LEONARDO da VINCI'S BICYCLEThe Real Facts:
- Between 1966 and 1969, the monks of the "Laboratorio di Restauro" of the Abbey of Grottaferrata, near Rome, were entrusted with the restoration of the Codex Atlanticus of Leonardo da Vinci. A binding contract was drawn up between the then Prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan, Monsignor Paredi, and the Director of the "Laboratorio di Restauro" of Grottaferrata, Padre Daniele Barbiellini, which contract is still preserved in the archives. The fundamental clause of this contract was that absolutely no person was to be admitted to see the folios of the Codex during the years of the restoration, and this strict clause was always rigorously observed.
- During the process of the restoration, the monks separated two sheets that a sixteenth-century conservator, Pompeo Leoni, had folded in half and glued together when he joined about 1300 of Leonardo's sheets and fragments to form the single codex now referred to as the Codex Atlanticus. The separation of these two sheets revealed some scurrilous scribbles and the rough sketch of a vehicle resembling a bicycle. It is certain that these drawings were not made by Leonardo, but probably by pupils of Leonardo's "bottega," the bicycle sketch apparently a bad reproduction made in brown crayon of an original by Leonardo himself, since lost.
- Professor Marinoni, who was entrusted by the Commissione Vinciana of Rome with the transcription of the Codex Atlanticus for the National Edition of Leonardo's Manuscripts and Drawings, received from the publisher, the Casa Editrice Giunti of Florence, a photograph of each sheet of the restored Codex, taken after the codex had been returned to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, and it was on these photographs that he based his diplomatic and critical transcriptions. The Codex has always been guarded in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana with exceptional safety measures. The scurrilous scribbles and the sketch of the "bicycle," which had remained invisible for about four hundred years, were in the photograph numbered folio 133v.
- Professor Marinoni dated the sketch circa 1493, the same date as that written by Leonardo on the front page of Codex Madrid I. On folio 10r of that codex there is a sketch drawn by Leonardo showing a chain with cubic teeth, the same cubic teeth that can be seen in the rough sketch of folio 133v of the Codex Atlanticus. Marinoni's opinion was shared by other scholars (e.g., Professor Baud of the University of Strasbourg and Professor James McGurn of York), and although many others remained skeptical, "the vigorous skepticism of the critics has failed to undermine any of the evidence for authenticity set out by Prof. Augusto Marinoni, the leading Da Vinci scholar."