The Codex Leicester,  AKA: Codex Hammer, is a collection of largely scientific writings that was written in Milan between 1506 and 1510 by Leonardo da Vinci and was purchased and named after Thomas Coke, the Earl of Leicester, in 1717.

The Codex was purchased in 1980 by wealthy industrialist and art collector Armand Hammer from the Leicester estate, and renamed the Codex Hammer and in 1994 Bill Gates bought it at an auction and renamed it the Codex Leicester.

The book itself is written on 18 sheets of paper which were folded in half and written on both sides for a total of 72 pages and covers subjects such as the explanation of why fossils can be found on mountains, the movement of water and the luminosity of the moon.

Bill Gates paid $30.8 million for the Codex which made it the world’s most expensive book.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Collectibles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.