Download or read book Leonardo da Vinci written by Walter Isaacson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker). Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius. In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).
Download or read book Fortune is a River written by Roger D. Masters and published by Plume Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masters provides a concise and insightful description of the partnership of two of history's greatest geniuses--Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli--and their scheme to make Florence a seaport. photo insert.
Download or read book Leonardo and the Mona Lisa Story written by Donald Sassoon and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealed in more than four hundred paintings, photographs and illustrations this is an intimate look at the history of the world's most famous painting and the genius who created it.
Download or read book Leonardo Da Vinci written by Charles Nicholl and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-04-07 with total page 955 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leonardo is the greatest, most multi-faceted and most mysterious of all Renaissance artists, but extraordinarily, considering his enormous reputation, this is the first full-length biography in English for several decades. Prize-winning author Charles Nicholl has immersed himself for five years in all the manuscripts, paintings and artefacts to produce an 'intimate portrait' of Leonardo. He uses these contemporary materials - his notebooks and sketchbooks, eye witnesses and early biographies, etc - as a way into the mental tone and physical texture of his life and has made myriad small discoveries about him and his work and his circle of associates. Among much else, the book identifies what Nicholl argues is an unknown portrait of the artist hanging in a church near Lodi in northern Italy. It also contains new material on his eccentric assistant Tomasso Masini, on his homosexual affairs in Florence, and on his curious relationship with a female model and/or prostitute from Cremona. A masterpiece of modern biography.
Download or read book The Shadow Drawing written by Francesca Fiorani and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[The Shadow Drawing] reorients our perspective, distills a life and brings it into focus—the very work of revision and refining that its subject loved best." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times | Editors' Choice An entirely new account of Leonardo the artist and Leonardo the scientist, and why they were one and the same man Leonardo da Vinci has long been celebrated for his consummate genius. He was the painter who gave us the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and the inventor who anticipated the advent of airplanes, hot air balloons, and other technological marvels. But what was the connection between Leonardo the painter and Leonardo the scientist? Historians of Renaissance art have long supposed that Leonardo became increasingly interested in science as he grew older and turned his insatiable curiosity in new directions. They have argued that there are, in effect, two Leonardos—an artist and an inventor. In this pathbreaking new interpretation, the art historian Francesca Fiorani offers a different view. Taking a fresh look at Leonardo’s celebrated but challenging notebooks, as well as other sources, Fiorani argues that Leonardo became familiar with advanced thinking about human vision when he was still an apprentice in a Florence studio—and used his understanding of optical science to develop and perfect his painting techniques. For Leonardo, the task of the painter was to capture the interior life of a human subject, to paint the soul. And even at the outset of his career, he believed that mastering the scientific study of light, shadow, and the atmosphere was essential to doing so. Eventually, he set down these ideas in a book—A Treatise on Painting—that he considered his greatest achievement, though it would be disfigured, ignored, and lost in subsequent centuries. Ranging from the teeming streets of Florence to the most delicate brushstrokes on the surface of the Mona Lisa, The Shadow Drawing vividly reconstructs Leonardo’s life while teaching us to look anew at his greatest paintings. The result is both stirring biography and a bold reconsideration of how the Renaissance understood science and art—and of what was lost when that understanding was forgotten.
Download or read book Da Vinci s Kitchen written by Dave DeWitt and published by Sunbelt Editions. This book was released on 2017-05-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With wars among the city-states raging in early Renaissance Italy, the enigmatic genius Leonardo da Vinci was producing some of the most lavish theatrical productions and banquets Europe has ever seen in the Sforza Court in Milan, while personally living a nearly monastic life, eating the most basic vegetarian foods. Leonardo's food history is just a part of the fascinating and little known story of the origins of Italian cuisine. The tale begins in the early Renaissance with the first superstar chefs, Maestro Martino and Platina, whose cookbooks literally set the stage for the evolution of the cooking of Italy. Both of these cooks moved away from the use of imported spices in favor of local aromatic herbs. The introduction of new crops into Italy soon transformed the cuisine of the regions. Rice became risotto, durum wheat became pasta, and sugarcane became sugar and replaced honey, forever changing the nature of Italian sweets and desserts. Despite near starvation for the poor, the wealthy courts of the city states indulged themselves with fantastic feasts and elaborate spectacles. Leonardo produced The Masque of the Planets, a multimedia entertainment that made him famous all over Italy. After Columbus's first voyage, a second wave of new foods arrived in Italy. Maize (corn) became polenta, tomatoes changed the way pasta was eaten, and peppers eventually spiced up Italy's regional cuisines. The complete development and transformation of Italian cuisine is revealed in Da Vinci's Kitchen, including fascinating sidebars, Renaissance frustrations, original recipes from the masters of early Italian cooking, and some modern adaptations of these recipes, including Leonardo's own salad dressing. Part history, part biography, and part cookbook, this fascinating exploration of an as-yet unexamined facet of Leonardo da Vinci's life focuses on what and how he ate. Da Vinci lived to be 67-nearly twice the average life span at the time-and his longevity may well have been due to his diet, which is reconstructed here complete with his notes on ingredients, portions, cooking, drinking, and kitchen inventions. The great artist, scientist, and inventor was no slouch in the kitchen, having worked as a kind of theatrical caterer, producing feasts with extravagant menus for royalty. This book unlocks his cooking code and the food history of his day, bringing 30 recipes up to date, including an exotic saffron risotto with duck and mushrooms fit for a Medici.
Download or read book DK EW Bks Da Vinci His Times written by Andrew Langley and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-02-20 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrate the renewed popularity of history's original Renaissance man with a re-launched edition of this classic Eyewitness book, featuring eight exciting new pages of material. Detailed photographers and illustrations. Extensive information on the Renaissance puts Da Vinci in context. Most trusted nonfiction series among teachers, librarians and parents.
Download or read book I am Leonardo da Vinci written by Brad Meltzer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The famous Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci is the twentieth hero in the New York Times bestselling picture book biography series. This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great--the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. Each book tells the story of an icon in a lively, conversational way that works well for the youngest nonfiction readers and that always includes the hero's childhood influences. At the back are an excellent timeline and photos. This book features Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance artist and inventor. He always followed his interests, no matter where they led! His quest to fly led him to study birds' wings and his invention designs were the very earliest sketches of helicopters and other flying machines. Da Vinci's hard work and dedication to his curiosities is why we still remember him today. This friendly, fun biography series inspired the PBS Kids TV show Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. One great role model at a time, these books encourage kids to dream big. Included in each book are: • A timeline of key events in the hero’s history • Photos that bring the story more fully to life • Comic-book-style illustrations that are irresistibly adorable • Childhood moments that influenced the hero • Facts that make great conversation-starters • A virtue this person embodies: Leonardo da Vinci's creativty is seen in everything he accomplished in his life You’ll want to collect each book in this dynamic, informative series!
Download or read book The Last Leonardo written by Ben Lewis and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic quest exposes hidden truths about Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the recently discovered masterpiece that sold for $450 million—and might not be the real thing. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings, and sheikhs. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; to the galleries, salerooms, and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth. Praise for The Last Leonardo “The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail in Ben Lewis’s book. . . . Lewis’s probings of the Salvator’s backstory raise questions about its historical status and visibility, and these lead in turn to the fundamental question of whether the painting is really an autograph work by Leonardo.”—Charles Nicholl, The Guardian “As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.”— Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times
Download or read book World History Biographies Leonardo Da Vinci written by John Phillips and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the life and accomplishment of Leonardo da Vinci.
Download or read book Da Vinci s Ghost written by Toby Lester and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Da Vinci's Ghost, critically acclaimed historian Toby Lester tells the story of the world’s most iconic image, the Vitruvian Man, and sheds surprising new light on the artistry and scholarship of Leonardo da Vinci, one of history’s most fascinating figures. Deftly weaving together art, architecture, history, theology, and much else, Da Vinci's Ghost is a first-rate intellectual enchantment.”—Charles Mann, author of 1493 Da Vinci didn’t summon Vitruvian Man out of thin air. He was inspired by the idea originally formulated by the Roman architect Vitruvius, who suggested that the human body could be made to fit inside a circle, long associated with the divine, and a square, related to the earthly and secular. To place a man inside those shapes was to imply that the human body could indeed be a blueprint for the workings of the universe. Da Vinci elevated Vitruvius’ idea to exhilarating heights when he set out to do something unprecedented, if the human body truly reflected the cosmos, he reasoned, then studying its anatomy more thoroughly than had ever been attempted before—peering deep into body and soul—might grant him an almost godlike perspective on the makeup of the world. Written with the same narrative flair and intellectual sweep as Lester’s award-winning first book, the “almost unbearably thrilling” (Simon Winchester) Fourth Part of the World, and beautifully illustrated with Da Vinci's drawings, Da Vinci’s Ghost follows Da Vinci on his journey to understanding the secrets of the Vitruvian man. It captures a pivotal time in Western history when the Middle Ages were giving way to the Renaissance, when art, science, and philosophy were rapidly converging, and when it seemed possible that a single human being might embody—and even understand—the nature of the universe.
Download or read book Leonardo by Leonardo written by Martin Kemp and published by Callaway Arts & Entertainment. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published to coincide with Leonardo?s 500th anniversary commemoration in 2019, and written by Martin J. Kemp, one of the world?s leading authorities on Leonardo da Vinci, 'Leonardo by Leonardo' presents a gallery of the master's 27 existing paintings, as well as the preparatory drawings that formed the basis of his masterpieces. Martin J. Kemp?s narrative is accompanied by extensive written reflections by Leonardo, and is further highlighted by perspectives from his contemporaries. 0The utmost care and state-of-the-art digital capture technology has been applied to the new photography of the artworks presented in this collection. No expense has been spared to reproduce the artworks with the highest fidelity to colour, tone, and surface. The quality of imaging, ultra-fine resolution printing, archival paper, and binding has produced a book like no other.
Download or read book Leonardo Da Vinci and the Book of Doom written by Simon Hewitt and published by Unicorn. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth investigation into the art, politics and murderous cynicism of Renaissance Milan is is an academic detective story sketched out with erudition and journalistic panache. Debunking the outrageous claim by the notorious Lancashire forger Shaun Greenhalgh that he produced the mesmerizing portrait of a young girl that zoomed into the art world limelight in 2009, Hewitt proves that Leonardo was on intimate terms with both the sitter - Bianca Sforza, teenage daughter of the Duke of Milan - and her husband, Galeazzo Sanseverino, the Duke's Army Captain, effective Number Two and, as Hewitt convincingly demonstrates, the subject of Leonardo's enigmatic portrait The Musician. Hewitt brings the tragic Bianca to life, suggests why and by whom she was likely murdered,and explains why her Leonardo portrait was included in one of the most lavish books ever produced - whose co-illustrator, Giovan Pietro Birago, was paid even more than Leonardo. Finally, in one of the most significant artistic discoveries of recent times, Hewitt shows how Birago's artistic colleagues had no hesitation in lampooning the venerable Leonardo as a Ginger-Haired Gay. 'A remarkable book and a work of impressive scholarship yeteminently readable, helped along by the author's characteristic light touch,the snapshots of the major players and the quality of the illustrations. As adetective story it takes some beating. Chronicling Simon's discoveries, thefascinating people he met on his journey, and the exotic locations he ended upin, his role in piecing it all together is a story in itself' - JOHNFALDING formerly Arts Reporter, Financial Times 'A magnificent journey through time. An amazing book fromfirst page to last' - FRANÇOISE JOULIE Curator of Drawings, Musée du Louvre,Paris
Download or read book Leonardo Da Vinci written by Vito Zani and published by Rizzoli Universe Promotional Books. This book was released on 2003-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rizzoli Quadrifolio art series combines the most popular artists with authoritative text and a fresh, unique format destined to appeal to children and adults alike. Featuring sixteen pages that open up to four times the individual page size, this series allow the reader to delve into the details of individual paintings or see the horiztontal development in a fresco. With stunning color reproductions, expert commentary, and a revolutionary format, Rizzoli Quadrifolios is a pioneering art series. Following the success of Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel, Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt and Caravaggio is Leonardo da Vinci: The Last Supper, a book dedicated to perhaps one of the most important and recognizable works of art ever created. Heralded as the Renaissance master's most important work, the reader is afforded extraordinary details of this quickly deteriorating fresco. Located in a small monastery in Milan, the work has recently been restored so that the delicate faces which register, with great subtlety, the gravity of the moment at which Christ announces to his apostles that one among them will betray him, are visible once again. Every inch of the work is reproduced here in illuminating close-ups so that the masterpiece can be appreciated anew.
Download or read book The Wise Men written by Walter Isaacson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1997-06-04 with total page 852 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Download or read book Leonardo and the Death Machine written by Robert J. Harris and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2005 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thriller set against the backdrop of Renaissance Italy. background of Renaissance Italy. However, the Leonardo of the title is in fact Leonardo da Vinci. This is a totally fictional adventure, but it COULD have happened. Florence. But although he yearns to be a great artist himself, he's rather disillusioned with his apprenticeship, which has made him more of an errand boy than an art student. Then, when an impromptu street football match ends in an arm injury for his friend Sandro (whom history will know as Botticelli), Leonardo leaps at the opportunity to help out the unfortunate painter who has been commissioned to paint a portrait for the rich Medici family. Little does our young hero know that soon he will be dragged into murder and intrigue, and will be fleeing for his life
Download or read book Da Vinci and His Times written by Andrew Langley and published by Dk Pub. This book was released on 2006 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An overview of the philosophy, inventions, art, government, religion, and daily life of the Renaissance.
