WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: What's the Most Expensive Book in the World?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.320
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.200
<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's episode is

0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:13.200
<v Speaker 1>another classic from our previous host, Christian Sagar. These days,

0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.600
<v Speaker 1>with printing and digital technologies being what they are, books

0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.600
<v Speaker 1>can be very affordable, but when you get into collector territory,

0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.919
<v Speaker 1>prices can be astounding. Today's question is what is the

0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:30.800
<v Speaker 1>most expensive book in the world? Hey brain Stuff, It's

0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.040
<v Speaker 1>me Christian Sagar. Sometimes I like to imagine that long

0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.240
<v Speaker 1>after I'm dead, a wealthy philanthropist is going to buy

0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.400
<v Speaker 1>my diary for millions of dollars and lend it to

0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.280
<v Speaker 1>museums across the planet. Then everyone would finally know the

0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.920
<v Speaker 1>answer to today's question, what is the most expensive book

0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.080
<v Speaker 1>in the world? Something by William Shakespeare, The Necronomicon, Twilight,

0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.240
<v Speaker 1>New Moon. Well, it all depends on if the book

0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.640
<v Speaker 1>is printed or if it's handwritten. If we're talking books

0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.200
<v Speaker 1>that have had multiple copies printed, then the answer is

0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.319
<v Speaker 1>the Bay Psalm Book, which sold for more than fourteen

0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:10.280
<v Speaker 1>million dollars in November. It was originally printed by Puritans

0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:15.119
<v Speaker 1>in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in sixteen forty. Seeking religious freedom. These

0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:19.160
<v Speaker 1>settlers wanted their own translation of the Old Testament. Today

0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.440
<v Speaker 1>there are only eleven copies remaining, and it is considered

0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.440
<v Speaker 1>the first book printed in America. But if we include

0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.880
<v Speaker 1>one of a kind handwritten texts, then the base Psalm

0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.840
<v Speaker 1>Book isn't even worth half the value of the most

0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.800
<v Speaker 1>expensive book ever sold. That title goes to Leonardo da

0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.800
<v Speaker 1>Vinci's Codex Lester, which sold for thirty point eight million

0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.120
<v Speaker 1>dollars in nineteen ninety four to a little known computer

0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.440
<v Speaker 1>programmer by the name of Bill Gates ad just that

0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.520
<v Speaker 1>amount for inflation, and today the Codex is almost worth

0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.240
<v Speaker 1>fifty million dollars. In fact, that's forty nine million, five

0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.160
<v Speaker 1>d eight thousand, five hundred and sixty one dollars and

0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.440
<v Speaker 1>forty cents if you want to be technical. It's an unbound,

0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.400
<v Speaker 1>seventy two page notebook filled with da Vinci's drawings and thoughts,

0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.320
<v Speaker 1>mainly about how to move water. Yeah, the most expensive

0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.799
<v Speaker 1>book in the world is basically a plumbing manual. More

0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.160
<v Speaker 1>on that in a minute. A lot of da Vinci's

0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.320
<v Speaker 1>writing was lost to history, almost half of it, in fact,

0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.280
<v Speaker 1>so the Codex Lester is mainly important because it's a

0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.800
<v Speaker 1>single collection of his focused ideas. The Codex is written,

0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:32.120
<v Speaker 1>like many of da Vinci's works, in something called mirror hand.

0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.399
<v Speaker 1>All the letters are reversed and it's written from right

0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:37.760
<v Speaker 1>to left, so the only way you can read it

0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.560
<v Speaker 1>is when it's held up to a mirror, and you

0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.560
<v Speaker 1>probably need a fluency and antiquated Italian as well. So

0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.880
<v Speaker 1>it's a book about water that's written backwards. Well, to

0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.120
<v Speaker 1>be fair, that's oversimplifying things a bit. It's primarily about

0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.519
<v Speaker 1>how astronomy and geology relate to water, considering the functionality

0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.760
<v Speaker 1>of tides, eddies, and dams. Really, da Vinci was trying

0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.799
<v Speaker 1>to figure out how to harness the power of moving water.

0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.280
<v Speaker 1>He demonstrates how pressure increases with depth in a fluid,

0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:13.080
<v Speaker 1>and the Codex examines configurations of siphons and differently shaped pipes.

0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.720
<v Speaker 1>He's particularly interested in the fluid mechanics of how water

0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:22.120
<v Speaker 1>moves around obstacles. This manuscript was first purchased in seventeen

0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.640
<v Speaker 1>seventeen by a guy named Thomas Coke, who later became

0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.880
<v Speaker 1>the Earl of Lester, hence the title Codex Lester, But

0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.080
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty an art collector named armand Hammer bought it,

0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.640
<v Speaker 1>changing its name to the more badass Codex Hammer. This

0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.280
<v Speaker 1>only lasted fourteen years though, until Gates bought it and

0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.160
<v Speaker 1>changed it back then he made it into a screensaver

0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:51.360
<v Speaker 1>for windows. Actually, Gates seems genuinely inspired by Da Vinci's

0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.880
<v Speaker 1>example of pushing himself to find more knowledge. He's even

0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.680
<v Speaker 1>loaned the book to a number of museums over the

0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.720
<v Speaker 1>years so it can be viewed and studied by the public.

0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.480
<v Speaker 1>So that's the most expensive book in the world for now,

0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.680
<v Speaker 1>until the Codex Sager hits the South Aby's auction block.

0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.160
<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Christian and produced by Tyler Clay.

0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.360
<v Speaker 1>For more on this and lots of other topics, visit

0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.840
<v Speaker 1>how Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production off

0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.560
<v Speaker 1>I Heart Radio more podcasts. My heart Radio is the

0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.160
<v Speaker 1>I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:25.080
<v Speaker 1>to your favorite shows.