Definitive biographies of Leonardo are found in Kenneth Clark, Leonardo da Vinci: An Account of His Development as an Artist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952) and Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1917). Indispensable is the magisterial sixteenth-century biography by Giorgio Vasari contained within in his massive Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors (1550), available in many editions, translations, abridged versions, and reprints.

Among the plethora of recent books about Leonardo is David Alan Brown, Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998). There are some very good books that address the connection between Leonardo’s art and science; among these is Martin Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990). One of my favorites is the wonderful little book by Sherwin B. Nuland, Leonardo da Vinci (NewYork: Penguin, 2000); Nuland, a professor of surgery at Yale University, writes with uncommon authority on Leonardo’s anatomical studies. Finally, another good book by a surgeon, not specifically on Leonardo, but addressing parallel developments in modern physics and modern art, is Leonard Shlain, Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light (New York: Quill, Morrow, 1991).

There have also been a number of works on the divine proportion and its connection to art. These are more about the mathematics (specifically the geometry) rather than the science underlying proportion and symmetry. In this category are two books by Jay Hambidge, Dynamic Symmetry in the Greek Vase (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1920) and The Elements of Dynamic Symmetry (New York: Dover, 1967), both still useful. There is also mathematician H. E. Huntley’s The Divine Proportion: A Study in Mathematical Beauty (New York: Dover, 1970); and by artist Matila Ghyka, Geometrical Composition and Design (London: Alec Tiranti, 1952); and The Geometry of Art and Life (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1946), which is wonderfully detailed.

The quotations by Leonardo appearing at the opening of each chapter are from two main sources: Jean Paul Richter, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1970), an unabridged edition of the work first published as The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (London, 1883); and Martin Kemp, ed., Leonardo on Painting: An Anthology of Writings by Leonardo da Vinci, with a Selection of Documents Relating to His Career as an Artist, trans. Martin Kemp and Margaret Walker (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989).

For the reader interested in a general history of the art of the Italian Renaissance, I would like to suggest two complementary books: Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, rev. and ed. by David G. Wilkins, 5th ed. (New York: Alpha Communications, 2003) and Evelyn Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 1350–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Finally, on the history of art in general there are numerous highly authoritative books, including the compendious Fred S. Kliner, Christin J. Mamiya, and Richard G. Tansey, eds., Helen Gardner, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages 11th ed. (Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt, 2001).