Leonardo da Vinci

Always carry a little book with you, and preserve it with great care, said Leonardo da Vinci

4 November 2023 9:00 am

Despite the digitisation of everything, many of us still choose to jot down thoughts and sketches on paper, and would be bereft without a notebook to hand

Why the Royal Academy is wrong to consider selling their precious Michelangelo

10 October 2020 9:00 am

Martin Gayford explains why the Royal Academy would be wrong to sell Michelangelo’s ‘Taddei Tondo’

The genuine polymath is still one in a million

16 May 2020 9:00 am

With unlimited information just a click away, everyone can pass as a polymath today, says Philip Hensher

The Renaissance in 50 shades of grey

14 March 2020 9:00 am

The Mediterranean-centred era spanning a century or so either side of 1492 is filled to the brim with stories. There…

Musical shapeshifters: I Faglioni performing Leonardo: Shaping the Invisible at Milton Court Concert Hall Credit: Mark Allan/Barbican

The Holy Grail of concert-going: I Fagiolini deliver serious musicianship that never takes itself too seriously

11 May 2019 9:00 am

We’ve all read the article. It does the rounds with the dispiriting regularity of an unwanted dish on a sushi…

‘Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon’ by Edward S. Curtis, 1914

Let there be night: adventures in the dark

5 January 2019 9:00 am

Edward S. Curtis’s 1914 photograph, ‘Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon’, shows the Kwakiutl tribe of North American Indians circling…

Are we morally better people than our ancestors?

16 December 2017 9:00 am

The doctrine of progress implies that things get better. This is clearly true in terms of scientific knowledge, though not…

More books of the year

18 November 2017 9:00 am

Daniel Swift I spent too much of this (and last) year reading anaemic updatings of Shakespeare plays: pale novels which…

‘Portrait of a Lady (La Schiavona)’, c.1510-12, by Titian

The advantages of turning down the colour knob: Monochrome reviewed

4 November 2017 9:00 am

Leonardo da Vinci thought sculpting a messy business. The sculptor, he pointed out, has to bang away with a hammer,…

Leonardo da Vinci: ‘La Belle Ferronière’ 1495–1499 (Musée de Louvre, Paris) and (left) Follower of Leonardo da Vinci: ‘La Belle Ferronière’ c. before 1750 (Private Collection)

Museum curators and art forgers are two of a kind: they’re both vain and self-deluded

16 May 2015 9:00 am

Louis the Decorator and his chums in the antiques trade use the word ‘airport’ adjectivally and disparagingly. It signifies industrially…

‘Self-portrait’, c.1513, by Leonardo da Vinci

Pizza, choc-ice and Leonardos – the treasures of Turin

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Laura Gascoigne enjoys a grand tour of Italy’s former capital city