The Life of Leonardo da Vinci book - Thames & Hudson

The lives of the most famous painters, sculptors, and architects, Giorgio Vasari (1550 and 1569), are a classic of cultural history. The monumental collection of artists' lives, from Giotto to Michelangelo, presents a vivid picture of the progress of art in the hands of individual masters. No life is more alive than Leonardo's, almost a contemporary of Vasari — even his account of Michelangelo, whom he knew and venerated.

This beautiful edition offers a literary translation that respects 16th-century Italian, translating Vasari's vocabulary into its contemporary equivalent. Martin Kemp is a distinguished scholar who has written about Renaissance art writings and was the translator of Leonardo on painting and the Leonardo Codex Leicester. Translated in collaboration with Lucy Russell, this text is the first to cover both the 1550 edition and the expanded 1568 version, as well as the first to integrate texts from both editions on the same page. Discreet footnotes contain concise comments in light of modern knowledge about Leonardo's career.

Illustrated with all the artworks discussed by Vasari and selected scientific and technological studies of Leonardo, it is an ideal addition to the 500th anniversary celebrations of Leonardo.

Thames & Hudson was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. Their greatest passion and mission was to create a “museum without walls” and to make the world of art and leading scientific research accessible to a broad public. To reflect international perspectives, the company's name combined the rivers flowing through London and New York, represented in their logo by two dolphins symbolizing friendship and intelligence, one facing east, the other west, suggesting a connection between the Old World and the New.

Today, still an independent, family-run company, Thames & Hudson is one of the world's leading publishers of illustrated books with over 2,000 titles printed. It publishes high-quality books across all areas of visual creativity: arts (fine, applied, decorative, performing), architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and music, as well as archaeology, history, and popular culture. The list of children's books is also expanding. Headquartered in London with a sister company in New York and branches in Melbourne, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In Paris, another subsidiary, Interart, distributes English-language books in France.

History of Thames & Hudson

Walter Neurath was born in Vienna in 1903. In 1938, he left his hometown — where he ran an art gallery and published illustrated books — for London. Initially, he worked as a production director at Adprint, a company founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foge. Neurath and Foge developed a pioneering concept of what is now called book packaging (or co-publishing), where book ideas are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold to publishers operating in different markets and languages to create large editions and thus reduce unit production costs. Neurath’s concept was the first of many innovations introduced to the publishing world through Thames & Hudson.

Seeking to continue book packaging in the second edition and recognizing the need to amortize the high costs of producing illustrated books, Neurath established his own publishing house with offices in London and New York in autumn 1949. Eva Neurath, who arrived in London from Berlin in 1939, was a co-founder.

Of the ten titles published on Thames & Hudson’s first list in 1950, *English Cathedrals*, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, was the first and most successful. The company's strong belief in the longevity of books was evident from the start, with titles remaining in print until 1971. Also in the first year, Albert Einstein’s *Out of My Later Years* was published, an early indicator of the program’s scope. As the list gradually expanded from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in 1955, the company moved its offices from High Holborn and, in 1956, relocated to a Georgian townhouse at 30 Bloomsbury Street, near Bedford Square, becoming the epicenter of book publishing in London. The manufacturing remained at this address, eventually expanding to five buildings by 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.

In 1958, Thames and Hudson launched one of the most renowned series, *World of Art*, which became the foundation of a highly diverse list. Characterized by pocket-sized format and black covers, the series expanded over just seven years to include 49 titles. Nearly 60 years later, the series boasts over 300 titles, which, according to Christopher Frayling, are “stained with paint copies” in every art school in the country.

Other important series that added depth and prestige to the list include *Ancient People and Places*, edited by Glyn Daniel, who since the 1950s contributed to pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book form and on television. Over 34 titles have been published in the series over 34 years. The large-format *Great Civilizations* series, published in 1961, featured contributions from esteemed scholars such as Alan Bullock, Asa Briggs, Hugh Trevor-Roper, A. J. P. Taylor, and John Julius Norwich.
After building one of the most important publishing houses in Europe in less than two decades, Walter Neurath died in 1967 at the age of 63. Sculptor Henry Moore wrote that “his death was a loss to our cultural life.” Sir Herbert Read noted that Neurath “more than anyone else was responsible for the revolution in art publishing” and was “one of those rare entrepreneurs who successfully combine business acumen with idealism.” Eva Neurath became chairwoman. Walter’s son, Thomas, who joined the company in 1961 with his sister Constance, became managing director; Constance later served as artistic director for several decades. Both Thomas and Constance remain on the Thames & Hudson board, as do Thomas’s daughters, Johanna and Susanna.
From producing the first commercial edition of *The Book of Kells* to the triumphant publication of the six-volume *Vincent van Gogh – Letters*, from technical innovations like “French folds” to the controversial documentation of graffiti art in *Subway Art*, Thames and Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

The year 2016 marked an extraordinary new chapter for the company, announcing publishing partnerships with two of the world’s most important museums: the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The world of art and scholarship remains at the heart of Thames & Hudson’s publishing program, which remains true to its core principle: providing a “museum without walls.”
Today, Thames & Hudson is a recognizable international brand, a symbol of British publishing. Its catalogue includes thousands of incredible book titles, many of which are exclusive collector’s editions.

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