Leonardo da Vinci: A Life From Beginning to End |Hourly History

Rating: 4.5/5

Great book! I have read about Leonardo Da Vinci, but this book tells more than any other.

The book gives the glimpse of life during Italian Renaissance era.

The best thing about ‘hour history series’ is that it is totally based on facts (not opinions) & is short enough to complete in a sitting 🙂

I am glad that the author talked about the paintings Da Vinci did, and the description is quite remarkable.

Briefly yet vividly described paintings in this book are

•  The last supper
• Monalisa
• The Vitruvian Man (my favorite)

Da Vinci was a genius! I don’t think the world ever saw a polymath like Vinci. The world didn’t get to know about Vinci’s scientific work as it wasn’t written in latin. (at that time scientists used to use latin for such works)

Now we know from decoding his 4 diaries that he knew things like:

• why the sky is blue
• Valley’s are carved by mountains
• Sea level can fall to reveal mountains

Da Vinci made remarkable scientific sketches, He was a true visionary, some of the sketches the book tells about are:

• A bridge : da Vinci made a bridge for a king but the king declined arguing that the bridge sketch is absurd. In 2002, Architecture tested the bridge design as sketched by Da Vinci & it worked!
• Diving suit : The suit have been created from the sketch & it worked well
• Parachute
• Paraglider
• Contact lenses 

& interestingly He was a firm believer that Earth is older than what the bible says!  (In those days, saying a thing against bible used to mean treason)

At the end, we all should thank  “Giorgio Vasari“, whatever we know today about lives of great artists of Italian Renaissance like Leonardo or Michelangelo is due to him. He spent his life documenting the life of others!

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My Favourite Quotes of Da Vinci:

“you have no dominion greater or lesser than over yourself”

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”