I enjoy George Herman's style and humor. The characters are all so real and witty. The use of Di Vinci as a crime solver is a brilliant idea. A lot of historical mystery novels feature sleuths whose talents are limited to being at the right place at the right time in ways that are predictable and contrived, but Di Vinci actually uses his well documented gifts for mathematics and science in a manner similiar to those of modern crime scene investigators. This is exactly the type of historic mystery that I love to read!

This book, comprised of many thoughts on how the great painter lived and worked during the times of the Renaissance in the 19th century, is nothing short of a splendidly informative source of information, on a subject that is hard to research due to the nature of his era.

If you are looking for a quick study of Leonardo da Vinci, this book will detail some of the masters outstanding accomplishments achieved throughout the course of his life. Using a inquiry format, a variety of questions are posed and answered in brief about the inventions, paintings and techniques employed by da Vinci. This book highlights important works, and provides the reader of an overview of the incredible lifetime achievements (and quirks) of the artist. I really liked this book, and will use it as a quick reference.

The title of this book should probably be 'Leonardo Da Vinci Origins Of An ARTISTIC Genius'. It was the title that intrigued me and made me want to read this book. Leonardo's education and maturation process in relation to painting is really not that unusual.

This book does demonstrate with a lot of precise details how Leonardo's involvement and association with paintings from his early period can be proven or disproven. In some cases advanced scientific techniques such as x-ray analysis are cited to disprove or clarify statements made by previous authors about Leonardo's supposed involvement in various paintings. This book would be very helpful if someone was, for example, writing a paper about Leonardo's early career as far as exactly what paintings he worked on.

However the mysterious aspect about Leonardo da Vinci is not his painting which he eventually grew tired of and he sometimes didn't even bother to finish his own paintings. The mysterious thing about Leonardo is how did he all of a sudden become (at least in his own mind) an engineer, architect, scientist, etc., when he was never trained in any of these things ? How did someone who was trained as a painter and artist make that transition ? That's where the mystery deepens about Leonardo da Vinci.

As far as the books I've read so far that mystery has never been fully explained other than he was self taught. His art was very important for this transition because it allowed him to record his basically limitless ideas at a time when photography didn't exist yet.

But a good follow on to this book would be called 'Leonardo Da Vinci Origins Of A RENAISSANCE Genius' or 'Scientific Genius' or something like that.

Whether some or most of Leonardo's scientific ideas were valid is I think open to debate. But he did have some of the characteristics required for true genius which are intense curiosity, being very observant, and having almost unlimited energy. And he was a good painter, that much can be stated positively.

said to be a good book by one critic

Follow the life of Leonardo da Vinci from the time of his youth into adulthood. The illustrations are good, but the story gets a little long for little ones as it goes into, sometimes excessive detail. It also can overwhelm children with complex new subjects/words like vegetarian, mobile scaffolding, riddles, etc., which break the flow of the story as a parent will have to stop and explain.

But the story is interesting, probably better suited for 6 to 10 year-olds. I'm sure that Leonardo da Vinci isn't the easiest topic to write about, especially for an audience of children, so the author earns extra points there.

This book is not only an excellent biography of a gifted man, but it also contains valuable information about the world in which he lived. Beautiful color illustrations add to the easy readability of this resource. Excellent resource for a wide range of studies.

(The teacher was making me read this)

I was flipping thru this book and I saw some(way outdated)anatomy pictures of women. They upset me so much that I cried. The "womens center" part of the picture, the pelvis, it looked like a monster from a horror novel. I am so scared..... I think I'm in shock...

Knowing little about art, I found this book easy to understand, enjoyable and informative. However, it is too advanced ("boring") for my almost 8 year old daughter. My opinion is that this book would be great for 10 and up.

I was surprised to see even one negative review of this wonderful book. I think it can be enjoyed equally by both parent/teacher and child/student. The text is beautifully written and presents all of the facets of this fascinating man. It also places his activities firmly within the context of the politics and society of the Renaissance. The book includes explanations, in language a middle-school child can understand, how flight is possible and how canals and locks work. A wide variety of activities, as well as line drawings, are included to illustrate other key concepts in painting, mechanics, etc. I cannot agree with the reviewer who felt that too few of Leonardo's works were included; I felt it included his most important works, as well as an interesting array of his mechanical, nature and anatomical drawings. As a teacher, I suggest using this book in combination with E.L. Konigsberg's "The Second Mrs. Gioconda"; my students really enjoyed seeing how novelists can use facts as the basis for fiction. I finished this book awed by the range of Leonardo's gifts and both my own daughters (one a reader, one an artist) loved this book for different reasons. But they both came away knowing about and loving Leonardo and that's the important thing!I only wish that this author would do a book on "Michaelangelo for Kids."

The authors make the dumb mistake of assuming that because the shroud dates from the Middle Ages it must be a fake. It's true connection with Jacques de Molay is not explored fully. They haven't seen the true connection between Jaques de Molay and Leonardo Da Vinci, but at least they were on the right track here. Miracles do happen and none of their arguments have convinced me for one instant that the Turin Shroud is a fake. The shroud was used to wrap the body of Jaques de Molay, but the image is most likely of Jesus Christ. It's that simple. Can I prove this - No. Can anyone disprove this - Give it a go. This book was a rather lame-brained attempt.

I read this book several years ago, having had no prior interest in the shroud, and found the presentation of how the image was made to be pretty reasonable and well-demonstrated. I am moved now to write this review because I recently read Second Messiah, which criticizes this book and which postulates that the image is that of a real human laid on the shroud, which I think cannot be true because, among other reasons, the image of the long hair of the back of the head would not run straight down the figure's back as it actually appears on the shroud; instead, as the body was laid down, the hair would first dangle to the cloth and then, as the head lowered to the cloth, the hair would crumple underneath the head, as anyone with long hair knows happens if you lie down after a shower. This book Turin Shroud describes a physical process involving a camera obscura and a primitive emulsion on the cloth, producing a photographic image. I can't speak to the Leonardo theory or the Priory of Sion material they include, since I don't follow nor much care about such conjectures. But that material even if wrong doesn't impeach the physical theory of image production. As to motivation, it seems reasonable that someone would try to create such a religious object as Christ's shroud, in order to attract pilgrims and donations, and may have stumbled on the process to create this image. There is another, long review on this site that goes into more detail -- I've read this review and I generally agree with its approach.

I read this book several years ago, having had no prior interest in the shroud, and found the presentation of how the image was made to be pretty reasonable and well-demonstrated. I am moved now to write this review because I recently read Second Messiah, which criticizes this book and which postulates that the image is that of a real human laid on the shroud, which I think cannot be true because, among other reasons, the image of the long hair of the back of the head would not run straight down the figure's back as it actually appears on the shroud; instead, as the body was laid down, the hair would first dangle to the cloth and then, as the head lowered to the cloth, the hair would crumple underneath the head, as anyone with long hair knows happens if you lie down after a shower. This book Turin Shroud describes a physical process involving a camera obscura and a primitive emulsion on the cloth, producing a photographic image. I can't speak to the Leonardo theory or the Priory of Sion material they include, since I don't follow nor much care about such conjectures. But that material even if wrong doesn't impeach the physical theory of image production. As to motivation, it seems reasonable that someone would try to create such a religious object as Christ's shroud, in order to attract pilgrims and donations, and may have stumbled on the process to create this image. There is another, long review on this site that goes into more detail -- I've read this review and I generally agree with its approach.

The Memory Cathedral is a fantasy disguised as a historical novel. The disguise is very convincing--author Jack Dann has done a great job setting the scenes of his story. In Italy we have torchlight processions, raving mobs, daggers and poisons, sunny Tuscan uplands, cluttered artists' studios, decadent nobility, and etc. In the Levantine lands, we have double- and triple-crosses, parades of cavalry, sumptuous banquets of whole beasts on rice, scheming slavegirls, wholesale slaughter of innocents, and so on.

We also have an improbably gifted hero, only our belief is willingly suspended because Leonardo really was improbably gifted. In this novel, he is not the emotionless man of impersonal genius we think of today. Rather, he is very like his fellows: a man of hot italianate passions, excelling in many fields like most of his colleagues did. One feels upon reflection that the real Leonardo must have seemed thus to people around him--maybe more single-minded in his work, maybe a few shades more accomplished in his art, but not seeming out of place in the Renaissance, a time when "a man may do all things if he will." It was only later that Leonardo was esteemed as a genius practically from another world.

There is plenty of action, lust, and intrigue, some of it bumping up against many readers' comfort threshold. These, and the marvelous scene setting, carry the novel's entertainment value. The character development is strictly standard fantasy fare. The bonds between the characters are shown mainly by having one group set off somewhere, and another character demanding to be allowed to go along. Suspense is achieved by having Leonardo demand to know where somebody is, or where he himself is being taken. He also, despite receiving frequent veiled and unveiled death threats from the powerful, becomes their trusted confidant.

So if this sounds interesting, go ahead and enjoy it. The weaknesses were not apparent to me until second reading, so strong were the book's strengths. I shall remember this feat of imagination for a long time.

This book caught my eye because of its interesting premise: What if Leonardo Da Vinci's flying machine had really been created and had worked? This is an obviously well-researched, albeit far-fetched, study of the life of this great visionary of the Renaissance. I must say that it was the historical detail in this novel that kept me with it. It was otherwise saturated in blood, sex, and death. Dann's style of writing is fairly decent - and the book offers a unique peek into the life of the great Leonardo Da Vinci. Yet, no matter how well you love history, you had better stay away from this one if you get queasy by the sight of blood.

The Memory Cathedral is an unforgettable novel which captures the essence of the Renaissance lifestyle without the pomp and pretension of a typical historical novel. Instead, author Jack Dann presents a fictional account of a year in the life of Leonardo da Vinci - painter, sculptor, poet, inventor, entertainter and lover.

With a wealth of colourful characters including Lorenzo de Medici and Niccolo Machiavelli, Dann's novel opens up the Renaissance period to the average reader - and whilst being entertaining, its dedication to the period in which it is set means that you are effectively receiving a complimentary history lesson. Yet the manner in which the book is written portrays the characters as being very much 'real' people, rather than the usual two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs offered by most historical texts.

At times gloriously uplifting and at times numbingly tragic, the novel contains fairly brutal accounts of murder, rape and torture. Certainly not for the faint hearted, The Memory Cathedral is a powerful and haunting work of historical / biographical / science fiction which combines aspects of adventure and discovery with the real-life drama that may well have been Leonardo da Vinci's life. It is the gripping tale of one immortalised man who will live through the ages as a symbol of sheer artistic genius, and it is a tale which is being told as never before.