Santini Codex returns to Ducal Palace of Urbino

The Santini Codex, a 15th century illustrated manuscript of machines, has been acquired by the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche and has returned to its first home, the Ducal Palace in Urbino. It is the only manuscript from the collection first amassed by the great Renaissance humanist and military leader Federico III da Montefeltro (1422-1482) to escape the looting of the library by Pope Alexander VII in 1657, the codex was welcomed back last week by the librarians of the Ducal Palace.

The manuscript has 136 pages of drawings and diagrams of military and civilian machines:

• 51 winches, cranes, column lifts, pile drivers

• 29 hydraulic pumps, mills, wells, fountains, siphons

• 23 siege and defense machines, including battering rams, catapults, movable bridges, amphibian vehicles

• 11 transport and work carts

• 9 vessels and systems for crossing waterways, including ships and moveable bridges

• 7 tools and utensils, including pliers and drills

• 4 trusses, brackets, wooden grafts

• 2 detection systems for tunnel excavations

• 1 alarm clock

The pages are made of high-quality, thick parchment with marked color differences between the flesh side and the hair side of the page. It is the only machine codex of the period that still retains its original leather binding. The quality of the craftsmanship, parchment and binding are so high that it’s likely the book was a custom creation commissioned for the ducal library, or a very expensive gift.

Its author and date have long been subject of scholarly debate. It was certainly made by someone in the circle of machine engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501) in the late 1400s or early 1500s. Thirty of the designs are copied from Martini’s Opusculum de architectura (ca. 1475), a watershed of Renaissance engineering that the author dedicated to his patron, Duke Federico da Montefeltro.

The Santini Codex entered the collection of the dukes of Urbino after 1498 and last appears listed on the inventory of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere dukes in 1632. However, in that 1632 inventory, the word “manca” (“missing”) is written next to the Santini Codex entry, which suggests the list was copied from an earlier iteration and that in 1632, the librarian checking the inventory had been unable to find the volume. How it disappeared and where it went is unknown, but it didn’t go far. The Codex was passed down by in the noble families of Pesaro and Urbino for generations until in 2024, the owners, scions of the De Pretis family of Urbino, decided to sell it.

It went under the hammer in Milan on February 27, 2024, with a hefty presale estimate of €380,000 – 450,000 ($398,000-472,000). The Ministry of Culture funded the museum’s winning bid.