Often hailed as the archetypal Renaissance Man, a creative genius equally adept at art, engineering, architecture, and invention, Leonardo da Vinci is still perhaps best known for paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Though his artistic output was not great, his influence was, and his artistic breakthroughs in perspective and in shading quite literally changed the vision of future painters. Leonardo also wrote a treatise on art and left thousands of pages of drawings on architecture, the human face, botany, physics, engineering, cartography, and anatomy--a rich treasure trove which modern-day researchers still consult. The numerous notebooks Leonardo produced in his lifetime contain not only this wealth of drawing, but also an accompanying spider-like, mirror text that is still being translated five centuries after his death.

"Jack of all trades, master of none," is a criticism often leveled at Leonardo. So talented was the man...