Book excerpt: 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.