Leonardo Da Vinci Flights Of The Mind

Painter, draftsman, inventor, anatomist, musician and philosopher, Leonardo da Vinci is the most multifaceted of all the great Renaissance artists-and also the most mysterious. Though celebrated for centuries for his momentous achievements, the man himself has remained curiously elusive and much of his story in shadow. Leonardo: Flights of the Mind paints the most convincing and intimate portrait yet of the complex, original and endlessly curious individual behind the legendary Renaissance genius and universal man. It traces Leonardo's remarkable journey from his obscure beginnings as an illegitimate child in provincial Tuscany through his apprenticeship in the Florentine workshop of Verrocchio, his years of service with the great magnates of Renaissance Italy-Medici, Sforza, Borgia-his relationships with Michelangelo and Machiavelli, his fame as one of the most illustrious figures of his age and his final days in the service of Francis I of France. Charles Nicholl has made many new discoveries about Leonardo and his circle-including a previously unknown portrait of him-and explores the stories behind the creation of such world-famous works as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But his book is exceptional above all for its penetration of Leonardo's personality and the extraordinary "flights" of his mind and for its vivid re-creation of the physical texture and day-to-day minutiae of his life-what he ate and wore, his jokes and riddles and his almost obsessive note making on everything from the structure of the solar system to the mechanics of sneezing. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources and delving into little-known corners of Leonardo's own notebooks, Nicholl has produced the first full biography in English for decades. Beautifully written and illustrated, full of illuminating details and insights, this is a master-piece of modern biography.Nicholl, Charles is the author of 'Leonardo Da Vinci Flights Of The Mind', published 0017 under ISBN 9780670033454 and ISBN 0670033456.