Such was the size and scope of Da Vinci's mammoth library that the exhibition's curators could include only a fraction of the artist's books, writes Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor
What books might the library of a genius contain? Would it be volumes on the latest discoveries in science or on the great philosophers? Would there be copies of the latest medical texts or manuals on surgical techniques?
In the case of Leonardo da Vinci it was all of the above. He was a man of limited formal education yet he had the financial resources to stock an extensive personal library that contained a large proportion of the then world's accumulated knowledge.
The library provided Leonardo with a powerful resource with which to pursue his studies of water, light, anatomy, engineering, science and of course the arts. But what would this resource have included?
This is the premise behind the wonderful collection of manuscripts assembled by the Chester Beatty Library as an accompaniment to its display of the Codex Leicester. "We wanted to recreate a taste of Leonardo's library," says library director and lead curator Dr Michael Ryan.
With this in mind he and colleagues scoured the library's own shelves and the catalogues of other libraries for books that Leonardo might have known and used as reference and source material. "There was no way we could include all of the known books held in Leonardo's library," says Ryan. "There just wouldn't have been space."
The catalogue for this exhibition therefore includes 43 unique and beautiful texts. Included are ancient manuscripts dating back to the year 1000. Many are hand written by scribes, while others are printed by the Chinese more than 1,000 years ago, long before Gutenberg developed moveable type in Europe.
The object was to place the Codex in its time and among other learned publications of its day, says Ryan. "We wanted to set a context for Leonardo and his knowledge, hence we have a number of books arising just after his lifetime."
For example, there is a book printed not long after Leonardo's death by the famous George Bower, the German scholar and scientist considered the "father of mineralogy" who styled himself George Agricola. Printed in Basel in 1556, the text includes subject matter and ideas that Leonardo had raised but not published.
There is an intriguing student notebook, handwritten in France from 1500 and originally the property of a Parisian Capuchin friar. Added to over the following century, it includes notes on metaphysics and medicine but also features a carefully constructed astrologer's wheel, prepared in the days when the subject was still a science.
There are other French texts including one by military engineer Robertus Valturius, printed in 1532. It includes information about the preparation of siege machines, mortars, battering rams and adjustable canon. It would have been a subject close to Leonardo's heart, given he was involved in the business. "He passed himself off as a military engineer," and would have been a regular reader of such texts, explains Ryan.
There are also many astonishing and beautifully illuminated Arabic manuscripts that collectively demonstrate the depth and breadth of Arab learning between the 10th and 13th centuries, a time when much of Europe was floundering through the dark ages.
There was a circulation of knowledge between the two worlds of western Europe and the Middle East, explains Ryan, much of it channelled through Moorish Spain. European science, medicine and philosophy merged with Jewish and Arabic ideas and after further development during a glorious period of Middle Eastern learning returned to Europe to fuel the emerging Renaissance.
The Arabic texts were chosen for a clear purpose, says Ryan. "We wanted to show the debt that scientists in the West owed to Arab scientists. Many of the developments seen during the Renaissance were gathering force earlier in medieval times."
For example there is a remarkable encyclopedia of medicine prepared by Ibn Sina dated to 1267. Beautifully handwritten in Arabic script, it was considered one of the most comprehensive texts of its kind. Ibn Sina was widely used in translation and was quoted in the West in later years where the manuscript became known as "the Canon".