This sounds a bit clichéd, but bear with me: Definitely check out Leonardo da Vinci's biography by Walter Isaacson. It gives a delightful account of da Vinci'

This sounds a bit clichéd, but bear with me: Definitely check out Leonardo da Vinci's biography by Walter Isaacson. It gives a delightful account of da Vinci's life and his exploits. It's hard not to feel inspired after reading it. (It also has 120+ illustrations of da Vinci's drawings and notes. They're all digitized; you can flip through them here[0]. A random teaser from a recent comment[1]: da Vinci spent a lot of time dissecting human corpses and horses and made many draft drawings. Then he declares in his notebook, "I'm going to write a treatise on human anatomy; it will be better than those created by surgeons because I can draw exploded views of arms and muscles from different angles." He never finishes it. But, he discovered[2] the functioning of the aortic valve in the heart! [0] http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29495779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29495779 [2] https://www.rct.uk/collection/919082/the-aortic-valve https://www.rct.uk/collection/919082/the-aortic-valve