Works Decoding Leonardo Da Vinci for the world
Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Decoding Leonardo Da Vinci for the world

Client benefit

Public education - Access to renowned artistic heritage

Project objective

Celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death by opening up one of his most famous collections of drawings and writings for the world to see — through a digital interactive visualization.

Project results

Since its launch, the site has collected more than 150,000 unique visits and has received 7 international, prestigious awards like the Webby Award and the Information is Beautiful Award and many others.

Project background

For the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death, the agency pioneered a data visualization initiative to make his Codex Atlanticus digital. Internationally awarded, this website opens up this artistic heritage to the world. The public can browse through and explore the entire content of the Codex page by page.

This project has been created in collaboration with the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, which holds and preserves the original masterpiece. For researchers and scholars, the detailed visual cataloging of this collection offers a unique approach to intersecting cultural heritage with digital tools to open new ways to study and experience this collection of texts and drawings – uncovering Leonardo da Vinci's thought evolution through data-visualization.

«This application designed by The Visual Agency has enabled us to shed light onto previously hidden connections between Leonardo’s life and work.»

Francesco Braschi - Doctor of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Explore the project

This cataloging of the Codex Atlanticus is unique and will open new ways to study this collection of texts and drawings combined with a sophisticated design and data-visualization approach.

Since its launch, the site has collected more than 150,000 unique visits and has received international prestigious awards like the Webby Award, the Information is Beautiful Award and many others.

Above: Sala Federiciana — original reading room of the Ambrosiana Library — where a selection of pages of the Codex Atlanticus and the touch-screen with the application are displayed.

The Process


This project started with the collaboration of the public library and keeper of the Codex Atlanticus, the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

Provided with exclusive access to the collection, The Visual Agency carefully curated all the elements of this project, from the creation of the database through to the design and development of the application itself.

Overview of The Codex Atlanticus project

The page module


The indicators for the page number (rhombus and continuous line) and the year of writing (circle and dashed line) are positioned horizontally along the width of the page to offer a linear timeline of works and pages.

The bars that represent each subject are proportional in size to the frequency with which topics occur on each page.

A thousand pages in 40 years


Philological studies have identified the year of writing of every page. The graph shows the number of pages produced each year, from 1478 to 1519.

See how the touchscreen works:

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