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| Author | Walter Isaacson |
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| Language | English |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 2017 |
| Pages | 624 pp. |
| ISBN | 9781501139161 |
Leonardo da Vinci is a biography of Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci. The book was written by Walter Isaacson, a biographer and former executive at CNN and president of the Aspen Institute. [1]
The book details his life, paintings, notebooks, work on maths, science and anatomy, and his sexuality. It focuses primarily on his notebooks but also covers his paintings. The book tackles the controversies surrounding the attribution of the paintings La Bella Principessa and Salvator Mundi to Leonardo. [2] Isaacson has stated that the book does not contain any new discoveries about Leonardo. [3] At the end of the book, Isaacson gives a list of lessons to be learned from Leonardo's life. An example is "be curious, relentlessly curious". [4] [5] The front cover has the portrait of Leonardo at the Uffizi museum. [6]
The book became a number one New York Times Best Seller. [7] Robin McKie of The Guardian described the book as "sumptuous, elegantly written and diligently produced". [2] Bill Gates, who owns Leonardo's Codex Leicester, wrote that "I've read a lot about Leonardo over the years, but I had never found one book that satisfactorily covered all the different facets of his life and work." [8] Joshua Kim of Inside Higher Ed theorized that the $450 million sale price of Leonardo's painting Salvator Mundi in November 2017 may have been influenced by the book. [9] Jennifer Senior of the New York Times wrote: [5]
I’m not sure the role of art critic suits him. Isaacson’s enthusiasm is admirable, but he hails many of Leonardo’s creations in the same breathless tone with which a teenager might greet a new Apple product. The words “brilliant,” “wondrous” and “ingenious” come up a lot.
Senior also criticized Isaacson's "Learning from Leonardo" summary at the end of the book, describing it as a form of "TED-ism". [5] When comparing Isaacson's book to Mike Lankford's Becoming Leonardo (2017), Daniel J. Levitin of the Wall Street Journal wrote, "Mr. Isaacson's book feels cobbled together, as if written on deadline, while Mr. Lankford seems to have taken all the time he needed." [10] Alexander C. Kafka of the Washington Post wrote: [4]
Isaacson’s approach, true to his background, is fundamentally journalistic. No intellectual peacocking for him, and though his writing is certainly graceful, it is never needlessly ornate. But make no mistake: He knows his stuff ...
In August 2017 Paramount outbid Universal Pictures for the rights to adapt the book into a film. It was decided that Leonardo DiCaprio (who is named after the polymath) would play Leonardo da Vinci. [11] This did not work out, so Universal bought the rights to it in 2023. (Universal had already adapted Isaacson's book about Steve Jobs into a film.) [12] Andrew Haigh was chosen to direct the film. [13] [14]
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.
The Vitruvian Man is a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1490. Inspired by the writings of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, the drawing depicts a nude man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in both a circle and square. It was described by the art historian Carmen C. Bambach as "justly ranked among the all-time iconic images of Western civilization". Although not the only known drawing of a man inspired by the writings of Vitruvius, the work is a unique synthesis of artistic and scientific ideals and often considered an archetypal representation of the High Renaissance.
The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to c. 1489–1491, the work is painted in oils on a panel of walnut wood. Its subject is Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan; Leonardo was painter to the Sforza court in Milan at the time of its execution. It is the second of only four surviving portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being Ginevra de' Benci, La Belle Ferronnière and the Mona Lisa.
Salvator Mundi, Latin for Saviour of the World, is a subject in iconography depicting Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding an orb, known as a globus cruciger. The latter symbolizes the Earth, and the whole composition has strong eschatological undertones.
Walter Seff Isaacson is an American journalist who has written biographies of Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Jennifer Doudna and Elon Musk. As of 2024, Isaacson is a professor at Tulane University and, since 2018, an interviewer for the PBS and CNN news show Amanpour & Company.
The Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in oils, and perhaps tempera, on a small panel of walnut wood. It is his only known male portrait painting, and the identity of its sitter has been closely debated among scholars.
Martin John Kemp is a British art historian and exhibition curator who is one of the world's leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci. The author of many books on Leonardo, Kemp has also written about visualisation in art and science, particularly anatomy, natural sciences and optics. Instrumental in the controversial authentication of Salvator Mundi to Leonardo, Kemp has been vocal on attributions to Leonardo, including support of La Bella Principessa and opposition to the Isleworth Mona Lisa.
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio. According to Giorgio Vasari, he was of an aristocratic family and was born in Milan.
Alexander Parish is a New York art dealer and the joint former owner of the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci; he appears in the 2021 film, The Lost Leonardo.
Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, better known as Salaì was an Italian artist and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci from 1490 to 1518. Salaì entered Leonardo's household at the age of ten. Salai created paintings under the name of Andrea Salaì. He was described as one of Leonardo's students and lifelong companion and servant and was the model for Leonardo's St. John the Baptist, Bacchus, and Angelo incarnato.
Salvator Mundi is a painting attributed in whole or in part to the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1499–1510. Long thought to be a copy of a lost original veiled with overpainting, it was rediscovered, restored, and included in an exhibition of Leonardo's work at the National Gallery, London, in 2011–2012. Christie's, which sold the work in 2017, stated that most leading scholars consider it an original work by Leonardo, but this attribution has been disputed by other leading specialists, some of whom propose that he only contributed certain elements; others believe that the extensive restoration prevents a definitive attribution.
The Prado Mona Lisa is a painting by the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci and depicts the same subject and composition as Leonardo's better known Mona Lisa at the Louvre, Paris. The Prado Mona Lisa has been in the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain since 1819, but was considered for decades a relatively unimportant copy. Following its restoration in 2012, however, the Prado's Mona Lisa has come to be understood as the earliest known studio copy of Leonardo's masterpiece.
Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saud is a Saudi Arabian businessman and politician who is a member of the Saudi royal family and the inaugural Saudi Arabian Minister of Culture. He is in charge of various key positions directly related to the execution of Saudi Vision 2030. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Culture, he was the chairman of the Saudi Research and Marketing Group. He was also appointed Governor of the Royal Commission for Al-'Ula Governorate in July 2017.
Carmen C. Bambach (1959) is an American art historian and curator of Italian and Spanish drawings at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art who specializes in Italian Renaissance art. She is considered one of the world's leading specialists on Leonardo da Vinci, especially his drawings.
Luke Syson is an English museum curator and art historian. Since 2019, he has been the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, prior to which he held positions at the British Museum (1991–2002), the Victoria and Albert Museum (2002–2003), the National Gallery (2003–2012) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2015–2019). In 2011 he curated the acclaimed Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery: Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, which included his pivotal role in the controversial authentication by the National Gallery of da Vinci's Salvator Mundi.
The Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci drew his design for an "aerial screw" in the late 1480s, while he was employed as a military engineer by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499. The original drawing is part of a manuscript dated to 1487 to 1490 and appears on folio 83-verso of Paris Manuscript B, part of the papers removed from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1795 by Napoleon and still held by the Institut de France in Paris.
The Lost Leonardo is an internationally co-produced documentary film directed by Andreas Koefoed, released in 2021. It follows the discovery and successive sales of the painting the Salvator Mundi, allegedly a work by Leonardo da Vinci, an artist for whom there are only a few attributed works in existence. The film chronicles the dramatic increases in the painting's value from its original purchase in 2005 for $1,175 to its auction in 2017 for $450 million, when it became the most expensive artwork ever sold. The use of high-end artwork for hiding wealth, as well as the conflicts created by large commissions and other economic incentives, are explored in the film. It includes interviews with leading art experts and art critics on issues regarding the provenance and authenticity of the work.
Robert B. Simon is an American art historian and art dealer most known for rediscovering Leonardo da Vinci's picture, Salvator Mundi.
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