NAPLES.- For the first time in history, Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated Codex Atlanticus has arrived in Naples, where it is now on view inside one of the city’s most atmospheric sites: the Majolica Cloister of the Monumental Complex of Santa Chiara. The exhibition opened on December 6, 2025, and will continue through June 7, 2026, presenting six original drawings from the Codex in rotation—three at a time. The project is the result of a collaboration between the Santa Chiara Complex, the Neapolitan Province of the Sacred Heart of Jesus OFM, Arthemisia, and the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
The Codex’s arrival marks a major cultural milestone for Naples. Although Leonardo’s name is universally known and his masterpieces have shaped global visual culture, opportunities to view his scientific and mechanical drawings up close remain extremely rare. The Codex Atlanticus, the largest surviving collection of Leonardo’s writings and sketches, spans more than forty years of activity. It includes 1,119 sheets produced between 1478 and 1519, touching on nearly every field that fascinated the artist–inventor: anatomy, hydraulics, engineering, geometry, architecture, mechanics, botany, and natural observation.
The collection takes its name from the unusually large size of its sheets, reminiscent of the atlases used in early modern geography. Yet its structure is anything but a traditional book. The Codex was assembled in the late 16th century by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who gathered pages that had been dispersed following Leonardo’s death. While Leoni’s intervention preserved the material for future generations, it also broke the original continuity of the notes. Today, scholars view the Codex less as a unified manuscript and more as a living laboratory of thought—a vast archive capturing Leonardo’s mind in motion.
In Naples, under the scientific curatorship of Monsignor Alberto Rocca, Director of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the sheets are presented in two successive rotations. The first group—sheets 518v, 239r, and 816r—opened the exhibition in December. A second rotation, featuring sheets 142, 281, and 1775, will take over from March through June. Together, these works offer visitors an intimate encounter with the heart of Leonardo’s research, demonstrating how seamlessly he moved between artistic creation and scientific investigation.
Visitors walking through Santa Chiara’s cloister now find themselves face to face with examples of Leonardo’s mirror writing, the energetic strokes of his rapid sketches, and diagrams that merge geometry, mechanics, and observation. Sheet 518v, for instance, explores the deep structural relationships between shapes such as cones, spheres, and cylinders. Sheet 239r presents geometric calculations alongside faint workshop sketches, evidence of the lively environment in which Leonardo and his assistants worked. Sheet 816r, long debated by historians, brings together studies of light penetrating clouds, mechanical balance, and personal notes added later by Leonardo’s pupil, Francesco Melzi.
To help decode these dense and intricate pages, the exhibition incorporates multimedia displays, enlargements, and transcriptions, making the material accessible to visitors while preserving the contemplative atmosphere essential to the drawings. The setting—the Majolica Cloister, rebuilt after wartime destruction—heightens the effect. With its 18th-century polychrome tiles and tranquil arcades, the cloister creates a rare sense of dialogue between Renaissance inquiry and Neapolitan history.
Now that the exhibition has opened, Naples has gained not only a major cultural event but also a fresh perspective on Leonardo. Instead of merely contemplating The Last Supper or The Mona Lisa, visitors are invited to follow the pathways of Leonardo’s thought: how he observed rivers to understand motion, how he sketched birds to imagine flying machines, how he examined the human body to advance both science and art. His notebooks reveal an intellect that feels strikingly contemporary, echoing today’s interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge.
Monsignor Rocca emphasizes that the Codex Atlanticus allows viewers to enter Leonardo’s mind, where drawing becomes an instrument of reasoning rather than mere illustration. Each page records a question, a hypothesis, or a sudden insight. Far from offering polished conclusions, the Codex reveals Leonardo’s thinking as an ongoing process—restless, searching, and boundlessly curious.
Supported by the Municipality of Naples, and organized by Arthemisia in collaboration with the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Fondo Edifici di Culto, the exhibition includes educational contributions by Costantino d’Orazio and a catalogue published by Moebius.
With the exhibition now open and drawing visitors from across Italy and beyond, Naples has become a temporary home to Leonardo’s scientific imagination. Within the cloister’s quiet walkways, the pages of the Codex Atlanticus invite viewers not simply to learn about Leonardo but to think with him. The exhibition serves as a reminder that for this unparalleled Renaissance thinker, knowledge was never a final destination but an endless journey—one that continues to inspire today.
