Das Buch von der Malerei

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was born near the town of Vinci, the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary, and trained in the workshop of the painter Verrocchio. He worked for the rulers of Florence and Milan, where he painted The Last Supper, and spent his last years in France as the guest of King Francis I.

His paintings, among them the Mona Lisa, are few, but his notebooks are full of studies of anatomy, flight, water, optics and machines, written in mirror script. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci let us follow his endless curiosity; for one of his sources, see Vitruvius.