He was born out of wedlock to a notary and a peasant woman. He left behind fewer than 25 major paintings, yet one of them is the most famous image in Western art. He filled thousands of pages with sketches of helicopters centuries before helicopters existed. This is the story of Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance man who refused to choose between art and science because he saw no boundary between them. Maurice W. Brockwell traces Leonardo's journey from his birth in a small Tuscan town to his apprenticeship under Andrea del Verrocchio, his mastery in Florence and Milan in the service of Ludovico Sforza, and his final years in France under the patronage of Francis I. Along the way, we encounter the making of the Mona Lisa, the tragedy of The Last Supper deteriorating almost before it was finished, and the endless notebooks where Leonardo dissected bodies, designed fortifications, and dreamed of flight. Written in 1908, this biography offers a window into how an earlier generation understood the Renaissance genius, before modern mythology turned Leonardo into a brand. For anyone curious about how a single mind could hold both brush and compass in perfect balance.
