Codex Arundel notebook – Building Stability

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) produced many designs for churches, secular buildings and fortresses and his notebooks are filled with his writings on the theory of architecture. This double page exemplifies Leonardo's interest in structural problems.

Half way down the left-hand page he poses the question, 'What is the law by which buildings have stability' and responds: 'The walls must be all built up equally, and by degrees, to equal heights all around the building, and the whole thickness at once, whatever kind of walls they may be.' On the right-hand page da Vinci draws on his knowledge of mechanics to explain why fissures occur in arches and walls.

The Codex Arundel is a notebook written in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci often wrote his notes using a mirror and the script in this manuscript is characteristic of his left-handed mirror-writing (reading from right to left). The notebook includes diagrams, drawings and brief texts covering a broad range of topics from science and art, as well as personal notes.

The core of the notebook is a collection of materials that Leonardo describes as 'a collection without order, drawn from many papers, which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later each in its place according to the subjects of which they treat'. He began writing this collection of notes in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli in Florence in 1508.

Other loose papers containing notes and diagrams by da Vinci have been added to this notebook over time. They include notes for a book on the physical properties and geographical effects of water, and a broad range of other material encompassing da Vinci’s interests in art, science and technology written over a period of four decades from c. 1478 to about 1517/18.