Google Arts & Cultureis an online platform dedicated to serving us classic art as curated wallpapers, and giving us a look at the culture and people that defined civilizations and eras. Now, Arts & Culture has readied a platform called Inside a Genius Mind complete withits own microsite, for a guided tour of legendary polymath Leonardo da Vinci’s notes curated from 28 different institutions, collections, and museums around the world.
Leonardo da Vinci is known very well today for painting the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. However, he was also a noteworthy engineer obsessed with human flight and machines, a scientist, and an architect. He sketched and penned his ideas in several notebooks, of which 20 have been preserved to this day. Google has painstakingly collated notes and sketches from around 1,300 pages of da Vinci’s notes from 1478, when he was 26 years old, to 1519, when he died at age 67. This is the first time so much da Vinci’s work has been in one place — work which influenced eminent personalities in the subsequent years, like Michelangelo and Niccolo Machiavelli.
Google Art & Culture has split da Vinci’s workinto seven codices, with each codex tying together ideas around separate concepts. For instance, Codex Atlanticus is devoted to da Vinci’s mechanical inventions from a step counter to military weapons, all neatly illustrated in drawings. This codex alone comprises two volumes, originally assembled by Milanese sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who separated the technical drawings from artistic ones. The Codex Arundel, maintained by the British Library, contains more insight into his ordinary life.
3D models created from sketches in da Vinci’s notes
Google also collaborated on the development of an ML-powered project, also calledInside a Genius Mind. The virtual nature of this experience allows you to visualize da Vinci’s work like never before, with 3D models created from the sketches on paper. Google has also created a virtual whiteboard experience on the microsite, where you can combine sketches from the codices and use generative AI to your advantage, and visualize da Vinci’s creations.
The ML project around Leonardo da Vinci’s notes gives you a new perspective on notes from the years bygone
Inside a Genius Mind also has a Street View link, so you can check out the structures surviving from the era when da Vinci was around, like his hometown of Vinci and the Sforza Castle in Milan which he helped decorate.
