Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind: A Biography - Hardcover

Nicholl, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670033456 ISBN 13: 9780670033454

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2004

Synopsis

A major new biography of the Renaissance artist, intellectual, scientist, and genius brings to life the complex world of a remarkable man, drawing on original translations of Leonardo's notebooks, as well as recently discovered contemporary accounts, to reconstruct his life and times, from his troubled childhood to his stunning accomplishments in a variety of fields. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Nicholl has won numerous awards, including the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. The author of Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa and The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, among other books. NichollĀ’s articles have appeared in Granta, Rolling Stone, and the London Review of Books.

From Publishers Weekly:

Nicholl aims for the man behind the myth in this penetrating, highly detailed biography, which recognizes da Vinci's "mysterious greatness as an artist, scientist and philosopher" but avoids hagiography (and nearly steers clear of the word "genius"). The illegitimate child of a Tuscan peasant girl and a local notary, da Vinci (1452–1519) was apprenticed as a teen to Florence sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. Nicholl (Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa) conjectures convincingly about Leonardo's early career, though he tends to dwell overlong on technical aspects of Renaissance art production. Leonardo established a Florentine studio in 1477, but it was not until he moved to Milan five years later that he began to produce his iconic works: the painting Virgin of the Rocks, the famous Vitruvian Man drawing. Nicholl chronicles the production of The Last Supper and makes a firm statement about the Mona Lisa's identity. Numerous questions about Leonardo's life remain, unavoidably, unanswered, but Nicholl fills in the gaps with insight into the artist's cultural milieu, offering tidbits about Leonardo's sexuality, the sordid goings-on at the Borgia court and the multifarious fruits of the artist's astonishingly fertile curiosity and imagination. Nicholl's attention to da Vinci's polymathic pursuits, as well as his own translations from the artist's numerous notebooks, are some of this dense but readable volume's most compelling aspects. Illus.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0670033456
• ISBN 13: 9780670033454
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640