinci - The biography . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-10-052405-8 .
- Emma Dickens (Ed.): Das da Vinci Universum - The Notebooks of Leonardo , Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-548-36874-3 , from 2007: ISBN 978-3-548-36874-0 .
- Martin Kemp : Leonardo , CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-406-53462-1 .
- Jean Paul Richter (Ed.): The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci . 2 volumes, Dover Publications Inc., Dover 1970, Volume 1: ISBN 0-486-22572-0 , Volume 2: ISBN 0-486-22573-9 . Online version of the first edition in 1883 at www.gutenberg.org , English.
- Carlo Pedretti : Leonardo da Vinci on Painting . University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1964 ( digitized ).
- Theodor Lücke (Ed.): Leonardo da Vinci: Diaries and records , 3rd edition, Paul List Verlag, Leipzig 1953.
Web links
- The Ashburnham Codex on the University of the Arts London website , accessed March 6, 2011
