Florence, here's when Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester will be on display

In this news, we had told you about Leonardo da Vinci ’s Codex Leicester (Vinci, 1452 - Amboise, 1519) and informed you about its exhibition at the Uffizi. Here are the dates when it will be possible to admire it in Florence: from October 29, 2018 to January 20, 2019.

During this time, the Leicester Codex will be featured in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci’s The Leicester Codex. The Water Microscope of Nature, curated by Paolo Galluzzi, the result of two years of preparation, produced by the Uffizi Galleries and Museo Galileo with the contribution of Fondazione Cr Firenze.

The Codex, once known as the Hammer Codex because its owner was billionaire Armand Hammer, is on loan from its current owner, entrepreneur and also billionaire Bill Gates, who bought it from Hammer in 1994. The Codex will be housed in theAula Magliabechiana and will feature a number of Leonardo’s original drawings, from prestigious Italian and foreign institutions, made in those same years when the Codex was made. Thanks to an innovative multimedia aid, the Codescope, visitors will be able to browse through the individual sheets on digital screens, access the transcription of the texts, and receive multiple pieces of information on the topics covered.

Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi, says, “The exhibition of Leonardo’s Codex Leicester, along with other invaluable drawings and writings by the genius of Vinci, demonstrates our commitment to making very complex themes of scientific research accessible, and to contextualizing fundamental episodes in the history of science from a thoroughly contemporary perspective.”

Paolo Galuzzi, director of the Museo Galileo, says, "The Leicester Codex, the result of his now acquired maturity as a highly refined artist, a penetrating observer of nature, an engineer capable of conceiving projects of extraordinary daring, and an original interpreter of the most significant phenomena of the macrocosm and microcosm, offers an intriguing view of the unprecedented vastness of the horizons explored by Leonardo’s mind. A mind bent on meeting the most complex challenges and questioning the conclusions established by the most accredited authors in the tradition. Compiled in the most creative phase of his existence, in the heart of a Florence that was then a true ’School of the World,’ the precious manuscript documents Leonardo’s cognitive obsession with the element of water, its swirling movements, its shaping force and destructive power. With constant references to Florence, its urban layout and its river, both a resource and a threat to the communities that populate its banks. The exhibition invites us on a journey into a time of daring visions, futuristic projects, and manifestations of thought of unmatched genius."

Umberto Tombari, president of the Fondazione Cr Firenze, says, "We enthusiastically support this great exhibition that, in fact, opens the celebrations dedicated to Leonardo well in advance. Since our birth 25 years ago, we have always allocated a significant part of our disbursements to art and culture, and it is important to collaborate with two very prestigious institutions in an exhibition of this level that combines scientific rigor with a rich multimedia apparatus. This aspect is today, even more than in the past, decisive in fostering the understanding of art even for the uninitiated and in particular of a work like this that is not immediately comprehensible in all its multiple levels of reading. Our Foundation is working hard in the field of training and educating young people, and the presentation of the Leicester Codex fits perfectly into this path. The exhibition also marks a new stage in our long and fruitful collaboration with Italy’s most important museum and the Museo Galileo whose team, coordinated by Prof. Galluzzi, has created an innovative digital edition of the great map by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, the oldest document (1507) in which the name America appears in homage to Amerigo Vespucci. A great project that we presented last year, with great success, at the Library of Congress in Washington."

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Giunti Editore.

Florence, here's when Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester will be on display

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