The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie TV - Kenneth Clark TV - Alessandro Vezzosi - Michael Baigent - Nostradamus Effect TV - Christopher L C E Witcombe - Marina Wallace - Mystery Files TV - Paolo Galluzi - Martin Kemp TV - Donald Sassoon - Tim Marlow TV - The Times - Art of the Heist TV - Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure TV - Alan Yentob TV - Ancient X Files TV - Brad Meltzer TV - Inside the Mind of Leonardo TV - John F Kennedy - Rona Goffen - Giogio Vasari - Leonardo da Vinci - Lillian F Schwartz - The Da Vinci Shroud: Revealed TV - Clive Prince & Lynn Picknett - Decoding the Past: Unravelling the Shroud TV - Leonardo: The Men Behind the Shroud TV - Andrew Graham-Dixon TV - Ancient Aliens TV - Waldemar Januszczak TV - Heists TV - Janina Ramirez TV - The Mona Lisa Myth TV - Helen Rosslyn TV - Great Paintings of the World with Andrew Marr TV - Auction TV - Empires Special: Medici TV - Conspiracies Decoded TV - Mark Williams TV - Matthew Collings TV - Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty TV -
Da Vinci was a great Italian painter but not the greatest. The greatest is Giotto. He is my favourite. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie II starring Geraldine McEwan & Amanda Kirby & Lynsey Baxter & Vivienne Ross et al, Brodie to class, ITV 1978
One more giant: Leonardo da Vinci ... He belongs to no epoch; he fits into no category. Kenneth Clark, Civilisation 5/13: The Hero as Artist, BBC 1969
He was the most relentlessly curious man in history. ibid.
Leonardo’s curiosity was matched by an indefatigable energy. He is never satisfied with a single answer. ibid.
Every dissection was drawn with marvellous precision. ibid.
There’s always a sense of reasoning in Leonardo’s prophecies. And there’s also often a moral and ethical reading to them; even if he himself explained that the prophecies could be described as brain-teasers. Almost as if he, the author of them, was a mad man. Alessandro Vezzosi, Director Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo had this interesting attitude towards the natural world. He felt that it was in a sense it was pent-up power, which was at any moment liable to burst and destroy everything utterly. Michael Baigent, author Racing Toward Armageddon
Leonardo was haunted by recurring images of natural disaster, and man’s own inhumanity to his fellow man. He wrote of his fears, of a coming watery apocalypse in what he called his riddles. These warnings imbue his art. Nostradamus Effect s1e2: Da Vinci’s Armageddon, History 2009
Dissecting cadavers would have connected him [da Vinci] with death. He would have been familiar with its forms. He would have seen death at an early age too. Professor Christopher L C E Witcombe, Sweet Briar College
You see the whole world of Leonardo that comes together typically at the end of his life, so that the prophecy in a way is the realisation of what he had been observing since his childhood. Marina Wallace, University of the Arts, London
Yet experts are uncovering evidence that some of the ideas in Leonardo’s notebooks may not after all have originated in the mind of the great man himself ... Maths is not the only area where Leonardo learns from others. Further investigations appear to have uncovered the inspiration for some of Leonardo’s famous inventions: the diving suit, the tank, the flying machines. Could it be that these futuristic designs were not conceived by Leonardo da Vinci? Mystery Files: Da Vinci, National Geographic 2010
Leonardo’s advances in the field of flight appear neither workable nor unique. ibid.
The scans also reveal how Leonardo intensifies colour by saturation: they show how Leonardo does not simply add black or a darker colour into his painting to represent light and shade, but blends layer after layer of colour to create the shadows. This method is so skilful no-one has successfully emulated it. It is in his painting that Leonardo’s true genius is revealed. And whilst he may not have been the groundbreaking inventor history has portrayed him as, the range of subjects found in his notebooks reveal the astounding breadth of his knowledge. ibid.
If we want to approach the real Leonardo, the historical Leonardo, we have to put Leonardo into context. Professor Paolo Galluzzi, director Institute and Museum of the History of Science
The Mona Lisa is probably the great summary of what he could do. Professor Martin Kemp, Oxford University
We are not sure how the Mona Lisa ended up in the Louvre. As usual there are different theories. Professor Donald Sassoon, author Mona Lisa
We can read what we like in it. Professor Donald Sassoon
Adored by poets, plagiarised by artists, parodied by critics and even stolen by an Italian workman – the most famous painting in the world by the most celebrated artist in the world – Leonardo da Vinci. A man who completed barely twenty pictures but whose influence was immense. Great Artists with Tim Marlow s1e2: Leonardo, Sky Arts 2003
The Last Supper was commissioned in 1495. ibid.
The exhibition explores the making of Leonardo as a one-man creative force during the seventeen years that he spent in the city of Milan. Tim Marlow with Mariella Frostrup, Leonardo Live, Sky Arts 2011
No other artist in history seems to inspire and fascinate more than Leonardo da Vinci. The original Renaissance man’s combined achievements in art, engineering, mathematics and science, remain unrivalled to this day. ibid.
It’s now generally accepted that he was homosexual. ibid.
Who else but Leonardo could have created a work of such quality? [The Madonna Litta c. 1491-5] ibid.
Leonardo da Vinci: The Leonardo Cartoon c.1499-1500. One of the supreme works of Western art. Tim Marlow Meets Nitin Sawhney, 2010
Leonardo would never have distinguished between being an artist and a scientist. ibid. Tim
It will surely go down in the annals as among the most sensational shows of our century. The Times
In December 1913 a man arrived with a trunk in Florence after a sixteen-hour train journey from Paris. He checked into a run-down hotel, and the next day he was visited by two of Italy’s greatest experts in art. The man had something to give them: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The Mona Lisa had been taken from the Louvre two years earlier in one of the coolest and most brazen art robberies ever. Art of the Heist s2e3: The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa, 2007
It had simply just vanished ... A humble Italian carpenter had outwitted the whole of the French art establishment ... It was more than twenty-four hours before anyone even realised the Mona Lisa was missing. ibid.
Luck and police incompetence favoured [Vincenzo] Peruggia. ibid.
Two names came up, names familiar in the world of art and letters. One was a poet. The other a young Spanish artist who was already showing promise: Pablo Picasso. ibid.
Peruggia treated the Mona Lisa with respect. ibid.
He told the court his motive for the theft was national pride. ibid.
For a long time he had slept with the Mona Lisa by his bed. ibid.
Its fascination has always been her expression: the Mona Lisa smile. ibid.
The Louvre was shut indefinitely. But still had to face the public outcry. ibid.
The authorities clung to the faint hope that the theft was a publicity stunt. There were plenty of other theories. ibid.
A thumbprint from the thief. Finger-printing was a relatively new science. ibid.
Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the world’s most brilliant and extraordinary men ... The ultimate Renaissance man. Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure, BBC 2011
There are perhaps no more than fifteen paintings by Leonardo in the world. ibid.
In New York locked away at a secret address is a newly discovered painting by Leonardo. ibid.
He always called himself an uneducated man. ibid.
One poet said he had infinite grace. ibid.
The Last Supper ... Only 20% of the original remains. ibid.
He analysed the architecture of the human body. ibid.
Leonardo spent the last years of his life at the court of the French king. ibid.