Comments on: Don't mention the Code

Don't mention the Code

verstegan — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 12:19:24 -0800

Leonardo comes to life. A stunning collection of short animations based on Leonardo da Vinci's sketchbooks. Watch a man running, a human heart beating, a tank moving, a bird flying, or a geometrical model rotating. Then visit the Universal Leonardo website to find out more about the man himself.

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 12:33:12 -0800

Wow, what a great find!

By: quin

quin — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 12:46:37 -0800

It's painfully slow, but seems to be exceptionally well done. It would seem I will be doing some expectant waiting today. Thanks verstegan.

By: gwint

gwint — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:17:41 -0800

Years ago, Corbis put out a CD-ROM of da Vinci's notebooks and it included a lot of "multimedia" elements, one of which was Don Barnett's animations based on Da Vinci (see links in the middle of the page.)

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:20:17 -0800

Thanks for this, beautiful site and fabulous animations.

By: taosbat

taosbat — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:30:24 -0800

Thanks, verstegan! Very cool! I don't find it "painfully slow;" although some were a little slow, most of the animations have been working smoothly for me. Back to watching...thanks again.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:51:08 -0800

When I was a wee bairn in art school, our animation teacher told us, "Of course the ultimate Holy Grail is to produce a full-motion animation in the manner of Old Master drawings -- but of course that [in 1971] would be impossible -- ha ha ha."

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:13:30 -0800

Great animations, but I can't resist linking this interesting criticism of the historical view of Leonardo as inventor: Leonardo the visionary inventor? More sci-fi doodler, says Waldemar Januszczak.

By: owhydididoit

owhydididoit — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:15:51 -0800

Those are beautiful! Thank you!

By: ernie

ernie — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:53:50 -0800

Excellent! In the tank animation, its interesting to note that the first animated movement is sliding the rear drive pinion back to make the wheels turn in the same direction. Scholars have argued whether this error was intentionally drawn this way to thwart dim-witted builders or was an oversight in Leonardo's part.

By: Mr Stickfigure

Mr Stickfigure — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:22:36 -0800

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. One page a day via RSS.

By: dhruva

dhruva — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:41:20 -0800

Metamonkey: thanks for the link. I always thought that Leonardo was a time traveller stranded on the earth and desperately trying to recreate his world from memory of how the machines looked :)

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:45:38 -0800

Great post, thanks.

By: infini

infini — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:27:39 -0800

And all his machines animated and brought to life. The interactive Codex Atlanticus - digital working models of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions [via]

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 06:57:19 -0800

Terrific—thanks!