The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Most people will know Leonardo da Vinci as a master artist, but he was far more than that, preferring to describe himself as an artist-engineer to encompass his prodigious skills as a virtuoso inventor. Richly illustrated with more than 100 facsimile images from his notebooks and several of his most famous works of art, including The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci dips into the thousands of pages and several notebooks that he accumulated with his observations on a wide range of subjects, offering an insight into his thoughts and ideas. Combining Leonardo's famous mirror writing with the most beautifully detailed drawings and sketches, these extracts are divided into sections on art, anatomy, the physical sciences, designs, philosophy and his personal letters and allegorical writings. In his own words, you will learn about the intricacies of painting techniques, the nature of flight, the practical concerns of engineering and much more besides. With an extended biographical introduction adapted from Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1568), this book brings to life this polymath and genius who was truly the quintessential 'Renaissance Man'.