Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook

Origins
Leonardo da Vinci's ideas were not always accepted by the church, which was during his time very strict about what ideas were for or against the Christian God. In an effort to keep his works secret and protected from the watchful eye of the Vatican, da Vinci learned to write backwards and upside-down, making his writing appear to be illegible nonsense to anyone who looked at it. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, an armored vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.

Effects
Reading the Notebook inspires the reader with immense creativity and curiosity. This leads to the reader coming up with crazy inventions which are way ahead of their time. However, reading the Notebook too much leads to writing upside-down and backwards as well as obsessive behaviors.

Collection
As the Warehouse was preparing the move to Warehouse 13, an agent was sent to China after reports surfaced that someone in a remote village was coming up with all sorts of strange and fanatical ideas. When the agent arrived, the villagers had forced the man away. As the agent looked over the possessions of the man's house and discovered the Notebook of Leonardo da Vinci amid piles of drawings of futuristic devices. The agent gathered all of the papers to be shipped to the Warehouse for safe keeping along with the Notebook. The agent did make sure the man was able to come back before he left China.