A review by booksrockcal
The Da Vinci Legacy: How a 16th Century Solitary Genius Became a Global Pop Icon by Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Christopher Brown

adventurous challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

Excellent book that gives an overview of Leonardo’s life and work, and of the paintings and artistic techniques that made him the leading painter of the Renaissance. The author discusses the contemporaneous biographies and other details of Leonardo’s life and work as well as posthumous accounts to help readers understand the legends and truths connected to Leonardo. The author includes histories of his works and comparisons between them as well as the keen interest of so many people in those works and the artist in an attempt to explain how an artist with so few extant works became such an art history giant. Truly the story of the survival of the Last Supper, painted on the wall of a monastery refectory in Milan and degraded from its inception, subjected to heat and temperature changes, use of the refectory as a stable and finally a near miss by a bomb in WWII is incredible by itself. A great review of Leonardo and his work prior to our trip to Italy.