Codex Arundel notebook – Geometry

In 1496 Leonardo da Vinci met the Franciscan monk and academic Luca Pacioli, under whom he studied mathematics. Leonardo subsequently provided a set of drawings for Pacioli's book on mathematical and artistic proportion, published under the title De Divina Proportione in 1509.

On this pair of pages Leonardo turns his attention to the problems of stereometry (the geometry of volumes) as he attempts to calculate the volume of pyramidal and regular solids. In doing so he displays the training he received from Pacioli in geometry based on the principles set out by the mathematician Euclid (born around 300 BC).

The Codex Arundel is a collection of papers written in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci in his characteristic left-handed mirror-writing (reading from right to left), including diagrams, drawings and brief texts, covering a broad range of topics in 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', a collection he began in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli in Florence, in 1508.

To this notebook has subsequently been added a number of other loose papers containing writing and diagrams produced by Leonardo throughout his career. It includes notes for a book on the physical properties and geographical effects of water, and a broad range of other material encompassing Leonardo’s interests in art, science and technology over a period of four decades, from c. 1478 to about 1517/1518.