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Title: Leonardo Da Vinci (Penguin Lives) by Sherwin B. Nuland ISBN: 0-670-89391-9 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: October, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A DaVinci I never knew
Comment: I was aware that in addition to being a master painter DaVinci was also a visionary scientist with ideas far ahead of his time, but I had no idea that he had made such remarkable leaps forward in the investigation of anatomy. This is a very interesting side of Leonardo that I'm glad to have learned more about. Even so, I don't know if it deserves to degree of focus this biography gives it.
This work gives a functional overview of the major events of DaVinci's life and dabbles a bit in the interpretation of a few of his more famous works of art. But it is first and foremost a biography of DaVinci the anatomist, to the detriment (it seems to me) of DaVinci the artist and DaVinci the mechanical engineer.
Beyond that, two things bugged me about this book. First, the author is a bit preoccupied with the idea of Leonardo's homosexuality and uses that as a tool to pschoanalyze many areas of his life. The speculations on his early childhood are almost exclusively retrospections guessed at by looking backward from an adult homosexual male.
The second thing that bothered me was the author's treatment of DaVinci's religious beliefs. I recognize that religion may not have been a central focus in DaVinci's life, but he does seem to have had a definite belief in God, whearas Nuland more or less apologizes for that fact whenever he is forced to bring it up and it seems that he would like to simply dismiss it as one of the areas in which DaVinci was a product of his times.
Rating: 4
Summary: Concise but informative look at an amazing man
Comment: Heard the taped version of LEONARDO DA VINCI by Sherwin
Nuland, a concise but informative look at the man who was a
successful painter, architect, engineer, philosopher, mathematician, and scientist . . . how he accomplished all he did has always amazed me! . . . this book does a good job of helping to explain the basis behind Da Vinci's insatiable curiosity . . . the author, a surgeon and author, also helps explain his subject's longtime fascination with anatomy--first as the basis for his painting and then as the key component in his aim to systematize all knowledge of nature.
Rating: 5
Summary: Centuries Ahead of the Curve
Comment: The focus of this informative biography is da Vinci the anatomist, not Leonardo the painter or proto-technologist. Indeed, this biography truly comes alive only when Nuland, a surgeon and author, describes the advances Leonardo achieved in his study of the body. In my opinion, Nuland's touch isn't so sure in other areas of Leonardo's achievement and there are, in fact, patches that sound like a product of rushed and unedited dictation. Still, I'd rate this as a superior introduction to a scientist centuries ahead of his time. This fine book, by the way, definitely enriched my experience at the da Vinci exhibit that is now showing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Title: Napoleon: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives Series.) by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0670030783 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 09 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Dante (Penguin Lives) by R. W. B. Lewis ISBN: 0670899097 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 25 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Abraham Lincoln: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives) by Thomas Keneally ISBN: 0670031755 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Winston Churchill: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives) by John Keegan ISBN: 0670030791 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 10 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) by Garry Wills ISBN: 0670886106 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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