As an artist, sculptor, architect, musician, doctor, engineer, inventor, and philosopher, Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian polymath, is considered one of the greatest geniuses in human history. He left behind masterpieces, such as the painting of the Mona Lisa, along with numerous sketches of various machines, some of which have since become a reality.
Over generations, da Vinci’s notebook containing sketches of the first personal computer was purchased by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, for $30.8 million…
According to Leonardo da Vinci’s 9th great-grandson, Leonardo Visetti, after da Vinci passed away in 1519 at Clos Lucé Castle in Amboise, France, many of his paintings were divided and scattered; several were given to friends or sold to collectors—among them, the masterpiece Mona Lisa was sold for just 505 lira (Italian currency). The 30 notebooks containing various sketches were entrusted to Francesco Meizi, one of his students, with the most notable being nine notebooks detailing human anatomy, flying machines, helicopters, tanks, gliders, and systems for pumping water from lower to higher elevations… Most of these works were forgotten or destroyed over time.
A page from Da Vinci’s notebook (small image) Masterpiece Mona Lisa.
From then on, no one knew where these notebooks drifted until 1690 when the painter Giuseppi Ghezzi discovered one in a trunk of papers belonging to Guglielmo Della Porto, a sculptor from Milan, Italy. In 1717, Thomas Coke, the Earl of Leicester, England, acquired the notebook, naming it the Leicester Codex, and added it to his art collection.
On December 17, 1903, when the Wright brothers made their first flight in Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a collector named Andrea Verchio remembered that in the notebook he had seen in the collection of the Earl of Coke, there were sketches of a flying object resembling the Wright brothers’ airplane. He borrowed the notebook from the Earl’s relatives and showcased it to his friends, all of whom acknowledged that da Vinci’s ideas were ahead of their time.
On December 12, 1980, American oil tycoon Armand Hammer purchased the Leicester Codex at an auction held by the Earl of Coke’s family for $5,126,000. Just days before the auction, art experts and the press estimated it would fetch around $7 million, but in reality, the bidding started at $1.4 million and within two minutes, it soared to $5,126,000, with Hammer emerging as the winner. He stated: “I am very pleased with that price. I expected to pay more. There is no work of art in the world that I desire as much as this notebook.” The Earl of Coke’s family indicated they had to sell the Leicester Codex due to their deteriorating financial situation and overwhelming debts.
According to archaeological experts, the Leicester Codex was written by Leonardo da Vinci in 1508 and is one of 30 similar notebooks he wrote throughout his life on various topics. The Leicester Codex contains 72 pages and 300 drawings, with detailed notes in brown ink, most of which relate to technical fields. Aside from some sketches that later became reality, such as the flying machine, helicopter, tank, glider, rocket, spacecraft, and a crossbow capable of firing multiple arrows, many other drawings remain enigmatic due to da Vinci’s sparse annotations.
After purchasing the Leicester Codex, Hammer renamed it the Hammer Codex. When the first personal computer (PC) from IBM was released in 1981 called the Acorn, which had functions similar to modern PCs, Hammer realized that in the Hammer Codex he owned, there were six drawings depicting an object similar to IBM’s computer. However, for various reasons, he kept this information confidential.
It wasn’t until 1988 that Hammer brought the notebook to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) for research. The results showed that the drawings and descriptions by Leonardo da Vinci resembled the Acorn computer by 90% in structure and operating principles, except that it operated manually instead of electrically!
When Hammer passed away in 1990, he donated the Hammer Codex and several other works to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Art Museum and Cultural Center. By 1994, the museum planned to auction the Hammer Codex to cover legal expenses arising from a lawsuit filed by Frances, Hammer’s wife’s granddaughter, who was the sole heir, claiming Hammer had created evidence to defraud her out of her inheritance.
The lawsuit dragged on for years since both Hammer and his wife were no longer alive to testify, but ultimately the UCLA Art Museum and Cultural Center won the case. They then sold the Hammer Codex to an anonymous buyer. At an auction in New York City, this individual paid $30.8 million for the notebook. Later, the press identified the anonymous buyer as Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. After acquiring the notebook, Bill Gates restored its original name: Leicester Codex. According to Gates, he paid that amount solely to own the six pages of sketches of the first personal computer in human history.
Since then, with Bill Gates’ consent, many museums have borrowed the Leicester Codex for public display. Some historians argue that the six pages of da Vinci’s computer sketches do not represent the first personal computer in history, but rather the abacus invented by the Chinese around 1200 BC. However, to this day, abacuses are used solely for calculations, while da Vinci’s computer sketches, as confirmed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, indicate that it not only performs calculations but can also write characters…
