"To read this magnificent biography of Leonardo da Vinci is to take a tour through the life and works of one of the most extraordinary human beings of all time and in the company of the most engaging, informed, and insightful guide imaginable. Walter Isaacson is at once a true scholar and a spellbinding writer. And what a wealth of lessons there are to be learned in these pages."
--David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Wright Brothers and 1776"Monumental . . . Leonardo led an astonishingly interesting eventful life. And Isaacson brilliantly captures its essence."
--The Toronto Star"Illuminating . . . This is a monumental tribute to a titanic figure."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review"Encompassing in its coverage, robust in its artistic explanations, yet written in a smart, conversational tone, this is both a solid introduction to the man and a sweeping saga of his genius."
--Booklist, starred review"Isaacson's biography is linear enough to follow easily, yet it returns, as did the artist, time and again, to the highly concrete, enticingly yet rigorously investigable mysteries of the human and natural world. Model . . . . This beautiful book, on coated stock, showing text and illustrations to the best advantage, is a pleasure to hold."
--Bay Area Reporter"A 21st century page-turner."
--USA Today"Beautifully produced and illustrated, the biography is an ideal match of author and subject. . . . Fascinated by Leonardo's genius, Isaacson lucidly and lovingly captures his stunning powers of observation that spanned so many disciplines. . . . Isaacson's monumental and magnificent biography does succeed in helping us understand what made da Vinci's paintings so memorable, and in making Leonardo much more accessible, as a genius, a man of and outside of his times, and as a 'quirky, obsessive, playful, and easily distracted' human being."
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Tulsa World"In some ways this is Walter Isaacson's most ambitious book. He uses the life he recounts in a wonderful way to speculate on the source of geniuses...always you are informed, entertained, stimulated, satisfied. This has to be the most beautifully illustrated and printed book I've seen in recent years."
--Fareed Zakaria GPS"Leonardo da Vinci's prowess as a polymath -- driven by insatiable curiosity about everything from the human womb to deadly weaponry -- still stuns. In this copiously illustrated biography, we feel its force all over again. Walter Isaacson wonderfully conveys how Leonardo's genius unified science and art."
--NATURE"Luminous . . . Leonardo Da Vinci is an elegantly illustrated book that broadens Isaacson's viewfinder on the psychology of major lives - Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs are the subjects of his previous biographies, best-sellers all."
--THE DAILY BEAST