Leonardo Da Vinci
1452-1519
Italian Painter and Inventor
Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential figure of the Italian Renaissance, and one of the most versatile geniuses who ever lived. His artistic accomplishments alone, including some of the most famous paintings in the world, would have made his name immortal. Yet he was also an inventor whose ideas were hundreds of years before his time. His technical drawings and careful scientific observations were preserved in notebooks that give a fascinating glimpse into one of history's most creative minds.
Leonardo was born near Florence, Italy, on April 15, 1452. He was the illegitimate son of a peasant girl named Caterina and a prosperous notary, Ser Piero da Vinci, who came from a well-to-do family. Leonardo was brought up by his father from the age of five, but the circumstances of his birth meant that many careers considered prestigious at the time, including hisfather's profession, were closed to him. However, he showed great talent in drawing, and painting and sculpture were considered "mechanical arts," suitable for a boy of his station. In due course he was apprenticed to the artist Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio was a painter of the early Renaissance style, but Leonardo's paintings, with their shadows and soft edges, portended the beginning of high Renaissance style.
Leonardo da Vinci. (Library of Congress. Reproduced with permission.)After his apprenticeship and a few years of maintaining his own studio in Florence, Leonardo went to Milan as court artist and engineer for the duke Lodovico Sforza. There he spent the next 17 years, and painted The Last Supper on the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Unfortunately, the experimental compound he intended to protect the painting had the opposite effect. The painting began to flake away almost as soon as he had finished it, and continues to do so to this day.
As an engineer, Leonardo provided the duke with designs for artillery, folding bridges, and armored vehicles, and plans for diverting rivers. He enlivened parties and pageants with such marvels as a mechanical planetarium. He could also provide musical entertainment, singing and playing musical instruments, some of which were of his own construction. As a scientist, he undertook a careful study of human anatomy, dissecting both human and animal corpses and recording detailed observations on both form and function. He kept a workshop where he tinkered with such inventions as a diving suit and a flying machine with wings that flapped like a bird's.
Forced to flee Milan when his sponsor was overthrown, Leonardo returned to Florence. There he painted the Mona Lisa, also called La Gioconda. The model was Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a local merchant, and her enigmatic smile has been famous for 500 years. The painting is now displayed at the Louvre.
During 1502 Leonardo worked as an engineer for the infamous warlord Cesare Borgia as he marched with his armies on the region of Romagna. He traveled with the soldiers, prepared maps, and built barracks, a fort, and war machinery. Yet his notebooks of this period ignored the bloodshed around him; they describe such points of interest as an attractive fountain in Rimini and local farming methods. Perhaps the situation eventually became intolerable for the sensitive Leonardo, who refused to eat meat, and sometimes bought caged birds at market so he could set them free. In any case, he again retreated to Florence.
Leonardo did not inherit any of his father's fortune because his parents had not been married, so he was dependent on wealthy patrons all his life. These included Giuliano de Medici, brother of Pope Leo X, who brought Leonardo with him to Rome. But Leonardo was more troublesome to the Vatican than his colleagues among Renaissance artists; he was a scientist as well, and difficult to restrain in his investigations. Leo X was an art lover, and willing to put up with Leonardo, but after the pope's death, the support of the Vatican was no longer forthcoming.
In 1517 Leonardo settled near Tours, France, at the invitation of King Francis I, an admirer who provided him with a comfortable chateau and a generous stipend. He spent his last years continuing to draft designs for a number of ingenious machines. He died at his home in Cloux on May 2, 1519.
While he was arguably as close to a universal genius as humanity has yet produced, Leonardo did have his blind spots. He had little interest in history, literature, or religion. Perhaps more important, he never got around to organizing or publishing his work. His notebooks were largely an awe-inspiring jumble of thoughts and ideas put down as they occurred to him. For this reason, many of his inventions were not widelyknown until after they had been built by others hundreds of years later.
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