Painter, designer, inventor, anatomist, musician, and philosopher, Leonardo da Vinci is the most versatile of all the great artists of the Renaissance, but also the most mysterious. Although his great achievements have been recognized for centuries, he himself remains strangely enigmatic.

This book creates the most accurate and detailed portrait of the endlessly curious individual behind the legend of the "Universal Man": from his early years and apprenticeship in Verrocchio's workshop in Florence to the years he spent in the service of the powerful figures of Renaissance Italy - the Medici, the Sforza, and the Borgias; from his relationship with Michelangelo and Machiavelli, and his reputation as one of the greatest figures of his time, to his final days.

Nicholl consults a wide variety of sources and presents a masterful biography, illustrated, full of enlightening details and insightful observations, which manages to penetrate into Leonardo's personality and his famous flights of the mind.