Microsoft and the British Library have digitised two of Leonardo da Vincis’ notebooks.

British Library CEO Lynne Brindley said to celebrate the consumer launch of Vista it would offer free access to two da Vinci notebooks - one owned by the library, and one from Gates’s private collection.

The British Library has created an updated version of its application called “Turning the Pages” which allows people to browse parts of its 150 million piece collection via a web browser. We heard how this works better using Vista.

Gates paid $30.8m for the Codex Leicester in 1994. He said his wife wasn’t very impressed when he said he’d bought a notebook - until he told her it was one of da Vinci’s.

The British Library owns a second notebook called Codex Arundel. Both books will be freely available at the British Library website for the next six months.

Source: The Register