Gates' $30.8M Art Buy Paid $30.8 Million for Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester Manuscript
Gates bought Leonardo da Vinci's illustrated scientific manuscript at Christie's for $30,802,500 on November 11, 1994.
By the Rich vs Reality desk November 1994 9 sources

Could have saved
5,600
lives.
Gates bought Leonardo da Vinci's illustrated scientific manuscript at Christie's for $30,802,500 on November 11, 1994. He restored its original title, Codex Leicester, after the purchase.
Reported by Guinness World Records.
$30.8 million could have saved an estimated 5,600 lives through malaria prevention.
$30.8 million could have changed these lives
Instead, it went on this.
5,600
lives saved from malaria, most of them children under five
GiveWell estimates its top charities save a life for $3,000 to $5,500. We use the higher figure: $5,500, the cost through Against Malaria Foundation bed nets. Source
281,301
hungry kids fed three meals a day for a whole year
No Kid Hungry: $1 can help provide 10 meals for kids. Three meals a day for 365 days is 1,095 meals, about $110 per child per year. Source
1,726
years of rent for a homeless veteran
At the U.S. median rent of $1,487 a month (Census, 2024), about $17,844 a year. Source
Or: 770,063 people given clean drinking water; 863 families escaping domestic violence given a safe home for two years. Every rate and source.
Bill Gates & Melinda Gates
$30.8 million
For everyone else, that's
Could have saved 5,600 lives.
Drag the seam between the two worlds.
Measured against a typical American household: $87,460 a year, $192,900 net worth.
The receipts
- Guinness World Records
- Net worth: No published estimate
- U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States: 2025 (Sept 2026)
- Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances 2022
- No Kid Hungry, What your dollars can do
- GiveWell, How much does it cost to save a life?
- charity: water, How much clean water will my donation provide
- U.S. DOJ Office on Violence Against Women, Transitional housing
- U.S. Census Bureau median gross rent, via USAFacts
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