Leonardo

by Leonardo da Vinci

Bill Gates bought the Codex Leicester a notebook of Leonardo da Vinci's scientific observations and theories in 1994 from the estate of Armand Hammer for $30.8 million. Last year Gates loaned the work to Australia's Powerhouse Museum, which prepared this companion to its exhibition. No longer in codex form (the pages were bound in the 1600s, but Gates had the binding dismantled for digital reproduction), the manuscript ranges over topics from fossils to astronomy. Each recto of this edition reproduces one of Leonardo's pages, written in mirror-script Italian with sketches jotted in the margins; a discussion (but not a translation) appears on the verso. It includes an introduction to Leonardo's life, but no index.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?