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Leonardo Da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind

Leonardo Da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind

byCharles Nicholl
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From India

Arijit Pyne
3.0 out of 5 stars Mismatch with product description and low quality packaging
Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 29 May 2022
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I have just received the book and yet to delve deep into it. The packaging was not good as it came in just paper wrapped around it, which I wounded could have tempered the book . At first glance, I see that there are 620 pages, which does not match with the product description in the website.
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Cabin Dweller
5.0 out of 5 stars The Ornithopter Man
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 30 July 2017
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Charles Nicholl writes on page 68, "What the Renaissance was, and when and why it happened, are not precisely definable." Nevertheless, Nicholl presents the theory of Constantinople's fall in 1453. Had not a Hungarian cannon maker named Urban helped Muslims in their Eastern conquests, there may not have been a reinvigoration and concentration, in Italy, of the old Greeks. Nicholl names Euclid, Ptolemy, Plato, and Aristotle. Still, none of these is a Biblical figure or a woman, the two primary areas within DaVinci's artistic legacies. As DaVinci's earliest or biggest role model, a man named Leon Battista Alberti is called, on page 69, the "first Renaissance Man". Both men, it is worth noting for the now odd barriers of that time, were illegitimate, talented, educated, and imaginative in a time not praised for its meritocracy. Alberti is an athlete. His protege is not similarly known. Still it can be said after reading a long biography by an expert researcher and communicator that many of the subject's personal qualities are hardly to be known. As a Renaissance Man, DaVinci is not rounded and fleshed. Instead his life is his highly prolific work.

The story of DaVinci is presented as mystery, usually, but it can also be perceived for its chaos. Miraculously, all of this chaos surrounds Leonardo and none of it ever interferes directly with his art or the soul of his art. On page 138, the plot against the Medicis is covered. These were murderous times with murderous leaders and Popes, not to mention assassins. "Leonardo was there," says Nicholl, there to draw the hanging body of killer Bernardo di Bandino. The artist was 27. A reader would not know at this point what is to come, whether Leonardo DaVinci is about to become a scientist, a painter, a sculptor, or an accomplice. Together with the intrigue of power within Italy, as well as French invasion, I found the book a compelling page turner still basking in the glow of cultural ascension, not spoiled by dogma or militarism.

On page 285, he is a scientist par excellence. "The principles of horology are an important background for Leonardo's automata [knight of armor robot], though according to Mark Rosheim, a NASA scientist who has reconstructed a working model of the robot knight, Leonardo was moving far beyond the limitations of clockwork: his programmed carriage for automata is nothing less than 'the first known example in the story of civilization of the programmable analogue computer'."

Just before turning 50, on page 337, he is a tired painter living hand-to-mouth even while being sought after. It is open to interpretation, but perhaps DaVinci is many things admirable even while being "sick of painting". For one, he is not a sycophant. For another, his talent has become a curse from which we can see him withdraw, withdraw back into a weary yet modest shadow from too many critics with too many opinions, a man beyond being susceptible to anybody's proclamations. Also, he is consumed with math, including the area of circles and squares.

On page 358, he is a civil and military engineer, a genius for hire. On page 410, he is returning to Florence (Milan is the other primary location) and becoming a mentor to Francesco Melzi, eventually his "guardian of the flame". On page 463, it is noted that, in the early 16th Century, Rome was a city of 50,000 people, much smaller than Milan. There were 7,000 prostitutes working with the priests.
3 people found this helpful
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Lengyel Stefania
3.0 out of 5 stars gossip
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 10 February 2022
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Reading this book feels much more like going through a bunch of gossips than a biography. It almost always wanders off and comes back time and time again. It speaks a lot, but doesn't say much about the man himself. Instead we learn a lot about people surrounding him, lots of unnecessary information, which makes the reading rather tedious. On the other hand, Walter Isaacson's Biography of Leonardo captivates you and carries you, it is very focused and it has a living structure that doesn't subside. I know it is hard to write about Leonardo, for the man was a mystery, but it is possible, especially through his precious body of work, and that is where Isaacson hits the nail on the head. If The Flights of the Mind was the only existing Leonardo biography, I would recommend it, but since it is not, I say Isaacson's book is much superior in every sense.
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Scott Hercher
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, witty, compelling, poignant, romantic biography of one of the greatest figures in human history
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 4 August 2016
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"The cage is empty; the mind has flown." This is how Charles Nicholl ends his biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Nicholl seeks the real Leonardo, not the hagiographic Renaissance superman; indeed, while he concedes you cannot write about Leonardo without using the word "genius," he avoids it at all costs. To Nicholl, Leonardo is a complex man just like any other. Born out of wedlock, he has at best a distant relationship with his father. His career is marked more by what he does not complete than by what he does. His greatest works, The Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, and perhaps a fresco we will never see, were never completed. His insatiable curiosity constantly leads him to new projects, which will themselves be abandoned. He is private, yet theatrical, and possibly a little flamboyant.

Nicholl presents a humane picture of Leonardo in a compelling, witty, gripping fashion, with moments of slight romanticism and Nicholl's own wistful reflections and longing interpretations, sometimes seeing what he admittedly wants to see.

Perhaps my favorite moment in the book is a summary in which Leonardo spends on jaunts to the hills of Pisa, in conversation with Macchiavelli, and studying math with one of the great Italian Renaissance mathematicians. As Nicholl drily suggests, not a bad way to spend a summer. Inspirational to those of us who live across the ocean 500 years later.
12 people found this helpful
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Nikola
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting look into Leonardo's personality
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 3 November 2021
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I have read this biography when it came out, i read it now and i will read it again. The author brings Leonardo's circumstances and his private side so close that you can smell it. Definitely a book to recommend.
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Ms. P. Khan
3.0 out of 5 stars Well researched and interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 4 July 2016
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Well researched and with up-to-date information, Nicholl delivers an interesting forray into the life of a man who has become a cipher for 'genius'. There are some tasters of the general milieu Da Vinci lived in, and in general it provides a good learning experience for those who want to look behind the label and find a creative, frustrated, inquiring mind. My main difficulty with this book was really to do with the way it was written; Nicholl bases the narrative not on chronological events but on themes, and it can be rather dry at times. However, don't let that put you off, as it is very well researched. There is a problem with works like this, where there is really very little in the way of hard evidence in some areas, and Nicholl is intensely uncomfortable with supposition. I read this after finishing Peter Robb's 'M' about Caravaggio - which is a romping theoretical vision of a life and hugely entertaining. Nicholl's book is more academic - no bitten fingernails but you do get a feel for what Da Vinci was about. If you're getting this on Kindle, I would say that the images are rather small and oddly formatted. I think Leonardo would have had something to say about that....
3 people found this helpful
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BettyGee
5.0 out of 5 stars Flights of the Mind Brings da Vinci Alive
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 18 June 2013
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This is the book that I wanted. It gives some idea of the man, how he thought and how he used his ideas to create. It gives you a background of his early life. There are images that give you an idea of the genius that da Vinci had and used to create. If there was one person I could meet and listen to it would be da Vinci. There is another book, How To Think Like da Vinci; but honestly I don't believe there is any possibility of that. Mr. Nicholl's brings da Vinci to life and lets me share in his thoughts and how he formed his theories. If you have gotten hooked on the Starz production of da Vinci Demons as I have and want to know more about da Vinci then this is the book you want. There isn't a piece of fiction that has held my interest as well as this book, well that is an overstatement; but you can get the idea that this is the book for you if you want to know da Vinci.
2 people found this helpful
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M. Engel
4.0 out of 5 stars Very informative
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 18 June 2014
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A fresh look at Leonardo, no hagiography, but well researched and informative biography. There will always be a certain mythology surrounding this person, but that doesn't matter so much anymore if you can balance it out by books like these. I am reading this on my Ereader and the only thing I am dissapointed with is the poor resolution of the images that are supplied.
(And that's not even due to the publisher, I presume, but has more to do with the Kindle itself). I haven't finished reading, so I am not sure if a timeline is seperately provided. Dates, times, places, people and products/activities, perhaps a surprise when I reach the end (Haven't looked up the TOC either)
7 people found this helpful
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Dennis Anthony Holland II
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book to own.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 7 May 2021
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I love this book, Leonardo Da Vinci was such a creative guy and this book documents his exhibition wonderfully. With great references to sketches and painted images. If you enjoy the renaissance, this book captures a great many episodes.
One person found this helpful
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Client Amazon
4.0 out of 5 stars Good service
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 17 May 2020
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Good service though book was slightly grubbier than expected.
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