A Cd Rom To Make Leonardo Smile
Bill Gates actually enhances our appreciation of the master's codex
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When Microsoft Chairman William H. Gates III plunked down $31.8 million to buy a Leonardo da Vinci notebook from the Armand Hammer Museum in 1994, the art world was horrified. The Codex Hammer was one of only 20 such notebooks left by the Renaissance master, and it was about to disappear forever into private hands.
It turns out that the worries were overblown. Instead of renaming the document Codex Microsoft as some feared, Gates restored its traditional name of Codex Leicester, for the British noble family that owned it. And now Corbis (800 260-0444), Gates's private art-licensing company, has turned the masterpiece into a CD-ROM that's a fitting tribute to a genius who was frustrated by the limitations of 16th century technology.