Da Vinci from the codex. Photo courtesy Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities; Biblioteca Reale, Turin, Italy.

Any D.C. resident who wants to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds won’t need to fly to Italy to see it very soon. The Smithsonian announced yesterday that the notebook will be exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum beginning in September.

From September 13 to October 22, visitors to the museum will be able to see the document, created around 1505, in a secured case located in the Wright Brothers exhibition. There will also be interactive stations where people can look at scans of the pages. “Most people have never seen an original work by Leonardo da Vinci, because so few are on display,” the museum’s director, General J.R. “Jack” Dailey, said in a release. “Because the Codex has travelled to the United States only once before, and rarely left Italy, we feel especially fortunate to be able to share it with museum visitors.”

The codex contains 18 two-sided pages of da Vinci’s sketches and descriptions examining the mechanisms of flight. The document will be loaned from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy as part of the Year of Italian Culture in the U.S.