Everybody knows that Leonardo da Vinci was an artist - that he was the mastermind behind the infamous Mona Lisa and designed the first-ever flying machine. But did you also know that da Vinci: - spent a decade making a clay horse? - had his very own pet dragon? - loved to wear pink? Full of rivalries between artists, incredible inventions and passages from Leonardo's lost notebook, discover everything you ever wanted to know about the man with the paintbrush!

Understanding Da Vinci’s Creative Genius The life and art of history’s most influential mind Bestselling author Leonard Shlain explores the potential for humankind through the life, art, and mind of the first true Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci. His innovations as an artist, scientist, and inventor are recast through a modern lens, with Shlain applying contemporary neuroscience to illuminate da Vinci’s creative process. No other person in human history has excelled in so many areas of innovation: Shlain reveals the how and the why. Shlain theorizes that Leonardo’s extraordinary mind came from a uniquely developed and integrated right and left brain, which offers a model for how we too can evolve. Using past and current research, Leonardo’s Brain presents da Vinci as the focal point for a fresh exploration of human creativity. With his lucid style and remarkable ability to discern connections among a wide range of fields, Shlain brings the reader into the world of history’s greatest mind. Leonard Shlain is a bestselling author, inventor, and surgeon. Admired among artists, scientists, philosophers, anthropologists, and educators, he authored three bestselling books. He delivered stunning visual presentations based upon his books in venues around the world, including Harvard, the New York Museum of Modern Art, CERN, Los Alamos, the Florence Academy of Art, and the European Council of Ministers. Shlain died in May 2009 at the age of 71 from brain cancer shortly after the completion of this book. Visit LeonardShlain.com and LeonardosBrain.com.

Examines Leonardo da Vinci's beginnings as an artist and his earliest works, including the Uffizi Annunciation and the Munich Madonna and Child

In Da Vinci's Ghost, critically acclaimed historian Toby Lester tells the story of the world’s most iconic image, the Vitruvian Man, and sheds surprising new light on the artistry and scholarship of Leonardo da Vinci, one of history’s most fascinating figures. Deftly weaving together art, architecture, history, theology, and much else, Da Vinci's Ghost is a first-rate intellectual enchantment.”—Charles Mann, author of 1493 Da Vinci didn’t summon Vitruvian Man out of thin air. He was inspired by the idea originally formulated by the Roman architect Vitruvius, who suggested that the human body could be made to fit inside a circle, long associated with the divine, and a square, related to the earthly and secular. To place a man inside those shapes was to imply that the human body could indeed be a blueprint for the workings of the universe. Da Vinci elevated Vitruvius’ idea to exhilarating heights when he set out to do something unprecedented, if the human body truly reflected the cosmos, he reasoned, then studying its anatomy more thoroughly than had ever been attempted before—peering deep into body and soul—might grant him an almost godlike perspective on the makeup of the world. Written with the same narrative flair and intellectual sweep as Lester’s award-winning first book, the “almost unbearably thrilling” (Simon Winchester) Fourth Part of the World, and beautifully illustrated with Da Vinci's drawings, Da Vinci’s Ghost follows Da Vinci on his journey to understanding the secrets of the Vitruvian man. It captures a pivotal time in Western history when the Middle Ages were giving way to the Renaissance, when art, science, and philosophy were rapidly converging, and when it seemed possible that a single human being might embody—and even understand—the nature of the universe.

Fire of Heaven

Young readers may have seen reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and even some of his inventions, but there was much more to his genius. Leonardo was also a scientist and a sculptor. He loved the outdoors. This biography allows young readers to get to know Leonardo from his youth in the Italian countryside and then witness how his work as an adult won over noblemen and royalty who paid him for his art. Readers will be introduced to some of Leonardo's most famous and influential work and discover how it continues to influence today's art and science.

Be inspired by the childhoods of the men and women who grew up to be greatRead the incredible stories of the world’s greatest heroes and heroines, who were once children too. Discover what they played with, what they learnt, and what they ate. Get a kid’s-eye view of their times and the world they lived in. Vivid storytelling takes us on the subject’s life’s journey and dramatizes their battles and their achievements as never before. Stunning illustrations, lively artwork, and a fact-packed timeline bring history vividly to life. Expertly researched, engrossing text—and a team of historical consultants—make this an authoritative, must-have series.

Leonardo da Vinci is considered the master of the Renaissance and hailed as a genius ahead of his time. Most famous for such works as the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper," Leonardo da Vinci was more than a painter of extraordinary skill. In fact, he often thought of himself principally as a civil and military engineer. "Leonardo da Vinci: The Genius, his Work and the Renaissance" tells the story of this artist's/engineer's life and times, and looks at the major themes that dominate Leonardo's work. Beautifully illustrated, the book also contains 15 items of rare memorabilia. -- From publisher's description.

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker). Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius. In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).