Isaacson's real Renaissance Man

Book review of 'Leonardo da Vinci'

Leonardo da Vinci

By Walter Isaacson

Simon & Schuster

Illustrated; 599 pages; $35

Because Walter Isaacson has made a cottage industry of writing about Renaissance men, it’s no surprise, really, that he’s finally landed on a subject from the actual Renaissance. Like the other idols in Isaacson’s gallery of polymaths and visionaries — Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs — Leonardo da Vinci was born with extra bundles of receptors, attuned to frequencies his peers could not hear and capable of making connections no one else could see, especially between the sciences and the humanities.

There is a significant difference, though,