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Da Vinci's Ghost
- Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
Audie Award Nominee, History, 2013
Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit; it has also been replicated ad nauseam on mass-produced coffee cups, T-shirts, book covers, and corporate logos. With narrative flair and great intellectual sweep, Lester revives the rich history of Vitruvian Man and endows the drawing with renewed authenticity.
Not only did Leonardo subscribe to the idea—first conceived by the Roman architect Vitruvius—that the human body was a microcosm geometrically aligned with the divine circle and the earthly square, Lester reveals that by studying the body’s proportions and anatomy, the artist also felt he could obtain a godlike perspective of the world's makeup. Da Vinci's Ghost captures a pivotal time in the history of Western thought, when the Middle Ages was giving way to the Renaissance, when art and science and philosophy all seemed to be converging as one, and when it seemed possible, at least to Leonardo da Vinci, that a single human being might embody—and even understand—the nature of everything.
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"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the scientific revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft.
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Historical book about the evolution of optics through the eyes of two geniuses
- By Memi on 04-12-17
By: Laura Snyder
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The Rise and Fall of Alexandria
- Birthplace of the Modern Mind
- By: Justin Pollard, Howard Reid
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Founded by Alexander the Great and built by self-styled Greek pharaohs, the city of Alexandria at its height dwarfed both Athens and Rome. It was the marvel of its age, legendary for its vast palaces, safe harbors, and magnificent lighthouse. But it was most famous for the astonishing intellectual efflorescence it fostered and the library it produced. If the European Renaissance was the "rebirth" of Western culture, then Alexandria, Egypt, was its birthplace.
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A good listen
- By Jeffrey on 10-02-08
By: Justin Pollard, and others
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The Renaissance
- A Captivating Guide to a Remarkable Period in European History, Including Stories of People Such as Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo, Copernicus, Shakespeare, and Leonardo da Vinci
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Richard L. Walton
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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If you want to discover the captivating history of the Renaissance, then pay attention.
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Monotone reader
- By Harry R. Martin on 08-07-19
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The History of Western Art
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.
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A whirlwind tour of Western art
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-18-12
By: Peter Whitfield
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The Fourth Part of the World
- The Race to the Ends of the Earth
- By: Toby Lester
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Brimming with enthralling details and personalities, Toby Lester's The Fourth Part of the World spotlights Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map and recounts the epic tale of the mariners and scholars who facilitated this watershed of Western history.
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I enjoyed it
- By Todd on 07-19-10
By: Toby Lester
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Isaac Newton
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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James Gleick has long been fascinated by the making of science: how ideas order visible appearances, how equations can give meaning to molecular and stellar phenomena, how theories can transform what we see. In Chaos, he chronicled the emergence of a new way of looking at dynamic systems; in Genius, he portrayed the wondrous dimensions of Richard Feymnan's mind.
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BRUTAL
- By Andrew on 05-25-05
By: James Gleick
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The Genesis of Science
- How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution
- By: James Hannam
- Narrated by: Rich Germaine
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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If you were taught that the Middle Ages were a time of intellectual stagnation, superstition, and ignorance, you were taught a myth that has been utterly refuted by modern scholarship. As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam shows in his brilliant new book, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, without the scholarship of the "barbaric" Middle Ages, modern science simply would not exist. The Middle Ages were a time of one intellectual triumph after another.
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Insightful!
- By John on 07-07-15
By: James Hannam
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The Swerve
- How the World Became Modern
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
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Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
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The Oldest Enigma of Humanity
- By: Bertrand David, Jean-Jacques Lefrere
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Thirty thousand years ago our prehistoric ancestors painted perfect images of animals on walls of tortuous caves, most often without any light. How was this possible? Scholars and archaeologists have for centuries pored over these works of art, speculating and hoping to come away with the key to the mystery. David and Lefrre give us a new understanding of an art lost in time, revealing what had until recently remained unexplainable - the oldest enigma in humanity has been solved.
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Amazing conclusion that will change your views
- By D on 05-13-15
By: Bertrand David, and others
What listeners say about Da Vinci's Ghost
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Paul
- 02-10-12
Haunting Expierience
Would you listen to Da Vinci's Ghost again? Why?
Would you look at the Vitruvian man again? So would I, yes and each look would add to the understanding that comes by deep and thorough self study. Yet the value of this book is the way the Author has placed Leonardo into the setting giving a perception of the development of his mind. Capturing the mind of Man where we can examine it in ourselves.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Leonardo's ever present notebook that witnessed his development, chronicled it , and eventually brought him back to life for us to study.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
From the moment I first saw the Vitruvian Man I was captured by it, I quickly found it was one of Leonardos. I always have wanted to speak with him and ask his motivation, The Ghost is in me.
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9 people found this helpful
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- David
- 03-16-12
To me it was more of a history lesson.
It was not quite what I expected. Although the author is incredibly knowledgeable in art and architecture at that time it, I found it more a history lesson. I more enjoyed the the last third of the book as I found it took a long time to set the scene of life in those times. I guess I was thinking it would be more on Leonardo himself and how his particular mind worked. It was enlightening though and I was left with the impression that DaVinci was one of many brilliant minds of that era. I listen to most of my non-fiction books at least 3 times though this will be a one-off. Great for art/architecture history buffs.
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3 people found this helpful
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- mayet8
- 09-11-12
great and imformative
If you could sum up Da Vinci's Ghost in three words, what would they be?
great,interesting an imformative
Who was your favorite character and why?
the great leonardo Da Vinci
Have you listened to any of Stephen Hoye’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
good, very clear not boring.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
very much so..
Any additional comments?
just another enjoyable book thank you.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-26-12
Amazing man
If you could sum up Da Vinci's Ghost in three words, what would they be?
I never knew
What was one of the most memorable moments of Da Vinci's Ghost?
He could have drawn the Mona Lisa as a joke self portrait.
Have you listened to any of Stephen Hoye’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Fantastic
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
The Smartest Man of the Last Thousand Years.
Any additional comments?
Awesome History
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2 people found this helpful
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- Acteon
- 12-09-13
A very enriching tour de force
Where does Da Vinci's Ghost rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Among the definitely worthwhile though perhaps not at the very top (I've listened to quite a few: let's just say that I would gladly pay twice the price for this one). Lester is great at drawing different elements together in a way that enriches our understanding. I cannot wait for his next book. I don't know what illustrations the paper version contains but if there are some, it might be worth while getting the hard copy. I hope that audible will include more downloadable pdfs.
Which character – as performed by Stephen Hoye – was your favorite?
Hoye is a good reader. Names are mostly correctly pronounced, one exception being William of Conches (Conches is in Normandy but Hoye pronounces it as if it were a Spanish name).
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I was very excited at certain moments.
Any additional comments?
Definitely a must for someone interested in the Renaissance or European history/culture in general.
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- Kyle
- 01-25-15
Love the journey
it explains the time period so well. a work of art that really takes you back to Italy.
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- Amy
- 06-25-12
Eh. . .
Would you try another book from Toby Lester and/or Stephen Hoye?
I probably would not try another book from Toby Lester.
What do you think your next listen will be?
The Lost Painting
Do you think Da Vinci's Ghost needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
No. Lester wrapped it up at the end, despite the book's meandering.
Any additional comments?
The premise of the book seemed clear at the beginning, but the issue was actually complex and I would suggest reading a hard copy.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 10-28-14
fun history of a man and his drawing
This was an intriguing story, a whole 'biography' of one of Leonardo da Vinci's most widely recognized pieces -the drawing of the Vitruvian man. It began in ancient history, with Vitruvious himself (who first described such a figure), not only the story of the man, but with full context of the times and his patron, Augustus, and the prevailing philosophies and all of the considerations in publishing his set of volumes 'On Architecture'. I can hardly imagine such a compendium on all manner building that wasn't illustrated - it's such a given today - and hadn't thought of it before, but once mentioned it makes some sense that it was entitely text, given the manuscript-written-by-scribes process of publishing in use until the fifteenth century. Still, to think there was no drawing done of the concept for so many centuries after... until the artist engineer Leo came along.
The book transitions to a biography of the young man and all of his studies and artistic and scientific pursuits which eventually lead to his drawing of the Vitruvian man. His talent and ambition are impressive, and I love some of the lists from his notebooks of ideas to investigate and experts to question. He really did research in nearly every field imaginable for the time, and even pushed the boundaries beyond those fields with his own studies in anatomy.
Then comes the drawing itself, and all it embodies in form and theology/philosophy. This discussion got a bit tedious for me in repeating the Vitruvian (and Leo's modified) measurements and proportions of the body. But the other topics about the symbolism and the self-portrait qualities were interesting. Throughout the book the discussion of the man-as-microcosm is introduced and reiterated in the varrying contexts - it was interesting in a way, a glimpse back to the ancient ways of thinking, somewhat inspired while at the same time permitting gaps and inaccuracies in representation. Misguided and outdated concepts were still in use-and I would have been right there with Leonardo in self-educating and learning by experience when such things confronted him.
And while I did enjoy most of the book (the greater part of which was devoted to Leo's early life), one of the topics I liked the most wasn't mentioned until the epilogue: the journey taken by that piece of late fifteenth century paper. It came to life with the descrption of the compass holes which were poked in it and the stylus grooves, the glue residue on the back, and the tracing of it's ownership over the centuries, in near-complete obscurity until about 60 years ago. And then it flooded into popular culture. What a life for a drawing.
Nonfiction narration can be tricky and I think often sounds monotone, dry, just read aloud. Not so here. It was well narrated throughout, always kept me engaged, and his voice was not of that particular quality that has a tendency to sooth me to sleep even when I am interested in what I'm listening to.
Well worth the read for anyone who is a fan or wants to know more about Leo and his man circumscribed in a circle and a square.
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- Cherie E.
- 05-05-12
I liked it.
I am listening to this now a second time to absorb more of the details. I really enjoyed this because Leonardo DaVinci's life is so interesting. This book is about the Vetruvius Man mostly - which I thought was great! It left me wanting to know more about his life. I'm now going to find other books about leonardo DaVinci. Narrator was good.
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2 people found this helpful
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- ben
- 05-28-22
Not much to do with da Vinci
As I had stated in the title it feels like there’s a lot of historical rambling with very little focus on Leonardo. The performance is just too in your face and I don’t enjoy this guys voice
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