The notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci - a treasure house of unparalleled ingenuity, curiosity and creative energy - have inspired their readers for centuries. Fascinating and tantalising by turns, the individual pages of the notebooks, densely covered with da Vinci’s sketches, jottings, calculations and detailed diagrams, are among the most prized possessions of the world’s great art collectors.

The notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci - a treasure house of unparalleled ingenuity, curiosity and creative energy - have inspired their readers for centuries. Fascinating and tantalising by turns, the individual pages of the notebooks, densely covered with da Vinci’s sketches, jottings, calculations and detailed diagrams, are among the most prized possessions of the world’s great art collectors.

Tainter, sculptor, engineer; mathematician, philosopher, inventor; architect, anatomist and naturalist - da Vinci’s talents are seemingly endless. This new selection from the notebooks, bursting with imagination and quirkiness, sometimes cryptic or even incomprehensible, is the perfect introduction to the mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci. Those who know him as the celebrated painter of The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa will be astonished and intrigued by this sparkling testament to one of greatest minds of Western civilisation.

  Introduction: The genius of da Vinci

1 On his own writings

2 On painting in general

3 The perspective of disappearance

4 On the theory ofcolours

5 Aerial perspective

6 On the proportions and movements of the human figure

7 Moral precepts for the student of painting

8 Judging a picture

9 On light and shade

10 Observing

11 Gestures and character

12 The artist’s materials

13 Philosophy of the art of painting

14 Allegorical representations

15 Mottoes and emblems

16 Notes on sculpture

17 Observations on architecture

18 Anatomy

19 Man compared with animals

20 Physiology and medicine

21 On astronomy

22 Geography

23 Notes on the natural world

24 Machines and warfare

25 Number tricks

26 Philosophical maxims

27 Moral sayings

28 Polemics

29 Studies on the life and habits of animals

30 Fables

31 Jests and tales

32 Prophecies