Leonardo da Vinci

Within the new literature, Quiviger’s is the most compelling attempt to present a compact survey in English of Leonardo’s career as a painter. Traditional in its organisation, its chapter divisions correspond to Leonardo’s movements between the cities where he resided, with a separate chapter on Leonardo’s writings on painting. * Burlington Magazine *
Leonardo da Vinci: Self, Art and Nature is a highly readable narrative on the world’s best-known artist. Here, Leonardo is viewed from multiple perspectives, including his reputation in our time as the creator of the most expensive painting ever sold, and during the High Renaissance when Leonardo was not only a celebrated artist but also a courtier, humanist, and mechanical engineer. Providing glimpses into his work as an interdisciplinary artist, François Quiviger addresses the personal and professional aspects of Leonardo’s diverse interests directly and succinctly. The goal of this small but very fine volume is to offer a tantalizing introduction to a historical figure that has already received attention and adulation from generations of scholars stretching as far back as the early sixteenth century to the first art historian, Giorgio Vasari. * Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme *
This book presents a compact and pleasurable overview of the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, attending to his painting, social milieu, and scientific pursuits. Quiviger sketches out Leonardo as a person as very much a part of the communities he inhabited, an individual possessed of considerable skills in his capacity as a courtier, and one with a mind very much oriented to nature as a site for persistent intellectual inquiry . . . a digestible overview of the artist that deftly draws together analysis of his major artistic projects while signaling at the myriad sources and preoccupations that so drove Leonardo’s restless mind. * Renaissance Quarterly *
The 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death has naturally unleashed a tsunami of books about the Renaissance genius, few of which add anything new to what’s been written before. This one, though, stands out by offering a novel approach to an understanding of Leonardo’s character, the thirst for knowledge that drove him, and the way he navigated the rigid and often precarious society into which he was born - and how his art related to all this . . . It’s admirably written, clear and concise and assuming little background knowledge of Leonardo, his times or the practice of art . . . The book is also attractively produced on high quality paper and lavishly illustrated in colour. It serves as an ideal introduction to the great man as well as providing deeper insights into his personality and motivations than many biographies. * Magonia Review of Books *
Quiviger’s book on Leonardo da Vinci is proof that very good things can come in small packages. Written as an artistic biography following Leonardo’s peregrinations chronologically, the book discusses Leonardo's studio practices, his artistic training, and his role as a courtly figure, a designer of new military new weapons and of maps for warfare, and a musician and designer of elaborate stage sets and costumes. Quiviger offers a deep appreciation of Leonardo’s stunning accomplishments in all of these areas, but he also manages to interweave questions of authorship of works attributed to Leonardo, critiques of the enormous body of scholarship and popular fancy that weighs down current understanding of Leonardo and his work – thus history and historiography wrapped into a seamless whole – all in fewer than 200 pages. It is difficult to overstate how refreshing this no-nonsense, learned, and engaged biography is – particularly in the context of all that has been written about this artist. Highly recommended. * Choice *
Sheds new light on aspects of the social, cultural and intellectual environments in which Leonardo lived and worked. This is a book that will add more than many to our understanding of Leonardo as not just a painter but as a polymath. * Francis Ames-Lewis, Emeritus Professor of History of Renaissance Art, Birkbeck College, University of London *