Leonardo da Vinci: The Design of the World, 1452-1519

This volume represents a unique opportunity to admire and understand, from a comprehensive perspective, Leonardo's extraordinary complexity as an artist, painter and sketcher, and, in part, his work as a scientist and technologist. This alluring volume is meant to illustrate, through twelve sections, some central themes in Leonardo's entire artistic and scientific career, underlining some constants in his vision as an artist and a scientist, as well as his interdisciplinary vocation and continuous intermingling of interests. The catalog gathers oeuvres signed by Leonardo-paintings, drawings and manuscripts-introduced by works from his predecessors-painters, sculptors, technicians, theorists-which can contextualize Leonardo's contribution to the history of art, science and technology while offering, at the same time, a vision of Leonardo the artist and scientist of his age, without giving in to myth-making and banality. Two final sections show the influence of Leonardo the painter and art theorist on the modern era and the creation of his legend, centered on Mona Lisa. The volume also includes masterpiece paintings by Leonardo, some of his original codes, and over one hundred signed drawings, as well as a considerable number of artworks, drawings, manuscripts, sculptures, and codes from major museums and libraries around the world and from private collections, with works by Antonello da Messina, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, Paolo Uccello, Ghirlandaio, Verrocchio, Antonio and Piero del Pollaiolo, Jean van Eyck, Bramante, just to name a few.