The Codex Arundel: A Collection of Papers in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci | Hacker News Reader

The Codex Arundel: A Collection of Papers in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci

bl.uk

34 pointsHooke15 comments

I have a question for anyone who might know about this sort of thing.

I bought a book from a Manhattan auction in NY for about $100,000.

I would like to digitize the book, but there is fading from light degradation on several pages. The book is about 100 pages total and it's from the 1930s. It is typewritten and it was mimeographed to make copies.

What is the best way to go about scanning the book, and also what can be done about somehow being able to track the ink of the fading text?

AFAIK usually the original is photographed under a particular light (and with specific filters or cameras) that depends on the specific kind of ink, see:

https://activehistory.ca/2018/09/recovering-contrast-in-fade...

http://www.biblio.com/bookstore/book-gallery-mike-riley-phoe...

You're looking for a digitization archivist; this is a bit small scale though - generally collections are larger.

Now I'm super curious; what kind of book that's not even 100 years old would sell for that kind of money?

I'll reveal the answer by the end of this decade when the copyright expires. The main reason I bought it is because it's not archived and transcribed on the internet already and it was frustrating me, so it became my Holy Grail, and then I was telling someone it was my Holy Grail and looking it up to show them, and that's when I noticed it was on the market.

Is the text the original typewriting (with artifacts from type impacting the page, or stenciled to prepare for mimeo) or is it mimeographed (which I always saw using turkey-red ink)?

As soon as possible, just take photos with an iPhone. Don’t put it off.

I wasted a lot of time trying to optimize the digitization process (I collect 15th/16th c books). Just do it.

I'll tell you for $50,000

The genius of da Vinci was developing the skill as a draftsman so that if he could imagine something, represent it, and reason about it, he could bring it almost fully into being much faster than actually having to build it. That drafting skill let him iterate much faster than a domain specialist tinkerer. Teaching kids to draw must be a huge advantage.

Link is dead. This works: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.a...

Ok. Now I get it. I'm not really that impressed by da Vinci's drawings of impractical helicopters. But this.... this is far more interesting. It's not difficult at all to imagine there's a beautiful inquiring mind buried in that set of notes.

As someone who draws, his drawings are really really excellent. If you're not already quite good at drawing it's easy to miss why they're better than other drawings.

The guy invented ball bearings. That alone places him among all time great engineers because we're still using ball bearings everywhere, almost 5 centuries later. The fact that he invented hundreds of other things, many of which we're still using makes him the legend he is.

He also has very practical drawings, including a workable and economical design of a screw-cutting lathe!

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