![]() ![]() So here are some of the things we learn about Leonardo the man, as opposed to Leonardo the cliché. While scholars have been writing about Leonardo for the better part of 500 years, Isaacson's bravura lies - like a sculptor freeing a figure from a block of marble - in taking countless volumes of academic tomes and molding them into a 21st-century page-turner. Fabled techies-turned-collectors such as Bill Gates own his prize codexes. Beyond the ubiquitous references to paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, a da Vinci painting of Christ just sold at auction for a record-shattering $450 million. Leonardo might have been born in the 15th century, but he's never far from pop culture. Isaacson's biographical choice is a shrewd one. ![]() ![]() Isaacson has tackled Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, and now he's cast his considerable storytelling skills on an Italian renaissance giant with Leonardo da Vinci (Simon & Schuster, 624 pp., ★★★½ out of four). And don't laugh, but the movie rights have already been bought by Leonardo DiCaprio, whose namesake he'll honor by taking the leading role. ![]()
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