LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo’s Codex wrritten between the years of 1506 and 1510, the 72-page notebook provides a rare glimpse inside da Vinci’s mind, complete with sketches, diagrams, and early iterations of ideas. The text is written in Da Vinci’s famous mirror-image style, meaning that the words are supposed to be read from right to left. The words are written in an antiquated version of Italian.

The Codex Leicester primarily focuses on Da Vinci’s thoughts relating to water — tides, eddies and dams — and the relationship between the Moon, the Earth and the Sun. In general, it contains texts and drawings on hydraulics, but also on geology, astronomy, mechanics, paleontology and other scientific and technical aspects.

In 1717, Codex was bought by the first Count of Leicester, sir Thomas Coke. Then sold at auction from the Leicester estate in 1980 to wealthy industrialist and art collector sir Armand Hammer for USD 5.1 million (USD 15.5 million in 2018 USD), later renaming the notebook Codex Hammer.
The manuscript currently holds the record for the second highest sale price of any book, as it was sold to Bill Gates at Christie’s auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for USD 30,802,500 (equivalent to $52,068,300 in 2018).

The manuscript is the artistic, scientific copy of the original one. Hand-made technics using very time-consuming and precise methods of paper sculpturing. The artist used a very complex methods of aging, giving the replica proper colour, smell and structure. This copy is an ideal projection of the artist, hoilding the spirit and original character of the manuscript.