This inspiring and inventive guide teaches readers how to develop their full potential by following the example of the greatest genius of all time, Leonardo da Vinci. Acclaimed author Michael J. Gelb, who has helped thousands of people expand their minds to accomplish more than they ever thought possible, shows you how. Drawing on Da Vinci's notebooks, inventions, and legendary works of art, Gelb introduces Seven Da Vincian Principles—the essential elements of genius—from curiosità, the insatiably curious approach to life to connessione, the appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. With Da Vinci as your inspiration, you will discover an exhilarating new way of thinking. And step-by-step, through exercises and provocative lessons, you will harness the power—and awesome wonder—of your own genius, mastering such life-changing abilities as: •Problem solving •Creative thinking •Self-expression •Enjoying the world around you •Goal setting and life balance •Harmonizing body and mind Drawing on Da Vinci's notebooks, inventions, and legendary works of art, acclaimed author Michael J. Gelb, introduces seven Da Vincian principles, the essential elements of genius, from curiosita, the insatiably curious approach to life, to connessione, the appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. With Da Vinci as their inspiration, readers will discover an exhilarating new way of thinking. Step-by-step, through exercises and provocative lessons, anyone can harness the power and awesome wonder of their own genius, mastering such life-changing skills as problem solving, creative thinking, self-expression, goal setting and life balance, and harmonizing body and mind.

Unleash your creative potential. Michael J. Gelb, bestselling author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, draws upon history's most revolutionary minds to help you unleash your own creativity. With fascinating biographies of all ten geniuses, personal self-assessments, and practical exercises, this book is the key to unlocking the genius inside you! Plato -- Deepening your love of wisdom Filippo Brunelleschi -- Expanding your perspective Christopher Columbus -- Strengthening your vision, optimism, and courage Nicolaus Copernicus -- Reorganizing your vision of the world Queen Elizabeth I -- Wielding your power with balance and effectiveness William Shakespeare -- Cultivating your emotional intelligence Thomas Jefferson -- Celebrating your freedom in the pursuit of happiness Charles Darwin -- Developing your powers of observation and cultivating an open mind Mahatma Gandhi -- Applying the principles of spiritual genius to harmonize spirit, mind, and body Albert Einstein -- Unleashing your imagination and "combinatory play"

Author Michael Gelb ignited the current fascination with all things Da Vinci with his runaway bestseller, How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. Just as that book showed readers how to use the seven Da Vincian principles to develop their creative potential, his new book, Da Vinci Decoded, will help you use the same principles to cultivate your spiritual potential. Wonder. Appreciation. Awareness. Wholeness…In the Western world of the fifteenth century, these personal qualities were all boldly embodied in one extraordinary man. From art to botany, anatomy to mechanics, Da Vinci was a profoundly original thinker fully in tune with the world of man and nature, and with the divine spirit that bridges the two. In this bold new guide to awakening the soul, Michael Gelb draws on Leonardo’s writings, inventions, and works of art to show how you, too, can practice the seven essential principles by which Leonardo lived and worked: Filled with practical exercises that will help you put each of the seven principles into use, a series of reflective questions designed for self-assessment, and inspirational sayings drawn from the world’s great wisdom traditions, Da Vinci Decoded offers a wide range of tools to use in your spiritual quest. Now you can let Leonardo and this book be your personal guides to creating your own personal spiritual renaissance today.

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).

In How to Think Like da Vinci, you too can learn to think like the Renaissance man, seize your opportunities, harness your talents, innovate and experiment and imagine the impossible.

Best-selling author Leonard Shlain explores the life, art, and mind of Leonardo da Vinci, seeking to explain his singularity by looking at his achievements in art, science, psychology, and military strategy and then employing state of the art left-right brain scientific research to explain his universal genius. Shlain shows that no other person in human history has excelled in so many different areas as da Vinci and he peels back the layers to explore the how and the why. Shlain asserts that Leonardo’s genius came from a unique creative ability that allowed him to understand and excel in a wide range of fields. From here Shlain jumps off and discusses the history of and current research on human creativity that involves different modes of thinking and neuroscience .The author also boldly speculates on whether or not the qualities of Leonardo’s brain and his creativity presage the future evolution of the human species. Leonardo’s Brain uses da Vinci as a starting point for an exploration of human creativity. With his lucid style, and his remarkable ability to discern connections in a wide range of fields, Shlain brings the reader into the world of history’s greatest mind. .

A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year “A truly intimate portrait of one of the greatest creators in human history,” this biography of Leonardo Da Vinci “has the pace, elegance, and authorial omnipresence of a novel,” bringing both artist and Renaissance Italy to life (Noah Charney, author of The Art of Forgery) Why did Leonardo Da Vinci leave so many of his major works uncompleted? Why did this resolute pacifist build war machines for the notorious Borgias? Why did he carry the Mona Lisa with him everywhere he went for decades, yet never quite finish it? Why did he write backwards, and was he really at war with Michelangelo? And was he gay? In a book unlike anything ever written about the Renaissance genius, Mike Lankford explodes every cliché about Da Vinci and then reconstructs him based on a rich trove of available evidence—bringing to life for the modern reader the man who has been studied by scholars for centuries—yet has remained as mysterious as ever. Seeking to envision Da Vinci without the obscuring residue of historical varnish, the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of Renaissance Italy—usually missing in other biographies—are all here, transporting readers back to a world of war and plague and court intrigue, of viciously competitive famous artists, of murderous tyrants with exquisite tastes in art . . . Lankford brilliantly captures Da Vinci’s life as the compelling and dangerous adventure it seems to have actually been—fleeing from one sanctuary to the next, somehow surviving in war zones beside his friend Machiavelli, struggling to make art his way or no way at all . . . and often paying dearly for those decisions. It is a thrilling and absorbing journey into the life of a ferociously dedicated loner, whose artwork in one way or another represents his noble rebellion, providing inspiration that is timeless.

Presents diagrams of inventions from the drawings in Leonardo da Vinci's original notebooks, categorizing them into flying, war, and hydraulic machines and detailing how each invention would work.

Leonardo smiled, and he explained that a person s life is just a moment in infinity. During that moment, no one can do and know all that they would like.

"The great bird will take its first flight . . . filling the universe with wonders." - Leonardo da VinciAlthough Leonardo da Vinci lived five centuries ago, his revolutionary ideas and inventions continue to influence life in the 21st century. Discover what inspired Leonardo--and learn how to think like him--in the captivating activity book. This exciting 40-page book brings da Vinci's world to life with stories, illustrations, diagrams, and sketches by Leonardo himself. Promising young inventors will also learn about the scientific method, where to find inspiration, and how to learn from their mistakes--concepts which will be put to the test when they build the featured model of da Vinci's ornithopter. Pure genius!