Leonardo Da Vinci Summary By Sherwin B Nuland

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Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. Leonardo was the polymath of his time and is well known internationally. The biography I read was titled Leonardo da Vinci and was written by Sherwin B. Nuland. Sherwin B. Nuland is a surgeon, writer, educator at Yale, and a Leonardo da Vinci enthusiast. Nuland spent twenty years on a quest to unearth the life of Leonardo da Vinci. During that time Nuland traveled to the places Leonardo had been and gathered information on the mysterious life of Leonardo. Nuland collected this and analyzed this information as well as speculated on the aspects of Leonardo’s life. I chose this book because …show more content…
He finished the piece in 1490, and in 1485 painted “Lady with an Ermine.” He also was an inventor and engineer. He engaged in architectural projects on Florence Cathedral from 1487-1490 and attempted to make flying machines. Leonardo was also an exceptional anatomist and began studying anatomy in 1489. Leonardo may have been the first to attempt to depict the internal organs with accuracy. His most famous anatomical depiction is the fetus in the womb. From 1495-1498 Leo works on “The Last Supper” which was commissioned by Ludovico for the Church of Santa Maria Della Grazie. This painting is one of the most religious symbols in Christianity. Some of Leonardo’s most known paintings are “The Last Supper”, “Mona Lisa”, “ The Vitruvian Man”, and “Lady with an Ermine”. In 1499 Leonardo spent a short time in Venice, and in 1500 Leonardo began the “Virgin and child with Saint Anne” which he did not finish until ten years later. In 1500 at age forty-eight, which was considered old age at that time, Leonardo returned back to Florence. In 1502 Leonardo worked as a military architect for Cesare Borgia. Leonardo was known to be a chronic procrastinator and would often get many more opportunities to paint more pieces but would often give up on them. This was especially shown in …show more content…
I think what I most liked about this book is that it included details about his entire life and not just one portion of his life. For example, this could have been a book only on his art, but instead it covered everything from anatomy to architecture. I also liked reading about his personal life instead of only reading a boring book about dates. I personally feel like if there was more to write about his personal life it would have been even more interesting. But there was nothing more to write about his personal life, since not much is known about Leonardo other than his accomplishments. I also found the parts about his anatomical surgeries interesting because they described how he performed them. I feel though that they may have been a bit drawn out, because the author was a surgeon so he included more of this because it interested him. The parts of this book that I did not find enjoyable were the portions of the book towards the end. They were not about Leonardo but his work but how it got passed around from one person to the next. These portions of the book were not necessarily boring, but they were not

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