500 Years Ago, Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook Was Cut Up and Separated. Now, the Inventor’s Manuscripts and Drawings Are Reconstructed in an Online Archive

A new tool developed by Museo Galileo researchers has restored 50 pages from fragments excised centuries ago

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

June 9, 2026 10:35 p.m.

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Nearly 2,000 sheets of Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts and drawings have been reconstructed in a new online archive, marking the first time since the late 16th century that this set of works from the man considered one of history’s most famous inventors can be read in full and in order.

The digitization effort, called “Leonardotheka 2.0,” was led by researchers at the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy, in partnership with England’s Royal Collection Trust, Milan’s Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana and the Biblioteca Leonardiana in Vinci, Tuscany. Different parts of Leonardo’s writings had been separated—sometimes cut mid-page—centuries ago, and spread across institutions.

Using the Leonardotheka 2.0 tool—which matches page materials, properties, watermarks and dimensions from digitized, separated documents—researchers were able to reconstruct 50 unique pages from Leonardo’s dismembered trove. Some of the more noteworthy pages made whole again include a drawing of a horse paired with a sketch of a warlike soldier and mechanical pulleys. Scholars believe this may have been Leonardo’s final sketch for an ambitious project that never came to fruition: the Francesco Sforza equestrian monument, also known as “Leonardo’s Horse.”

Another reunites the design for a needle-making machine with a piece that had been cut from it. On the backside of this snipped-out design, two writhing dragons had been drawn.

“Leonardotheka 2.0 offers scholars worldwide unprecedented opportunities to explore the vast and invaluable wealth of information contained within Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts,” Paolo Galluzzi, former director of Museo Galileo and the creator of Leonardotheka, says in a statement, per the Independent’s Jenny Garnsworthy. “This innovative tool marks the beginning of a new and highly promising era of research into the artistic, scientific, and literary legacy of the genius of Vinci.”

Over the last decades of his life, Leonardo kept his ever-expanding collection of inventions and engineering projects—including designs for his famed flying machine, harpsichord-viola, Archimedean screw and perpetual wheel—in one large folio. But after he died in 1519, this singular work was split thematically: one section dedicated to technical science, and one to theoretical art. The culprit? Pompeo Leoni, an Italian sculptor.

Later, Leoni’s son-in-law sold the larger science collection to Count Galeazzo Arconati, who donated it to the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1637. It became known as the Codex Atlanticus. The other collection of the more artsy works ended up in England’s Royal Collection around 1670, likely as a gift to King Charles II.

Now, the Leonardotheka project, which began in 2017, digitally corrects what the Museo Galileo calls Leoni’s “disastrous intervention.”

“The model for Leonardotheka sets a compelling precedent for how cultural institutions can and must retain intellectual ownership of their digital endeavours, resisting the temptation to delegate such responsibilities to commercial platforms,” Roberto Ferrari, the executive director of Museo Galileo, says in a statement, ArtForum reports. “In an age of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence, this project reminds us that the true value of digital humanities lies in the willingness of scholarly institutions to assume direct responsibility for shaping the tools through which our shared heritage is explored and understood.”

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Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.