Open · Löffelholz Mystery October 2026
A bow, a dagger, a pile of loose parts and a sheath. How many objects does this page really show?
原文
In 1505, Martin Löffelholz, a Nuremberg patrician (i.e. a member of the city's ruling families) and knight, began to put together a book. Not a diary, not a family chronicle - a tool book. He drew what occupied his mind: drills with interchangeable blades. Threads and the tools to cut them. A workbench with a vise. A swivel chair on casters. A spiral staircase that can be swung out of the way. A crossbow, taken apart into its individual parts. A cradle whose rockers are filled with mercury.
Today the book is in Kraków. It has been fully digitized and is in the public domain - and yet in more than 500 years no one has ever read it in full. There is no transcription, no edition, no translation.
That is about to change.
The Codex has 154 pages. 127 of them have been reviewed, 27 not yet.
What You Will Find Here
Each of the 154 pages gets a page of its own. Depending on how far the work has come, it has:
- the facsimile in the best available resolution, to zoom in on
- a heading - what is actually shown here?
- the transcription in the original spelling, with uncertain passages marked in color
- a reading in modern English
- a suggested interpretation: what the object is, how it works, why it is remarkable
- What Stands Out Today - what strikes a person of the 21st century about this page as odd, astonishing or unexpectedly modern
- open questions and questions for craftspeople, honestly labeled as such
Popular Topics
Six pages to start with
How Reliable Is the Information on the Folio Pages?
As reliable as it says on each page - no more and no less.
Pages without a special note have been editorially reviewed: carefully checked and corrected. We go through every page thoroughly: we examine the original drawing, the published research as far as we can find it, the transcription and the AI's suggested explanation. The goal is to understand exactly what Löffelholz drew there - and how it might have worked. The engineering background of our project lead Dirk Schornstein comes in handy here. Then we rewrite the page so that it explains the picture and how the device works in steps that are as easy to follow as possible. If a function is uncertain or cannot be determined, the page says so.
Pages with the note “raw transcription” at the very top are a first draft. An AI produced the transcription and the interpretation. I have read these pages, but I have not yet checked and corrected them line by line.
Anything read with uncertainty is marked in color. Anything that could not be deciphered is left as a gap. Interpretations are explicitly suggestions.
Nothing is presented here as certain that is not. That is one of the most important rules of this project, and it has applied from the very beginning.
Who Is Doing This
I am Dirk Schornstein, a graduate engineer (Diplom-Ingenieur) and technology enthusiast. I discovered the Löffelholz Codex a few years ago, and it has fascinated me ever since.
I still have not found a place where truly every page of the Codex is described and interpreted in detail. I want to change that. But as a single person, I can only take on a project this big with AI as a tool. The AI does the groundwork - but every reviewed page carries a lot of me. My goal is to understand every single device in this book - and to explain it clearly to others. I can't do it all on my own - and I need your help.
Löffelholz Mystery of the Month
Some pages of the Codex don't give up their secrets easily. Every month, I tackle one of those mysteries - and since October, we solve them together.
Contribute
This project is too big for one person. We are looking for people who
- can read Early New High German - or would like to learn
- know a craft: woodworkers, smiths, wood turners, gunsmiths. What kind of tool is this? Does it work like that? What is missing from the drawing?
- want to build replicas, even if it's just a compass
- have expert knowledge of the history of technology, manuscripts, arms and armor, hunting
Anyone who helps correct a page will be named on that page. It is not much in return, but it is the most honest thing I can offer. Feedback is always welcome - positive or negative. This site should keep getting better.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Löffelholz Codex?
A house book from Nuremberg, begun in 1505 by Martin Löffelholz von Kolberg: 154 pages of tools, machines, locks, weapons, hunting gear and recipes, drawn and briefly captioned. The original is held by the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków. The Codex is described in detail on loeffelholz-codex.org under “What Is the Codex?”
What language is the Löffelholz Codex written in?
In Early New High German, in the written language of Nuremberg - so it is German, but the German of 1505, with no fixed spelling. The same word can be spelled two different ways on one page, a stroke over a letter stands for an n or m, and the words of the workshop are not in any modern dictionary. This is explained in detail, with examples from the manuscript, on loeffelholz-codex.org under “What Is the Codex?”
Where is the original Löffelholz Codex kept, and can it be viewed?
In the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków, under the shelfmark Ms. Berol. germ. quart. 132. The manuscript has been fully digitized and can be viewed freely in the digitized copy of the Jagiellonian Library at jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl. Where the book comes from and how it came to Kraków is explained on loeffelholz-codex.org in the Fact Sheet
Is there a complete transcription or translation of the Löffelholz Codex?
Not a published one that we know of. There is literature on individual pages and a detailed video discussion, but no edition that reads and interprets all 154 pages. That is exactly what loeffelholz-codex.org has been building since 2026, page by page: facsimile, transcription in the original spelling, a reading in modern English and a suggested interpretation, each page with its editing status clearly stated.
Who was Martin Löffelholz von Kolberg?
A Nuremberg patrician and knight who died in 1533, and the author of the Löffelholz Codex. For 28 years he was Pfleger (warden) of the fortress of Lichtenau, and between 1507 and 1509 he was held captive for more than a year - shackles and locks take up a strikingly large share of his book. His life is described in detail on loeffelholz-codex.org under “About Martin Löffelholz”
And Now Have Fun!
I hope you enjoy exploring and are amazed by what the people of Nuremberg already knew in the early 16th century: a drill with an interchangeable chuck, an office chair on casters, the fire striker, the carabiner and much more!