For a limited time, visitors to the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in Raleigh will be able to view rare documents, drawings, and notes from Leonardo da Vinci.
The exhibit, titled “Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester and the Creative Mind,” features da Vinci’s Codex Leicester–his 500 year old manuscript containing handwritten notes written in mirrored format.
From the NCMA website:
Together with the rough sketches and drawings accompanying them, the notes reveal Leonardo’s relentless intellectual curiosity, offering a glimpse into one of the greatest minds in history.
The central theme of the work is water, but this quickly expands into astronomy (because he believed that the moon’s surface was covered in water), light and shade, and mechanics, as he investigates aspects of impetus, percussion, and wave action in the movement of water. Along the way Leonardo makes observations on such diverse subjects as why the sky appears blue, the journey of a bubble rising through water, why fossilized seashells are found on mountaintops, and the nature of celestial light. The Codex is the only one of Leonardo’s manuscripts in North America.
Entry to Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester requires security screening. Visitors to the exhibition must pass through a metal detector before entering the gallery. Liquids, lotions, food, pens, markers, and weapons are not permitted inside the exhibition. Other items will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the NCMA’s security team.
The exhibit is only open until this Friday, January 17th and adult tickets are $18 ($15 for seniors, $12 for youth). For more information visit the NCMA website.