'Leonardo and the Last Supper,' a Portrait of Da Vinci's Times

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Inventor, painter, designer -- Leonardo Da Vinci was a brilliant man. This undeniable fact is borne out by his drawings, his notebooks, his paintings, and one fresco in particular -- "The Last Supper" in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

But, according to Ross King, it wasn't a job Da Vinci wanted.

In "Leonardo and The Last Supper," King gives you a portrait of the times behind Da Vinci and of the politics and decisions that went into the creation of the painting.

Renaissance Italy was split into many principalities -- Milan, Florence, Venice, all of which "vied to surpass one another not on the field of battle but …