© 2024 University of Missouri - KBIA
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Decoding The Creative Genius Of Leonardo da Vinci

A worker hangs replicas of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at a 2009 exhibition in Medellin, Colombia. (Luis Benavides/AP)
A worker hangs replicas of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at a 2009 exhibition in Medellin, Colombia. (Luis Benavides/AP)

History’s most creative genius — Leonardo da Vinci. Walter Isaacson explores the life of the great Renaissance genius of art and science.

Leonardo da Vinci was the most creative genius in history, says historian Walter Isaacson in a big new biography, and it’s hard not to believe.  The man who painted the Mona Lisa was a volcano of inquiry and creativity in anatomy, mechanics, art, optics, music, birds, flying machines, geology, weaponry, the human heart.  He reached across disciplines like no one before and few since.  Science, art, humanities, technology.  This hour, On Point:  Walter Isaacson lights up Leonardo da Vinci. —Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. In addition to “Leonardo da Vinci,” Isaacson has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger. (@WalterIsaacson)

From Tom’s Reading List:

Except of “Leonardo da Vinci,”  by Walter Isaacson. 

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. Copyright © 2017 by Walter Isaacson. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.