14 DAY TRIAL // Currently, the Codex Leicester notebook authored by Leonardo da Vinci is in the possession of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. However, there is nothing stooping you from shuffling through its pages. You will be able to browse through Codex Leicester or Codex Arundel, both notebooks of da Vinci and even have a look at one of the oldest copies of the New Testaments Codex Sinaiticus.
This is possible via the Turning the Pages 2.0, an online program over at the British Library. Turning the Pages is a browser based Windows Presentation Foundation application that allows users to turn the pages of old books in a virtual environment.
Bill Gates acquired the Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci notebook in 1994 for no less than $30.8 million, and then he had to go home and explain the purchase to Melinda Gates. "Yeah, I feel very lucky that I own a notebook. In fact, I remember going home one night and telling my wife Melinda that I was going to buy a notebook; she didn't think that was a very big deal. I said, no, this is a pretty special notebook, this is the Codex Leicester, one of the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. And I personally have always been amazed by him because he personally worked out science on his own, and he understood things that no other scientist of that time did. And his work is amazing. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas," explained Gates at the launch of Windows Vista in the UK.
But the British Library's offer contains additional titles. And it is worth to have a look at all of them. You can even feat your eyes on the Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original copy of Alice in Wonderland, with the illustrations of Lewis Caroll.