Leonardo da Vinci
by Sherwin Nuland
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In Leonardo da Vinci, Sherwin Nuland completes his twenty-year quest to understand an unlettered man who was a painter, architect, engineer, philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. What was it that propelled Leonardo's insatiable curiosity? Nuland finds clues in his subject's art, relationships, and scientific studies. He detects the siren voice that so often lured the great artist into the arms of science - Leonardo's fascination with anatomy, first as the basis for his paintings and show more then as the crucial component in his aim to systematize all knowledge of nature. Scholarly and passionate, Nuland's Leonardo da Vinci takes us deep into the first truly modern, empirical mind, one that was centuries ahead of its time. show lessTags
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I knew next to nothing about the subject, and this book served moderately well as a short introduction. Nuland is most excited about our hero as a student of anatomy, which makes sense as Nuland is a medical doctor. There were interesting bits about the process of preserving the anatomy for dissection; we have it so easy now in biology class.
Not what it could have been. Nuland seems as much in thrall of Leonardo that he warns about early in this short biography. Apparently Leonardo was so ahead of his time that any "warts" in his life can be excused. Leonardo may have been the first to do a lot of things, including studies of the human body, but since he didn't finish his project to publish his work, virtually everything had to be rediscovered.
Some of Nuland's personal views bleed through more than on more than a few pages.
Some of Nuland's personal views bleed through more than on more than a few pages.
Good but brief look at a fascinating man. I knew he was an artist but I never realized the breadth of his curiosity and his genius.
Thin, short and not particularly compelling. I understand that there isn't much biographical information available, and I think Nuland gave it the old college try, but this just didn't work for me.
Concise, short account of Leonard's works, with an emphasis on his manuscripts and anatomical drawings.
Redundant and overly focused on things that I felt were irrelevant.
Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519/Artists > Italy > Biography/Series Entry: Penguin lives series
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32+ Works 4,962 Members
Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland was born Shepsel Ber Nudelman on December 8, 1930 in the Bronx, New York. He received a bachelor's degree from New York University in 1951 and a medical degree from Yale University in 1955. He decided to specialize in surgery and in 1958, became the chief surgical resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital. From 1962 to 1991, he was show more a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, where he also taught bioethics and medical history. Before retiring to write full-time, he was a surgeon at Yale-New Haven Hospital from 1962 to 1992. His books include Doctors: The Biography of Medicine, The Wisdom of the Body, The Doctors' Plague, The Uncertain Art, and the memoir Lost in America. His book, How We Die, won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1994. He was also a contributing editor to The American Scholar and The New Republic. He died of prostate cancer on March 3, 2014 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- People/Characters
- Leonardo da Vinci
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