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Leonardo Da Vinci's Personal Notebook

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Oct 08, 2005 08:27 AM
from the pages-of-history dept.

IZ Reloaded writes "The British Library has made available 14 great books on its website. One of them is a 1508 notebook by Leonardo Da Vinci containing short treatises, notes and drawings of a wide range of subjects from mechanics to the moon. The site allows you to view the original manuscript written in Leonardo's own handwriting."

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Backward handwriting (Score:5, Funny)

by mr100percent (57156) * on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:28AM (#13746144) Homepage Journal

Will I have to flip my display to read Leonardo Da Vinci's backwards handwriting?
- Re:Backward handwriting (Score:4, Informative)
  
  by kalidasa (577403) * on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:00AM (#13746231) Journal
  
  Ready for this one - they actually have a "mirror" button to flip it over for you! Now that's nice.
  
  Parent
  - Fantastic! Now if I only... (Score:2)
    
    by Hamster Lover (558288) *
    
    could read Italian. Maybe we should run the result through Babelfish...
- Re:Backward handwriting (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by legirons (809082)
  
  Apparently, he only wrote "click here to download plugin" lots of times... very neat handwriting, although I can't see how it could be interpreted as the design for a helicopter
- you know why? (Score:4, Interesting)
  
  by spectrokid (660550) on Saturday October 08 2005, @10:57AM (#13746627) Homepage
  
  It is often said he was using this to encrypt his writings, but this is BS. Da Vinci was left-handed and in order not to wipe out his own writing he just wrote right to left. When he had to write to others, he simply switched back to normal.
  
  Parent
  - Re:you know why? (Score:3, Interesting)
    
    by Anonymous Coward
    
    During art history class when the professor mentioned da Vinci's "code" a student at the university I attended commented "perhaps he was dyslexic". While the student made this comment he was writing class notes with his left hand from right to left at the same time he was writing an essay for another class with his right hand from left to right and yes, this was a frequent habit of that particular dyslexic student.
Clues! (Score:5, Funny)

by Eugene Webby (891781) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:30AM (#13746148)

Bet it has clues about jesus and coverups.
i'm sure... (Score:5, Funny)

by tehwebguy (860335) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:30AM (#13746153) Homepage

it was probably a powerbook. those artsy types are all the same.
- Re:i'm sure... (Score:2)
  
  by Patrik_AKA_RedX (624423)
  
  No, he used something called "paper" and "pencil". IMO we should start using those again. How practical it would, being able to write and read stuff without worrying about a battery.
  - Sure, but... (Score:4, Funny)
    
    by hummassa (157160) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:55AM (#13746402) Homepage Journal
    
    seek & search times are a bitch on those.
    
    Parent
- Re:i'm sure... (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by nganju (821034) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:59AM (#13746419)
  
  Using Moore's Law and assuming today's fastest notebook is roughly 3GHz:
  
  3 000 000 000 * ((1/2)^((2005 - 1508) / 1.5)) = 5.44313816 × 10-91 Hz ...was the clock speed of Davinci's powerbook. And you think YOUR notebook loads Adobe slowly...
  
  Parent
British surgeon cracks da Vinci code (Score:4, Interesting)

by $exyNerdie (683214) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:33AM (#13746162) Homepage Journal

In other news today, a British surgeon cracks the Da Vinci code:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4289204.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Another version here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_ page/0,5744,16753065%255E2703,00.html [news.com.au]
- Re:British surgeon cracks da Vinci code (Score:2)
  
  by brian0918 (638904)
  
  Thank you Captain Dupevious.
At last (Score:5, Funny)

by squoozer (730327) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:34AM (#13746164) Homepage

Of course they are only allowed to do this because the copyright period has just expired.
Needs Shockwave (Score:4, Informative)

by pipacs (179230) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:35AM (#13746168)

Needs Shockwave. Thank you, goodbye.
- Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:5, Informative)
  
  by the_unknown_soldier (675161) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:46AM (#13746196)
  
  from their site:
  
  There are also alternative [www.bl.uk] non-Shockwave versions of three of the volumes. More will be added soon.
  
  Parent
  - Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:3, Interesting)
    
    by Seehund (86897)
    
    "Accessible version of the British Library's Turning the Pages system for viewing our great books."
    
    So they do understand that the proprietary-plugin-dependent version is inaccessible! :)
    Well, that's a start, I guess. Soon they might find out that it's unnecessary and pointless too.
- Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:2)
  
  by kraut (2788)
  
  There's a shockwave-free link [www.bl.uk] for at least some of them.
- Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:3, Insightful)
  
  by Reality Master 101 (179095)
  
  Not being a luddite, I of course used the Shockwave version. If you had tried it also, you would've noted that there was a good reason for it: it includes a cool magnifier to view the pages, as well as some other neat features.
  Thank god we have people out there that aren't afraid to use technology to make things better, even if a small number of people whine about it. If people like you ran the world, we'd still be stuck using 80x25 column green screens.
  And, as other people have pointed out, there is an
- Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:2)
  
  by Almost-Retired (637760)
  
  Nice, needs shockwave. Sure, hit the macromedia site, follow the shockwave links, and get told that a 20 day old mozilla-1.7.12 install is some oddball thing they don't support. "If running netscape, please upgrade to at least 6.1." Lemme see, that would be what, 5 years old now?
  
  What time warp are these folks at macromedia living in?
  
  --
  Cheers, Gene
  "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
  -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
  99.35% setiathome
- Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:3, Informative)
  
  by Omniscientist (806841)
  
  Well, instead of complaining, does anyone have any tips for running Shockwave on Linux? Is it possible to use Wine or Cedega, or do we have to use something like Crossover?
This is why... (Score:2, Informative)

by zegebbers (751020)

the internet is amazing. To be able to view this sort of document almost instantly is fantastic. Thank you British Library.
For those who would otherwise not view these, please do, in addition to the items mtneioned int he summary, there are also originals from Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll and the first atlas of Europe. Amazing.
Great, but only the beginning.... (Score:3, Insightful)

by dr. loser (238229) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:37AM (#13746173)

This is a wonderful start to providing mass access to rare manuscripts.

Now if only they would post the complete papers of Milo Rambaldi [dayfornight.com]....
- Re:Great, but only the beginning.... (Score:2, Informative)
  
  by Anonymous Coward
  
  Perhaps a better site [wikipedia.org] provides more information. Hope you didn't get suckered into believing it.
  - Re:Great, but only the beginning.... (Score:2)
    
    by dr. loser (238229)
    
    It was meant as a joke - guess I should've been a bit more explicit.
Not the only treasure (Score:5, Interesting)

by Junior J. Junior III (192702) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:39AM (#13746179) Homepage

There's the original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland on there, too. Very cool!
Messy handwriting (Score:2)

by aussie_a (778472)

Sheeesh, he had some messy handwriting. You think he could have taken a little care.
A design document without use cases ? (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward

...with crappy graphics and in a unreadable language...

Bad Leonard !!
I'm sure this guy is a kernel developer
pdf (Score:2)

by rhyd (614491)

godDamn motherfucking flash. If ever there was content perfect for pdf format it would be these books. I'd love to know the justification - probably to stop printing or something. No matter how lavishly illustrated a 14th century Hebrew manuscript might be, I am dubious that its going to contain any animated images, background music, or annoying soundeffects, or blinking text or any of the myriad of shiny accesibility-blocking nonsense that justifies macromedias devil-spawn. Personally i would have preferre
- Re:pdf (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by ScentCone (795499)
  
  rediculous
  
  So it's not only diculous, it's re-diculous? That's twice as diculous!
  
  Not to ridicule your spelling or anything, since your larger point feels about right. Plain HTML and simple images seem so much more sensible, and platform agnostic. But then, I'm an old-fashioned guy. I don't like
  tags, either.
- Re:pdf (Score:4, Insightful)
  
  by Declarent (628681) on Saturday October 08 2005, @10:07AM (#13746455)
  
  I wasn't aware you could put voice commentary, the magnifier, and the text reversing mirror in a PDF document.
  
  This is where we, as technophiles go wrong. The only thing that matters to us is the technology used to deliver the content, and we want the content to conform.
  
  Everyone else wants the content to look and feel a certain way, and just select a tool out of the toolbox to make it so.
  
  I think movies should be in PDF, too! One frame per page, that way everyone can see them without having to download a different tool!
  
  It's not about the glass, it's about the water.
  
  Parent
available via project gutenberg (Score:5, Informative)

by rillopy (650792) on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:57AM (#13746222)

The complete notebooks have been available from project gutenberg for a year and a half (without the pictures) at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5000 [gutenberg.org] It's also been on the top 100 list for a long time.
If he was supposed to be so smart (Score:3, Funny)

by Mr. Neutron (3115) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:05AM (#13746241) Homepage Journal

how come he didn't write in English?
What about Paul? (Score:5, Funny)

by writermike (57327) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:10AM (#13746254)

Why is "Paul is dead" written backwards on page three?

Does anyone know? [[shrugs]]
Notation in margin... (Score:5, Funny)

by TFGeditor (737839) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:17AM (#13746272) Homepage

...that Mona Lisa is such a bitch!
In fascist italy... (Score:5, Funny)

by cached (801963) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:27AM (#13746294)

in Italia fascista, i taccuini li pubblicano
Awesome! (Score:4, Funny)

by Dirtside (91468) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:43AM (#13746349) Journal

I hope there's something in there about the making of Titanic. I loved that movie.
what about the Necronomicon ? (Score:3, Funny)

by tyroneking (258793) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:56AM (#13746406)

I can't wait until that comes on-line; I'm booking my trip to the Arctic right now...
Da Vinci's Notebook (Score:4, Funny)

by Mr2001 (90979) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:58AM (#13746411) Homepage Journal

Most people remember Leonardo Da Vinci for his paintings and inventions, but did you know Da Vinci's Notebook also has history's first recorded biography of The Sneak [homestarrunner.com]?
Important draft work (Score:5, Funny)

by hotspotbloc (767418) on Saturday October 08 2005, @09:59AM (#13746420) Homepage Journal

It's amazing that atleast one of his earlier drafts [nyud.net] of his work at the Sistine Chapel [vatican.va] survived.
Let us give thanks to the FSM [wikipedia.org] for this miracle.
- Re:Important draft work (Score:4, Funny)
  
  by dedioste (797427) on Saturday October 08 2005, @11:35AM (#13746774) Homepage
  
  "It's amazing that at least one of his earlier drafts of his work at the Sistine Chapel survived."
  
  It's even more amazing when you think that Michelangelo did the Decorations of the Sistine Chapel!
  
  Parent
  - Re:Important draft work (Score:2)
    
    by UserGoogol (623581)
    
    Yeah, they originally hired Leonardo, but then the Church wouldn't let him paint it because apparently the Flying Spaghetti Monster contradicts some bits of the Catholic dogma.
    
    Damned heathens.
Major Boost to Conspiracy Theorists (Score:2)

by donnacha (161610)

One aspect of the notebooks sure to excite conspiracy theorists is the fact that 87% of the illustrations of Jesus' penis and Mary Magdelene's vagina.
www.bl.uk (Score:3, Interesting)

by rkww (675767) on Saturday October 08 2005, @12:27PM (#13746980)

Notice how they've got a whole second level domain to themselves - not www.bl.co.uk or www.bl.gov.uk, just www.bl.uk.
The other notebook (Score:3, Funny)

by Naomi_the_butterfly (707218) on Saturday October 08 2005, @12:32PM (#13746994)

I prefer the other Da Vinci's Notebook [tperkins.com]... (Get the MP3 here [tperkins.com]).
Is it mirrored? (Score:3, Funny)

by NaveNosnave (670012) on Saturday October 08 2005, @01:02PM (#13747098)

Ha ha! Get it? Da Vinci...handwriting...mirrored [fineartforum.org]? Ah ha ha! I kill myself!
- Re:Shockwave (Score:3, Insightful)
  
  by imsabbel (611519)
  
  Well, if they were available as pfds, they werent accessible at all for anybody besides schoolars that are intimate in his language and calligraphy.
  
  The explaining texts and voiceovers are the real meat of this thing.
- Re:Shockwave (Score:2)
  
  by mikael (484)
  
  If you visit the website, you can see they wanted to add various animation effects, including flicking to the previous and next pages, and having the paper around the wooden handles of a scroll appear to increase and decrease in diameter as the user moves through the document.
- Re:MY NOTEBOOK SAYS: (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 08 2005, @08:54AM (#13746213)
  
  Ok, show of hands:
  
  Who thinks Slashdot need to give a breathalyzer test to users before they let you press the Submit button?
  
  Parent
- Re:Great.. Shockwave.. Grrr (Score:2)
  
  by PornMaster (749461)
  
  Why do you feel the need to announce this?
  
  You're a proud rebel?
  
  Plenty of people had already mentioned that it was Shockwave. And I'm sure that the reason that you can't view Shockwave is one of choice...

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Leonardo Da Vinci's Personal Notebook

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Backward handwriting (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Backward handwriting (Score:4, Informative)

Fantastic! Now if I only... (Score:2)

Re:Backward handwriting (Score:3, Funny)

you know why? (Score:4, Interesting)

Re:you know why? (Score:3, Interesting)

Clues! (Score:5, Funny)

i'm sure... (Score:5, Funny)

Re:i'm sure... (Score:2)

Sure, but... (Score:4, Funny)

Re:i'm sure... (Score:5, Funny)

British surgeon cracks da Vinci code (Score:4, Interesting)

Re:British surgeon cracks da Vinci code (Score:2)

At last (Score:5, Funny)

Needs Shockwave (Score:4, Informative)

Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:5, Informative)

Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:3, Interesting)

Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:2)

Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:3, Insightful)

Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:2)

Re:Needs Shockwave (Score:3, Informative)

This is why... (Score:2, Informative)

Great, but only the beginning.... (Score:3, Insightful)

Re:Great, but only the beginning.... (Score:2, Informative)

Re:Great, but only the beginning.... (Score:2)

Not the only treasure (Score:5, Interesting)

Messy handwriting (Score:2)

A design document without use cases ? (Score:2, Funny)

pdf (Score:2)

Re:pdf (Score:3, Funny)

Re:pdf (Score:4, Insightful)

available via project gutenberg (Score:5, Informative)

If he was supposed to be so smart (Score:3, Funny)

What about Paul? (Score:5, Funny)

Notation in margin... (Score:5, Funny)

In fascist italy... (Score:5, Funny)

Awesome! (Score:4, Funny)

what about the Necronomicon ? (Score:3, Funny)

Da Vinci's Notebook (Score:4, Funny)

Important draft work (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Important draft work (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Important draft work (Score:2)

Major Boost to Conspiracy Theorists (Score:2)

www.bl.uk (Score:3, Interesting)

The other notebook (Score:3, Funny)

Is it mirrored? (Score:3, Funny)

Re:Shockwave (Score:3, Insightful)

Re:Shockwave (Score:2)

Re:MY NOTEBOOK SAYS: (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Great.. Shockwave.. Grrr (Score:2)

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