The queue snaking daily into Trafalgar Square tells another story. The prized tickets are for the exhibition of the year – or maybe the millennium – at the National Gallery.
On show in the gallery's Sainsbury Wing are nine paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, more than half his known surviving works, and only two of them previously seen in the UK. The Renaissance Titan – scientist, philosopher, engineer, inventor, sculptor and musician as well as artist – produced relatively few paintings, but their impact on Western art has been incalculable.
