Smithsonian Institution Libraries, via Associated Press A page from the notebook.WASHINGTON â€" Four centuries before Orville and Wilbur Wright pioneered human flight, Leonardo da Vinci was studying the flight patterns of birds, drawing his observations in a notebook along with descriptions of how humans could learn to fly. The notebook will come to the United States next month at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
The museum announced Thursday that it would display Leonardo’s “Codex on the Flight of Birds†from Sept. 13 through Oct. 22.
The codex, from about 1505, contains 18 pages of Leonardo’s study of birds and his descriptions of how humans could one day take flight. In it, Leonardo “explores aerodynamics, recognized the need for control, stated the importance of lightweight structures and even hinted at the force Newton would later define as gravity,†Peter Jakab, chief curator of the Air and Space Museum, said in a video.
“Centuries before any real progress toward a practical flying machine was achieved, Leonardo expressed the seeds of the ideas that would lead to humans spreading their wings,†he said.
The document will be shown near the Wright brothers’ 1903 Flyer. Digital interactive stations will allow visitors to browse its pages.
The notebook has been shown in the United States once before, at the Birmingham Museum of Art in 2008. The Smithsonian has the Codex on loan from the Royal Library of Turin as part of the Year of Italian Culture in the United States.
Smithsonian Institution Libraries, via Associated Press A page from a notebook of Leonardo da Vinci’s that will be displayed at the Smithsonian.