Leonardo's major manuscripts brought together for the first time on a single free-access digital platform

The Museo Galileo in Florence, in partnership with the Biblioteca Leonardiana in Vinci, has launched Leonardo Thek@, a free digital platform reuniting for the first time the two major collections of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts—the 550 sheets from the Royal Collection at Windsor and the 1,200 sheets of the Codex Atlanticus from the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. After over 400 years of dispersion following Leonardo's death in 1519, the platform brings together approximately 3,500 digitized pages, including 50 reconstructed pages whose fragments had been split between Italy and the United Kingdom since the 16th century.

This initiative matters because it offers unprecedented access to Leonardo's interdisciplinary thinking—connecting scientific notes, technical studies, anatomical drawings, and artistic reflections—allowing scholars and the public to trace his creative and intellectual processes. Co-funded by Italian ministries, the project also champions a model of digital dissemination controlled by heritage institutions, prioritizing open access and scientific depth over commercial platforms, embodying a humanistic approach to cultural heritage in the digital age.