Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Biographies
  3. Arts and entertainment

Read and listen for free for 14 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.4(73)

Leonardo Da Vinci

Read by acclaimed actor Alfred Molina, star of The Da Vinci Code, An Education and Chocolat, this is the definitive biography of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.

Da Vinci produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.

His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history’s most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo’s lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions.

Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it – to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.

Hear to the true story of Leonardo Da Vinci, brought to life by the brilliant Alfred Molina.


Author:

  • Walter Isaacson

Narrator:

  • Alfred Molina

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 17 h 1 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Biographies
  • Arts and entertainment
  • Biographies
  • History, politics, and warfare
  • Biographies
  • Natural sciences and medicine
  • Biographies
  • Adventure and history

More by Walter Isaacson

Skip the list
  1. Elon Musk : en snabbläst biografi på svenska

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobookbook
  2. Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson

    book
  3. Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobookbook
  4. Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobook
  5. Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobook
  6. Steve Jobs : Historien om manden bag Apple

    Walter Isaacson

    book
  7. Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobookbook
  8. Livets kod : Den genetiska revolutionen och mänsklighetens framtid

    Walter Isaacson

    book
  9. The Code Breaker -- Young Readers Edition : Jennifer Doudna and the Race to Understand Our Genetic Code

    Walter Isaacson

    book
  10. The Code Breaker -- Young Readers Edition: Jennifer Doudna and the Race to Understand Our Genetic Code

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobook
  11. Der Codebreaker: Wie die Erfindung der Genschere die Zukunft der Menschheit für immer verändert

    Walter Isaacson

    audiobook
  12. The Code Breaker : Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

    Walter Isaacson

    book

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Going to the Wars

    Max Hastings

    audiobook
  2. JFK Jr. : An Intimate Oral Biography

    RoseMarie Terenzio, Liz McNeil

    audiobookbook
  3. Taylor Swift : The Whole Story

    Chas Newkey-Burden

    audiobook
  4. I Spy : My Life in MI5

    Tom Marcus

    audiobook
  5. My Name Is Selma : The Remarkable Memoir of a Jewish Resistance Fighter and Ravensbrück Survivor

    Selma van de Perre

    audiobookbook
  6. The Diary of Anne Frank

    Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett

    audiobook
  7. Finding Freedom : Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family

    Carolyn Durand

    audiobook
  8. 3.500 Tage Unfreiheit: Zweiter Weltkrieg – Tagebuch und Autobiografie des Soldaten Hans Heuer aus Afrika, von der Ostfront und aus der Gefangenschaft (Deutsche Soldaten-Biografien)

    Hans Heuer

    audiobook
  9. After the Dance : My Life with Marvin Gaye

    Jan Gaye, David Ritz

    audiobook
  10. I Want You to Know We’re Still Here : My family, the Holocaust and my search for truth

    audiobook
  11. The Light of Days : The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos

    Judy Batalion

    audiobook
  12. Ich glaub, mir geht's nicht so gut, ich muss mich mal irgendwo hinlegen - Remix 3

    Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre

    audiobook

  • 25 books

    Walter Isaacson

    Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms · Imprint ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5