7 ms·

Leonardo's Notebook Digitized in All Its Befuddling Glory

56 points by Lightning 14y ago

rtpg 14y ago
I really find it amazing how clean his writing is. It makes me wonder whether I shouldn't apply myself more often in my own notes...
eulo 14y ago
Link to the Manuscript. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_f001r http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_... Not sure why the article was posted instead of just this link, the article contains nothing of value really. Pretty sure OP works for theatlantic.com
nullc 14y ago
God forbid you want to save the data for personal archival or bulk digital analysis. If they allowed that you might defeat the museums careful control and curation of the data and potentially even use it in ways they don't agree with! :P
- namank 14y ago
  Isn't that the internet anyways?
- jaysonelliot 14y ago
  One of the greatest treasures of Western scholarship has been made available for the public to view at their leisure, in such stunning high resolution that you can zoom into the very grain of the paper. Absolutely anyone with a web browser can instantly access what was once available only to a select few scholars, and even then only under the least convenient of circumstances. A mere handful of years ago, the only way the average person would have even seen one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks would be in a museum display, assuming they knew of the display, had the wherewithal to visit, and the resources to get there if it wasn't in their own city. Now, the British Museum has made literally hundreds of priceless manuscripts, from da Vinci to Beowulf, available to even the most casual reader who happens to click on a link, thanks to their careful preservation, curation, and digitization, all at no cost to the viewer. What's the response? Complaining. "Yes, fine, but I wanted to _download_ it, not just see it!" Yup, this is the Internet, alright.
  - Lifescape 14y ago
    If the image viewer they chose wasn't garbage I'd be okay with only being able to browse online.
  - sgift 14y ago
    Complaining is the main source of progress. The British Museum wouldn't have done this without anyone complaining. The British Museum wouldn't even exist without anyone complaining "but we need to save all this knowledge ..." and so on. People always lament the complaining but never praise it as the source of progress it is.
  - martinwnet 14y ago
    It's a humongous, impressive step that the notebook has been digitized and made publicly available. Surely the step to be able to download is only a trivial slight further step, the flicking of a switch, that has been prevented probably just for some bureaucratic reason.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  Has anyone asked for a download? If you did it nicely you might be pleasantly surprised.
- Lifescape 14y ago
  Started poking around. Here's one chunk of one of the pages at one of the higher resolutions: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Proxy.ashx?view=arundel_ms_263_f001v_files/14/0_8.jpg http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Proxy.ashx?view=arundel_ms_263_... Looks like the format is: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Proxy.ashx?view=arundel_ms_263_<page_number>_files/<resolution_level>/<column>_<row>.jpg Pages work in this fashion: f001r, f001v, f002r, f002v, f003r, f003v, ... and ends at f283v. At resolution 14, columns range from 0 to 33 and rows range from 0 to 24. Edit: I hacked together a python script to download all images at resolution 14 https://gist.github.com/L1fescape/4761013 https://gist.github.com/L1fescape/4761013 Now to figure out how to combine them all...
  - mkl 14y ago
    Now to figure out how to combine them all... ImageMagick's montage command will probably do it: http://konrad.strack.pl/blog/image-concatenation-with-imagemagick http://konrad.strack.pl/blog/image-concatenation-with-imagem... Also tiffcp and then tiff2pdf are how I've made pdfs of such image collections in the past.
  - johansch 14y ago
    You might be able to combine the JPEGs in a lossless manner if they have neat dimensions: http://wiki.thorx.net/wiki/JPEGhack http://wiki.thorx.net/wiki/JPEGhack http://jpegclub.org/jpegtran/ http://jpegclub.org/jpegtran/
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Circumventing a technical rights protection measure? Not legal under > European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of May 22, 2001 and probably the DMCA.
    - mapt 14y ago
      It's not a technical rights protection measure, it's a standard bandwidth minimization measure used by sites like Gigapan and all slippy maps.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  Didn't Wikipedia decide similar terms were just scary legal BS and download all the high resolution images of public domain scans from another museum's website anyway? http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/uk-national-portrait.html http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/uk-national-portrait.html
namank 14y ago
This is amazing, a big thanks to that museum!! He wrote latin and that too right to left (that was drm) if that helps anyone here. Of course, it's just easier to check out the commentary on than his actual work.
sakopov 14y ago
Here is the direct link to the manuscript: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Arundel_MS_263 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Arundel_MS...
joshuaheard 14y ago
I visited the Da Vinci museum in Florence, Italy, and Da Vinci was far ahead of his time, inventing the idea of the helicopter, bicycle, parachute, machine gun, scuba, and many others. A true genius. Oh, he also painted the Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting of all time.
leoh 14y ago
So cool. It could be really fun way to learn to draw by attempting to sketch his figures.
willvarfar 14y ago
Are there any annotated versions? With the translation overlayable, in-place? Perhaps on mouse-over?
sheri 14y ago
Anyone find any interesting pages? Page f.39v has a nice drawing of what appears to be a bug?
davidw 14y ago
It'd be neat if you could reverse the pages so as to attempt to read what he'd written, even though it must be a fairly archaic form of Italian.
slavak 14y ago
Did they really place a stamp of the British Museum on every page of this priceless historical artifact? I'm not being facetious, I was honestly surprised to see that.
- ernestFlyweight 14y ago
  painful example of 'might makes right' and reminder of violent thieving origins of our 'noble' rulers
- bwooce 14y ago
  It appears so, that red stamp appears to be different every time it appears. The clueless idiot that got their stamp pad out that day is probably long retired or dead. That big black stamp on page 2 doesn't look original either though, to be fair."ex dono" = as gift.

56 points by Lightning 14y ago

rtpg 14y ago

I really find it amazing how clean his writing is. It makes me wonder whether I shouldn't apply myself more often in my own notes...

eulo 14y ago

Link to the Manuscript. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_f001r http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_... Not sure why the article was posted instead of just this link, the article contains nothing of value really. Pretty sure OP works for theatlantic.com

nullc 14y ago

God forbid you want to save the data for personal archival or bulk digital analysis. If they allowed that you might defeat the museums careful control and curation of the data and potentially even use it in ways they don't agree with! :P

namank 14y ago
Isn't that the internet anyways?
jaysonelliot 14y ago
One of the greatest treasures of Western scholarship has been made available for the public to view at their leisure, in such stunning high resolution that you can zoom into the very grain of the paper. Absolutely anyone with a web browser can instantly access what was once available only to a select few scholars, and even then only under the least convenient of circumstances. A mere handful of years ago, the only way the average person would have even seen one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks would be in a museum display, assuming they knew of the display, had the wherewithal to visit, and the resources to get there if it wasn't in their own city. Now, the British Museum has made literally hundreds of priceless manuscripts, from da Vinci to Beowulf, available to even the most casual reader who happens to click on a link, thanks to their careful preservation, curation, and digitization, all at no cost to the viewer. What's the response? Complaining. "Yes, fine, but I wanted to _download_ it, not just see it!" Yup, this is the Internet, alright.
- Lifescape 14y ago
  If the image viewer they chose wasn't garbage I'd be okay with only being able to browse online.
- sgift 14y ago
  Complaining is the main source of progress. The British Museum wouldn't have done this without anyone complaining. The British Museum wouldn't even exist without anyone complaining "but we need to save all this knowledge ..." and so on. People always lament the complaining but never praise it as the source of progress it is.
- martinwnet 14y ago
  It's a humongous, impressive step that the notebook has been digitized and made publicly available. Surely the step to be able to download is only a trivial slight further step, the flicking of a switch, that has been prevented probably just for some bureaucratic reason.
unimpressive 14y ago
Has anyone asked for a download? If you did it nicely you might be pleasantly surprised.
Lifescape 14y ago
Started poking around. Here's one chunk of one of the pages at one of the higher resolutions: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Proxy.ashx?view=arundel_ms_263_f001v_files/14/0_8.jpg http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Proxy.ashx?view=arundel_ms_263_... Looks like the format is: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Proxy.ashx?view=arundel_ms_263_<page_number>_files/<resolution_level>/<column>_<row>.jpg Pages work in this fashion: f001r, f001v, f002r, f002v, f003r, f003v, ... and ends at f283v. At resolution 14, columns range from 0 to 33 and rows range from 0 to 24. Edit: I hacked together a python script to download all images at resolution 14 https://gist.github.com/L1fescape/4761013 https://gist.github.com/L1fescape/4761013 Now to figure out how to combine them all...
- mkl 14y ago
  Now to figure out how to combine them all... ImageMagick's montage command will probably do it: http://konrad.strack.pl/blog/image-concatenation-with-imagemagick http://konrad.strack.pl/blog/image-concatenation-with-imagem... Also tiffcp and then tiff2pdf are how I've made pdfs of such image collections in the past.
- johansch 14y ago
  You might be able to combine the JPEGs in a lossless manner if they have neat dimensions: http://wiki.thorx.net/wiki/JPEGhack http://wiki.thorx.net/wiki/JPEGhack http://jpegclub.org/jpegtran/ http://jpegclub.org/jpegtran/
- DanBC 14y ago
  Circumventing a technical rights protection measure? Not legal under > European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of May 22, 2001 and probably the DMCA.
  - mapt 14y ago
    It's not a technical rights protection measure, it's a standard bandwidth minimization measure used by sites like Gigapan and all slippy maps.
ZeroGravitas 14y ago
Didn't Wikipedia decide similar terms were just scary legal BS and download all the high resolution images of public domain scans from another museum's website anyway? http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/uk-national-portrait.html http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/uk-national-portrait.html

namank 14y ago

This is amazing, a big thanks to that museum!! He wrote latin and that too right to left (that was drm) if that helps anyone here. Of course, it's just easier to check out the commentary on than his actual work.

sakopov 14y ago

Here is the direct link to the manuscript: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Arundel_MS_263 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Arundel_MS...

joshuaheard 14y ago

I visited the Da Vinci museum in Florence, Italy, and Da Vinci was far ahead of his time, inventing the idea of the helicopter, bicycle, parachute, machine gun, scuba, and many others. A true genius. Oh, he also painted the Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting of all time.

leoh 14y ago

So cool. It could be really fun way to learn to draw by attempting to sketch his figures.

willvarfar 14y ago

Are there any annotated versions? With the translation overlayable, in-place? Perhaps on mouse-over?

sheri 14y ago

Anyone find any interesting pages? Page f.39v has a nice drawing of what appears to be a bug?

davidw 14y ago

It'd be neat if you could reverse the pages so as to attempt to read what he'd written, even though it must be a fairly archaic form of Italian.

slavak 14y ago

Did they really place a stamp of the British Museum on every page of this priceless historical artifact? I'm not being facetious, I was honestly surprised to see that.

ernestFlyweight 14y ago
painful example of 'might makes right' and reminder of violent thieving origins of our 'noble' rulers
bwooce 14y ago
It appears so, that red stamp appears to be different every time it appears. The clueless idiot that got their stamp pad out that day is probably long retired or dead. That big black stamp on page 2 doesn't look original either though, to be fair."ex dono" = as gift.