A quick internet search will yield results of Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary paintings, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, and you might even catch a glimpse of his well-known sketches of machines, human bodies, and animals. However, there’s so much more to da Vinci than his paintings and drawings. This 16th-century Italian man embodied the Renaissance spirit — he was intensely interested in everyone and everything. His curiosity spanned every discipline, from geometry to anatomy to the link between art and science. 500 years ago was a time of insight, of investigation, and in this sense, da Vinci fit in perfectly. However, in another sense, he didn’t belong at all — he was a loner living in his own world. An illegitimate child with 17 half-siblings, Leonardo also shrouded himself in secrecy. He wrote in a mirror script, meaning that you could only understand what he had written by holding it up to a mirror. He believed that we all have potential to do amazing things, but he also had lots of unfinished projects and struggled with lifelong self-doubt. Delve in to these pages to find out why Leonardo di Ser Piero d’Antonio di Ser Piero di Ser Guido da Vinci — yes, this was his full name — was as mysterious as his painting of Mona Lisa’s famous smile.

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker). Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius. In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).

This exciting new text traces the common themes in the long and complex history of mass communication. It shows how the means of communicating grew out of their eras, how they developed, how they influenced the societies of those eras, and how they have continued to exert their influence upon subsequent generations. The book is divided into six periods which are identified as 'Information Revolutions' writing, printing, mass media, entertainment, the 'toolshed' (which we call 'home' now), and the Information Highway. In looking at the ways in which the tools of communication have influenced and been influenced by social change, A History of Mass Communication provides students of media and journalism with a strong sense of the way their chosen field affects how society functions. Providing a broad-based approach to media history, Dr. Fang encourages the reader to take a careful look at where our culture is headed through the tools we use to communicate with one another. A History of Mass Communication is not only the most current text on communication history, but also an invaluable resource for anyone interested in how methods of communication affect society.

A new title in the successful Lives of the Artists series, which offers illuminating, and often intimate, accounts of iconic artists as viewed by their contemporaries. Coinciding with the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Leonardo (1452–1519), Lives of Leonardo da Vinci brings together important early biographies of the polymath by Giorgio Vasari, Paolo Giovio, and anonymous authors. This illustrated volume also features recollections by the humanist scholar Sabba di Castiglione; Matteo Bandello’s eyewitness account of the artist creating one of his most famous works, The Last Supper; and letters written by a variety of contemporary authors, including Leonardo himself.

A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year “A truly intimate portrait of one of the greatest creators in human history,” this biography of Leonardo Da Vinci “has the pace, elegance, and authorial omnipresence of a novel,” bringing both artist and Renaissance Italy to life (Noah Charney, author of The Art of Forgery) Why did Leonardo Da Vinci leave so many of his major works uncompleted? Why did this resolute pacifist build war machines for the notorious Borgias? Why did he carry the Mona Lisa with him everywhere he went for decades, yet never quite finish it? Why did he write backwards, and was he really at war with Michelangelo? And was he gay? In a book unlike anything ever written about the Renaissance genius, Mike Lankford explodes every cliché about Da Vinci and then reconstructs him based on a rich trove of available evidence—bringing to life for the modern reader the man who has been studied by scholars for centuries—yet has remained as mysterious as ever. Seeking to envision Da Vinci without the obscuring residue of historical varnish, the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of Renaissance Italy—usually missing in other biographies—are all here, transporting readers back to a world of war and plague and court intrigue, of viciously competitive famous artists, of murderous tyrants with exquisite tastes in art . . . Lankford brilliantly captures Da Vinci’s life as the compelling and dangerous adventure it seems to have actually been—fleeing from one sanctuary to the next, somehow surviving in war zones beside his friend Machiavelli, struggling to make art his way or no way at all . . . and often paying dearly for those decisions. It is a thrilling and absorbing journey into the life of a ferociously dedicated loner, whose artwork in one way or another represents his noble rebellion, providing inspiration that is timeless.

This engaging book places Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific achievements within the wider context of the rapid development that occurred during the Renaissance. It demonstrates how his contributions were not in fact born of isolated genius, but rather part of a rich period of collective advancement in science and technology, which began at least 50 years prior to his birth. Readers will discover a very special moment in history, when creativity and imagination were changing the future—shaping our present. They will be amazed to discover how many technological inventions had already been conceived or even designed by the engineers and inventors who preceded Leonardo, such as Francesco di Giorgio and Taccola, the so-called Siena engineers. This engaging volume features a wealth of illustrations from a variety of original sources, such as manuscripts and codices, enabling the reader to see and judge for him or herself the influence that other Renaissance engineers and inventors had on Leonardo.