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The Leonardo Library at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America is the only comprehensive collection of its kind in North America, providing visitors, students, educators, researchers, and lifelong learners unprecedented access to the known works of one of history's greatest minds.
More than five centuries after his death, Leonardo da Vinci continues to inspire the world through his extraordinary notebooks, sketches, observations, inventions, scientific studies, and artistic explorations. Yet few people realize that Leonardo's original manuscripts are not housed in a single location. Over the centuries, his notebooks were separated, sold, inherited, dispersed, and collected by private owners, libraries, and museums across Europe and beyond.
Today, Leonardo's surviving works are scattered among some of the world's most prestigious institutions, including collections in Italy, France, England, Spain, and the United States. Other pages remain in private collections, making it nearly impossible for scholars—or the public—to experience the full scope of Leonardo's genius in one place.
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Through a remarkable publishing effort led by Giunti Editore of Florence, Italy, Leonardo's surviving manuscripts have been meticulously documented, photographed, and reproduced as high-resolution facsimiles. These extraordinary volumes reunite Leonardo's dispersed writings and drawings, allowing readers to study his work as never before.
The Leonardo Library houses this comprehensive collection, bringing together thousands of pages from Leonardo's known notebooks, codices, sketches, and manuscripts. Visitors can explore his studies of anatomy, engineering, flight, architecture, mathematics, hydrodynamics, botany, military inventions, optics, and art—often seeing his original notes, sketches, and observations exactly as he recorded them more than 500 years ago.
Throughout the museum galleries, visitors will encounter select pages and reproductions from Leonardo's notebooks displayed as part of the exhibition experience. These featured works offer a glimpse into the extraordinary breadth of Leonardo's interests and achievements.
Beyond the exhibition, however, lies something even more remarkable.
The museum's complete Leonardo Library collection is available for scholarly study by appointment. Researchers, educators, students, artists, engineers, historians, and dedicated enthusiasts may request access to explore the extensive collection of facsimiles and reference materials in greater depth. This unique resource transforms the museum from an exhibition space into a center for research, discovery, and lifelong learning.
Leonardo left behind an estimated 7,000 pages of surviving notes and drawings, representing only a portion of what scholars believe he originally created. These pages reveal a mind constantly questioning, experimenting, observing, and imagining.
Within the Leonardo Library, visitors and researchers can explore facsimiles of many of Leonardo's most important codices and manuscripts, including studies that formed the foundation for inventions, artistic masterpieces, scientific discoveries, and engineering concepts centuries ahead of their time.
Unlike traditional museum collections that display only a handful of pages behind glass, the Leonardo Library offers access to an expansive body of work that allows scholars and enthusiasts to trace the evolution of Leonardo's ideas across decades of exploration and discovery.
The Leonardo Library is more than a collection—it is a center for learning, research, and inspiration.
Whether you are researching Renaissance history, studying innovation and design, exploring artistic process, or simply seeking a deeper understanding of Leonardo's genius, the library provides a rare opportunity to engage directly with the breadth of his surviving works.
By bringing together the most comprehensive Leonardo da Vinci library in North America, the museum offers an educational and scholarly resource found nowhere else on the continent.
The Leonardo Library was made possible through the generosity and vision of the Clark Family, whose support helped establish this extraordinary resource for the museum and the community.
Their commitment to education, scholarship, and lifelong learning has enabled the preservation and accessibility of one of the most comprehensive collections of Leonardo da Vinci's works available in North America. Through their generosity, future generations of students, educators, researchers, and curious minds will have the opportunity to study, explore, and be inspired by Leonardo's enduring legacy.
We are proud to recognize the Clark Family for their leadership and investment in creating a lasting center for discovery, learning, and innovation.
Leonardo da Vinci believed that learning never ends. His notebooks reveal a lifelong pursuit of knowledge driven by observation, experimentation, imagination, and wonder.
The Leonardo Library honors that legacy by making his ideas accessible to future generations and inviting visitors to do what Leonardo himself did best: ask questions, explore boldly, and never stop learning.
Our STEAM workshops inspire young learners to think creatively, solve problems, and explore new ideas through hands-on experiences that make learning exciting.
