Santini Codex returns to Urbino’s Ducal Palace –

Santini Codex is a 15th-century machine illustration manuscript that has been acquired by Galleria Nazionale Delle Marche and returns to its first home, Ducal Palace in Urbino. This is the only manuscript first collected by the great Renaissance humanist and military leader Federico III DA Montefeltro (1422-1482), escaped the library of Pope Alexander VII in 1657, and the Codex was welcomed last week. Librarians at Duke Palace.

The manuscript has 136 pages of military and civilian machine drawings:

• 51 winches, cranes, column lifts, stack drives
• 29 hydraulic pump, mill, well, fountain, siphon
• 23 siege and defense aircraft, including batting rams, catapults, movable bridges, amphibians
• 11 Transportation and Work Vehicles
• 9 vessels and systems that cross the waterway, including vessels and movable bridges
• 7 tools and utensils, including pliers and walkthroughs
• 4 trusses, brackets, wood grafting
• 2. Tunnel excavation detection system
• 1 alarm clock

These pages are made of high-quality, thick parchment paper with a noticeable color difference between the meat side and the hair side of the page. It was the only machine code of the period that still retained its original leather binding. The quality of craftsmanship, parchment and binding is so high that the book may be a custom creation commissioned for the Duca Library, or a very expensive gift.

Its author and date have long been the subject of academic debate. Of course, it was in the circle of Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501), a machine engineer in the late 1400s or early 1500s. Thirty pictures of the design were reproduced from the Opusculum de Architectura of Martini (c. 1475), a watershed in the author’s commitment to Renaissance engineering by his patron Federico da Montefeltro.

After 1498, the Santini Codex listed the Duke of Urbino in 1632 on the list of Montefeltro and Della Rovere Dukes ( Dukes of Urbino) collection. However, in the inventory of 1632, the next inventory was the term “Manca” (“lost”). To the Santini codex entry, the entry indicates that the list was copied from an earlier iteration, and in 1632 the librarian checked the inventory that had been unable to find the volume. How it disappeared and where it went, but it didn’t go far. The code has been passed down for generations among the noble families of Pesaro and Urbino until 2024 when the owners of the De Pretis family decided to sell it.

It was conducted under the hammer in Milan on 27 February 2024 and is estimated at €380,000 – €450,000 ($398,000-472,000). The Ministry of Culture sponsored the museum’s winning bid.