Daniel Arrasse’s award winning study of Leonardo da Vinci overturns preconceived ideas that can stand in the way of true appreciation of the work of this celebrated genius. Because the obligation to admire even venerate can interfere with our understanding, Arasse approaches Leonardo from an entirely new perspective.

To arrive at a just appraisal of Leonardo’s manifold achievements is a daunting task but the author shows how underlying all of the enormous diversity of his productions his works of civil and military engineering hydraulics, cartography, town planning theatrical design and direction, architecture, music, writing as well as drawing and painting, there is a remarkable coherence brought about by Leonardo’s unflagging research into the rhythm of the world. This allowed him to bring the same qualities of mind to his scientific and artistic endeavors. The painter of ineffable beauty can at the same time be considered as the world’s first technologist.

Supported by a vast range of illustrations including a number of little known works and a profound investigation into the artist\s notebooks, the author demonstrates how Leonardo’s autodidacticism   helped him challenge accepted beliefs in, how his Promethean curiosity and his acute visual sensitivity guided his explorations in art and nature.

In many ways he seems centuries ahead of the contemporaries.  His drawings of flying machines, submarines, even a bicycle where largely ignored, because so foreign to the thinking of his time. In fact every age has had to reinvent Leonardo. He has fascinated thinkers from Vasari to Sigmund Freud. Arasse’s  Leonardo da Vinci invites the reader into a simultaneous exploration of the work and mind of this incomparable artist.