Synopses & Reviews
For five centuries, Leonardo da Vinci has stood alone as the quintessential Renaissance man the incomparable artist, writer, thinker, and inventor who most powerfully transformed his world. In this dazzling new intimate biography, award-winning author Charles Nicholl creates a portrait of the artist for our time a biography that brings Leonardo to life as a complex man living in a fascinating, dangerous, quickly changing world.
Drawing freely on his own original translations of Leonardo's notebooks as well as newly discovered contemporary accounts, Nicholl captures the very texture of Leonardo's mind and the pungent visceral impressions he transmuted into art. Detail by brilliant detail, Nicholl reconstructs the life and times of the artist, from his troubled childhood as the illegitimate son of an established Tuscan family to his years of apprenticeship in the burgeoning art world of Medici Florence to his unrivaled achievements in a breathtaking array of disciplines and media. Here, too, are compelling new answers to the enduring mysteries of Leonardo's sexual orientation, the true identity of the Mona Lisa, and the early experiences that inspired his lifelong obsession with human flight.
A writer of irresistible charm and quicksilver imagination, Nicholl takes us from the backstreet artists' studios of Florence to the glittering palazzi of the Medici, Sforza, and Borgia families as he pursues the most extravagantly talented and maddeningly elusive artist of all time. The result is a biography of rare grace and penetration.
Review
"[A] beautifully written, masterful biography of the great artist/scientist as person." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
In this new, intimate biography, award-winning author Nicholl creates a portrait of the artist for our time--a biography that brings Leonardo to life as a complex man living in a fascinating, dangerous, quickly changing world.
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. Nicholls articles have appeared in Granta, Rolling Stone, and the London Review of Books.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Introduction: The Cooling of the Soup
Part One
Childhood: 1452-1466
Birth
The da Vinci
Caterina
'My First memory . . .'
At the Mill
Speaking with Animals
The 'Madonna of the Snow'
Education
Part Two
Apprenticeship: 1466-1477
The City
Renaissance Men
Andrea's Bottega
Learning the Trade
Spectaculars
On the Lantern
First Paintings
The Dragon
Ginevra
The Saltarelli Affair
'Companions in Pistoia'
Part Three
Independence: 1477-1482
Leonardo's Studio
The Hanged Man
Zoroastro
The Technologist
'Poets in a Hurry'
The Musician
St. Jerome and the Lion
The Gardens of the Medici
The Adoration
Leaving
Part Four
New Horizons: 1482-1490
Milan
Expatriates and Artists
The Virgin of the Rocks
Ways of Escape
The First Notebooks
Tall Tales, Small Puzzles
Architectural Projects
The Moor's Mistress
The Milanese Studio
The Anatomist
The Sforza Horse
At the Corte Vecchia
Part Five
At Court: 1490-1499
Theatricals
'Of shadow and light'
Little Devil
Hunting Bears
Casting the Horse
'Caterina came . . .'
Echoes of War
The Making of the Last Supper
The 'Academy'
Leonardo's Garden
'Sell what you cannot take . . .'
Part Six
On the Move: 1500-1506
Mantua and Venice
Back in Florence
The Insistent Marchioness
Borgia
Autumn in Imola
A Letter to the Sultan
Moving the River
Mistress Lisa
The Anghiari Fresco (I)
Michelangelo
A Death and a Journey
The Anghiari Fresco (II)
The Spirit of the Bird
Part Seven
Return to Milan: 1506-1513
The Governor
'Good day, Master Francesco . . .'
Brothers at War
Dissections
Back in the Studio
The World and Its Waters
Fêtes Milanaises
La Cremona
The 'Medical Schools'
Chez Melzi
Portrait of the Artist at Sixty
Part Eight
Last Years: 1513-1519
Heading South
At the Belvedere
The Baptist and the Bacchus
The Deluge
Sickness, Deception, Mirrors
Last Visit to Florence
Maistre Lyenard
The Cardinal Calls
'Night was chased away'
The Great Sea
Notes
Sources
Illustrations
Index