Leonardo Da Vince: A Mind in Motion

Disappointing exhibition at the British Library looking at the role of motion in in his quest to understand the natural world.

The show was based around three of the codex’s The British Library’s own, Codex Arundel, one from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Codex Forster II and Codex Leicester from the Bill Gates Collection. The leaves from these were shown well in upright display units and double sided ones showed both sides and wove both into the narrative.

I just say disappointing as I hadn’t realised the show had such a narrow subject matter and the descriptions become quite scientifically dense. It is always wonderful to see Leonardo’s neat backwards writing but I found it frustrating that you were so reliant on the descriptions as you couldn’t read the originals. I did love the exquisite small sketches in the margins which still had a real immediacy.

The show finished with a wonderful AV of the British Library’s own Codex where you could see a scan of the original, overlay it with the mirror writing the right way round then highlight text to see a translation

Closes 8 September 2019

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