Well, to one of them, at least.

There was a lot more to the genius who painted the Mona Lisa than many people realize. For one thing, did you know Da Vinci wasn't allowed to attend a university because his parents weren't married? There's more. There's intrigue and scandal. There's a guy who had more projects going than he finished because he had such an inquiring mind.

Because of that, Da Vinci was largely a self-taught man. (The message there is don't blame the public educational system if you don't know anything.) He had quite an interesting life. He didn't spend his time looking at his thumb or trying to decide whether the Mona Lisa should be happy or sad or whether she maybe just ate too many green apples.

Did you know that Da Vinci was very secretive about his ideas? He kept his journals well-hidden. He thought someone might steal them. The thing is, if he had been of a mind to share his knowledge and speculation while he was alive, we might have had helicopters and other flying machines sooner.

Today, those journals sell for a ridiculous amount of money.

Oh yes, the book. I have to tell you about the book. Well, it's called "101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci: The Secrets of the World's Most Eccentric and Innovative Genius Revealed!" by Cynthia Phillips and Shana Priwer. The point is that Da Vinci is a very interesting guy, or at least he was while he was still alive, even if the women he painted were very manly. There were probably not a lot of female models back then. Disastrous things can happen to the fairer sex in the lairs of artists, after all.

This would make a fabulous gift for a student of art or of history, or the merely curious.

101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci

Posted by Rhonda.