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 comprehensive portrait of the endlessly curious individual hidden 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 in Renaissance Italy...