A dazzling array of invention, insight and observation from perhaps the greatest genius of Western civilisation. Towering across time as the painter of the Mona Lisa, forever famous as a sculptor and an inventor, Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest minds of both the Italian Renaissance and Western civilisation. His celebrated notebooks display the astonishing range of his genius. Dan Brown''s The Da Vinci Code and recent in-depth biographies have stimulated renewed interest in Leonardo and his complex and enquiring intelligence. This brand-new selection of sketches, diagrams and writings from the notebooks is a beautiful and varied record of Leonardo''s theories and observations, embracing not only art but also architecture, town planning, engineering, naval warfare, music, medicine, mathematics, science and philosophy. Complete with a short biographical essay describing Leonardo''s life and achievements, this is the perfect introduction to a mysterious and endlessly fascinating genius.