A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year
A Spectator Book of the Year
“A truly intimate portrait of one of the greatest creators in human history,” this biography of Leonardo Da Vinci “has the pace, elegance, and authorial omnipresence of a novel,” bringing both artist and Renaissance Italy to life (Noah Charney, author of The Art of Forgery)
Why did Leonardo Da Vinci leave so many of his major works uncompleted? Why did this resolute pacifist build war machines for the notorious Borgias? Why did he carry the Mona Lisa with him everywhere he went for decades, yet never quite finish it? Why did he write backwards, and was he really at war with Michelangelo? And was he gay?
In a book unlike anything ever written about the Renaissance genius, Mike Lankford explodes every cliché about Da Vinci and then reconstructs him based on a rich trove of available evidence—bringing to l
