Every surviving notebook, codex and sheet — scattered across a dozen institutions for five centuries — reunited in a single living library.
Explore the Library↓THE PROJECT
Across five centuries Leonardo's papers were scattered through a dozen institutions in seven countries. This library reunites them — 32 collections and 8,617 pages across 14 institutions — 6,846 of them already transcribed and readable — in a single place.
The bound notebooks
The great codices are the bound notebooks in which Leonardo set down a lifetime of inquiry — art, anatomy, mechanics, water, flight and the heavens — often writing in mirror script from right to left. Scattered after his death, they survive today across libraries in Milan, London, Madrid, the Vatican, Turin and a private vault in Seattle.
Explore →02Twelve notebooks at the Institut de France
Held at the Institut de France, the Paris manuscripts (A–M) and the restored Ashburnham leaves are Leonardo's pocket notebooks — each one circling a cluster of obsessions, from the flying machines of Notebook B to the optics of the eye in Notebook D. Carried in his belt, they are the working diaries of his mind.
Explore →03Loose sheets, dispersed across the world
Beyond the bound volumes, thousands of loose sheets are dispersed among the world's great institutions — the incomparable anatomies and deluges at Windsor, the Vitruvian Man in Venice, the self-portrait in Turin. Here they are gathered into a single collection.
Explore →04A cross-referenced index of the works
A structured, cross-referenced catalogue of works attributed to Leonardo — each linked to its holding institution, inventory number and open-data record.
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