__NOTOC__ The Codex Leicester (also briefly known as the Codex Hammer) is a collection of scientific writings by

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially re ...

. The

Codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

is named after Thomas Coke, who purchased it in 1717; he later became the

Earl of Leicester Earl of Leicester is a title that has been created seven times. The first title was granted during the 12th century in the Peerage of England. The current title is in the Peerage of the United Kingdom and was created in 1837. Early creation ...

. The manuscript currently holds the record for the fifth highest sale price of any book: it was sold to

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...

auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for (). The Codex provides an insight into the inquiring mind of the definitive

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

artist, scientist and thinker, as well as an exceptional illustration of the link between art and science and the creativity of the

scientific process The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...

Overview

The notebook is leather-bound and consists of 36 sheets 29 × 22 cm in size. The manuscript does not take the form of a single linear script, but is rather a mixture of Leonardo's observations and theories on

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

; the properties of water, rocks, and fossils; air, and celestial light. The topics addressed include: * An explanation of why

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s of sea creatures can be found on mountains. Hundreds of years before

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (from the la, label= Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large t ...

became accepted scientific theory, Leonardo believed that mountains had previously formed sea beds, which were gradually lifted until they formed mountains. * The movement of water. This is the main topic of the Codex Leicester. Among other things, Leonardo wrote about the flow of water in rivers, and how it is affected by different obstacles put in its way. From his observations he made recommendations about bridge construction and

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is di ...

. * The luminosity of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

. Leonardo speculated that the Moon's surface is covered by water, which reflects light from the Sun. In this model, waves on the water's surface cause the light to be reflected in many directions, explaining why the Moon is not as bright as the Sun. Leonardo explained that the pale glow on the dark portion of the crescent Moon is caused by sunlight reflected from the Earth. Thus, he described the phenomenon of

planetshine Planetshine is the dim illumination, by sunlight reflected from a planet, of all or part of the otherwise dark side of any moon orbiting the body. Planetlight is the diffuse reflection of sunlight from a planet, whose albedo can be measured. ...

one hundred years before the German astronomer Johannes Kepler proved it. The Codex consists of 18 sheets of paper, each folded in half and written on both sides, forming the complete 72-page document. At one time the sheets were bound together, but they are now displayed separately. It was handwritten in Italian by Leonardo, using his characteristic

mirror writing Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes ...

, and supported by copious drawings and diagrams.

Renamings

The Codex was purchased at auction from the Leicester estate in 1980 by the wealthy industrialist and art collector

Armand Hammer Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898 – December 10, 1990) was an American business manager and owner, most closely associated with Occidental Petroleum, a company he ran from 1957 until his death. Called "Lenin's chosen capitalist" by the press, ...

, for $5.1 million ($ in ); he later renamed the notebook the Codex Hammer. Hammer commissioned Leonardo da Vinci scholar

Carlo Pedretti Carlo Pedretti (6 January 1928 – 5 January 2018) was an Italian historian. In his lifetime, he was considered one of the world's leading experts on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci. He was a professor of art history and Armand Hammer C ...

to compile the loose pages of the codex back into its original form. Over the next seven years Pedretti translated each page to English, completing the project in 1987.

Recent history

The Codex was sold to

auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for . After Gates acquired the Codex, he had its pages scanned into digital image files, some of which were later distributed as

screen saver Screen Savers or screensaver or ''variation'', may refer to: * Screensaver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a d ...

and

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste Adhesive flakes that are mixed with water to pro ...

files on a CD-ROM as part of a Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 desktop theme, which would later be included with

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released ...

and

Windows ME Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Win ...

. A comprehensive CD-ROM version (simply titled ''

'') was released by Corbis in 1997. The Codex Leicester has been unbound with each page individually mounted between glass panes. It is put on public display once a year in a different city around the world. In 2000, it was displayed at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. In 2004, it was exhibited in the

Château de Chambord The Château de Chambord () in Chambord, Centre-Val de Loire, France, is one of the most recognisable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with cl ...

, and in 2005 in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. One page was exhibited at the

Seattle Museum of Flight The Museum of Flight is a private non-profit air and space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of King County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city of Tukwila, immediately south of Seat ...

's 2006 exhibit ''Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius''. From June to August 2007, the Codex was the centerpiece of a two-month exhibition hosted by the

Chester Beatty Library The Chester Beatty Library, now known as the Chester Beatty, is a museum and library in Dublin. It was established in Ireland in 1950, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present museum, on the grounds of ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. The Codex was on view at the

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

in Phoenix, Arizona from 24 January 2015 through 12 April 2015 for the exhibition ''Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester and the Power of Observation''. Its presentation at Phoenix Art Museum was the first time a work by Leonardo was displayed in Arizona. The Codex was then on view at the

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

in an exhibition ''Leonardo Da Vinci, the Codex Leicester, and the Creative Mind'' that opened 21 June 2015, where it remained on display until 30 August 2015. As part of the same tour, the Codex Leicester was also on display at the

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that e ...

in Raleigh, North Carolina from 31 October 2015 to 17 January 2016. For the 500th anniversary of da Vinci's death, the Codex Leicester was on display from 29 October 2018 to 20 January 2019 in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

at the Aula Magliabechiana of the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

Owners

Guglielmo della Porta Guglielmo della Porta (c. 1500–1577) was an Italian architect and sculptor of the late Renaissance or Mannerist period. He was born to a prominent North Italian family of masons, sculptors and architects. His father Giovanni Battista della Port ...

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was in ...

's student (?) *

Giuseppe Ghezzi Giuseppe Ghezzi (November 6, 1634–1721) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Rome. Biography Born in Comunanza, in the Marche (then part of the Papal States), he was the son of the painter Sebastiano Ghezzi, a paint ...

(until 1719) * Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (1719–1759) * Leicester estate (1759–1980) *

(1980–1990) * Estate of Armand Hammer (1990–1994) *

(1994–present)

References

External links

Da Vinci Codex Leicester's Guide

* ttps://therefor.life/leonardo-da-vinci-the-codex-leicester-event-in-tokyo/ News report of Japan opening, September 2005
Leonardo da Vinci: The Codex Leicester

Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland

The sale of the Codex Hammer, 11 November 1994

Water as Microscope of Nature: Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester, exhibition in Florence, Uffizi Galleries
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2018 16th-century books Bill Gates Codices by Leonardo da Vinci Scientific illuminated manuscripts ja:レオナルド・ダ・ヴィンチ手稿