SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
Leonardo and the dialectics of nature
On the 570th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s birth, JENNY FARRELL takes a look at the techniques that made the great Renaissance painter and scientist’s work so significant
Leonardo’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa (c1503–1506)
Morning Star international editor ROGER McKENZIE says Trump’s ceaseless belligerence is a desperate effort to prevent the emergence of a multilateral world
Don’t dismiss Lebanon as a side theatre of this war, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN — there are signs Israel has expansion in mind, and it has demonstrated its willingness to expel and kill whole populations
The media present Starmer as staying out of Trump’s war — but we’re already deeply involved in a conflict that sees the US and Israel kill civilians on a huge scale, argues IAN SINCLAIR
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports on this week’s conference unveiling the findings of the Gaza Tribunal established by Jeremy Corbyn
CHRISTOPHE IMMER of the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt reports on a Berlin conference on the politics of art and the legacy of Marxist critic Hans Hess
LEONARDO DA VINCI was born 570 years ago, on April 15 1452 near the village of Vinci, from which he takes his name.
His mother Caterina was a servant, his father, a professional notary, with whom he was living by 1457 and later with his paternal grandfather. It was during the seven years with his grandfather that Leonardo learned to read, write and calculate.
He never learned Latin, Greek or higher mathematics. Instead, he took up an apprenticeship and ended up in the workshop of a master painter in Florence, which in the 15th century, like much of Italy, was a violent place, where rival merchant dynasties fought each other for power.
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