Château Royal d'Amboise, Montée de l’Emir Abdel-Kader, 37400 Amboise, France
Tomb of Leonardo da Vinci in the Chapel of Saint Hubert at the Château d'Amboise, where a plaque explains that the remains are only presumed to be those of the Renaissance artist.
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time due to his enduring works "The Last Supper" and the "Mona Lisa."
Background
Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, near the village of Vinci about 25 miles west of Florence, Italy. He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a prominent notary of Florence, who had no other children until much later, and a peasant, Caterina. Ser Piero raised his son himself, a common practice at the time, arranging for Leonardo's mother to marry a villager.
Despite his status as non legittimo, by the age of five, Leonardo lived with his paternal grandfather in Vinci as a generally accepted member of the household (his father conducted his business in nearby Florence). Although Piero’s second child wasn’t born until Leonardo was 24, he never seemed compelled to legitimize Leonardo as his heir, though it was a fairly common practice to do so. Yet this choice allowed Leonardo to evade the notary profession and instead follow his curiosity as an artist, architect, and inventor.
Education
Young Leonardo received little formal education beyond basic reading, writing and mathematics instruction, but his artistic talents were evident from an early age.
When Leonardo was 14, his father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading artist of Florence and a characteristic talent of the early Renaissance. Verrocchio, a sculptor, painter, and goldsmith, was a remarkable craftsman, and his great skill and passionate concern for the quality of execution, as well as his interest in expressing the vital mobility of the human figure, were important elements in Leonardo's artistic formation.
Although he was a star student and a thorough all-rounder, Da Vinci chose art as his main profession but also pledged to use all that he learned from the workshop, in his life. Still, throughout his career, he seemed somewhat ambivalent about his lack of formal education. Although he self-deprecatingly referred to himself as an "unlettered man," he also took immense pride in his unique methodology of self-education.
Career
Little is known about Leonardo's early life. After completing his apprenticeship, Leonardo stayed on as an assistant in Andrea del Verrocchio's shop, and his earliest known painting is a product of his collaboration with the master. In Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ (ca. 1475), Leonardo executed one of the two angels, as well as the distant landscape, and he added the final touches to the figure of Christ, determining the texture of the flesh.
About 1478 Leonardo set up his own studio. In 1481 he received a major church commission for an altarpiece, the Adoration of the Magi. In this unfinished painting, Leonardo's new approach is far more developed. The Adoration of the Magi was left unfinished. In his later career, Leonardo often failed over a period of years to finish a work, essentially because he would not accept established answers. The unfinished state may merely result from the fact that Leonardo left Florence in 1482 to accept the post of court artist to the Duke of Milan. He had improved methods for shooting catapults and diverting rivers. Such inventions, as well as the remarkable machinery that Leonardo produced in Milan for stage pageants, point to his profound interest in the laws of motion and propulsion, a further aspect of his interest in living things and their workings. Leonardo's first Milanese painting is the altarpiece Virgin of the Rocks.
The other surviving painting of Leonardo's Milanese years is the Last Supper (1495 - 1497), commissioned by the duke for the refectory of the convent of S. Maria delle Grazie. Instead of using fresco, the traditional medium for this theme, Leonardo experimented with an oil-based medium, because painting in true fresco makes areas of color appear quite distinct. Unfortunately, his experiment was unsuccessful; the paint did not adhere well to the wall, and within 50 years the scene was reduced to a confused series of spots.
It is also believed that Leonardo, who first learned to play the musical instrument, the lyre, when he was a child and began to compose his own tunes, played during that time for the Duke of Milan, who preferred Leonardo’s musical performances over his own court musicians’, because his techniques, talent and skill were matchless.
During that period, da Vinci visited Venice briefly, where the Senate consulted him on military projects and Mantua. He planned a portrait of Isabella d'Este, Duchess of Mantua, one of the most striking personalities and great art patrons of the age.
During his years in Florence (1500 - 1506), even though they were interrupted in 1502 by a term as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, Leonardo completed more projects than in any other period of his life. In his works of these years, the emphasis is almost exclusively on portraying human vitality, as in the Leda and the Swan (lost; known only through copies), a spiraling figure kneeling among reeds, and the Mona Lisa, the portrait of a Florentine citizen's young third wife, whose smile is mysterious because it is in the process of either appearing or disappearing.
Leonardo's great project (begun 1503) was the battle scene that the city commissioned to adorn the newly built Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. In the choice of theme, the Battle of Anghiari, patriotic references and the wish to show off Leonardo's special skills were both apparently required. Leonardo began to paint the scene, experimenting with encaustic technique, but he was called back to Milan before the work was completed. A short time thereafter, the room was remodelled and the fragment was destroyed. Both the Battle of Anghiari and the Mona Lisa contain their animation in neatly balanced designs.
Called to Milan in 1506 by the French governor in charge, Leonardo worked on an equestrian statue project, but he produced no new paintings. Instead, he now turned more and more to scientific observation. Most of his scientific concerns were fairly direct extensions of his interests as a painter, and his research in anatomy was the most fully developed. Verrocchio and other early Renaissance painters had attempted to render the human anatomy with accuracy, but Leonardo went far beyond any of them, producing the earliest anatomical drawings which are still considered valid today, although he occasionally confused animal and human anatomy and accepted some old wives' tales.
Amid political strife and the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan, da Vinci left the city and moved to Rome in 1513, where he remained until 1516, filling his notebooks with scientific entries. Here, Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of newly installed Pope Leo X and son of his former patron, gave da Vinci a monthly stipend along with a suite of rooms at his residence inside the Vatican. His new patron, however, also gave da Vinci little work. Lacking large commissions, he devoted most of his time in Rome to mathematical studies and scientific exploration.
After being present at a 1515 meeting between France’s King Francis I and Pope Leo X in Bologna, the new French monarch offered da Vinci the title "Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King."
In 1516, da Vinci departed for France, never to return. He lived in the Chateau de Cloux (now Clos Luce) near the king’s summer palace along the Loire River in Amboise. As in Rome, da Vinci did little painting during his time in France. One of his last commissioned works was a mechanical lion that could walk and open its chest to reveal a bouquet of lilies.
Leonardo da Vinci died of a probable stroke on May 2, 1519, at the age of 67. He continued work on his scientific studies until his death; his assistant, Melzi, became the principal heir and executor of his estate. The "Mona Lisa" was bequeathed to his second pupil, Salai.
Leonardo da Vinci was a mysterious, strange person. For hundreds of years, researchers and writers have debated his actual religious beliefs and leanings. While some claim he was a Christian others have labelled him as an absent-minded Roman Catholic, an Agnostic, the forerunner of the Protestant Reformation, and even as an Atheist.
Views
Some of Leonardo's philosophies can be found in a series of fables that he wrote. Prevalent themes include the dangers of an inflated sense of self-worth, often as described in opposition to the benefits that one can gain through awareness, humility and endeavour.
As a "Renaissance man", Da Vinci believed that art was indisputably connected with science and nature. He was also considered to be a vegetarian and nature-lover. His love of animals has been documented both in contemporary accounts as recorded in early biographies, and in his notebooks. Remarkably for the period, he even questioned the morality of eating animals when it was not necessary for health.
Quotations:
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
"Art is never finished, only abandoned."
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
"Learning never exhausts the mind."
"The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art."
"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."
"Water is the driving force of all nature."
"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art."
"The smallest feline is a masterpiece."
"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."
"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
"The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow."
"I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death."
"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die."
"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory."
Personality
Leonardo da Vinci was described by his early biographers as a man with great personal appeal, kindness, and generosity. He was generally well-loved and was much honoured, but he was relatively inactive and remarkably aloof from its rich social and artistic life.
Beyond friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. His sexuality has been the subject of satire, analysis, and speculation. This trend began in the mid-16th century and was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably by Sigmund Freud. Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salai and Melzi. Melzi, writing to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his pupils as both loving and passionate.
Physical Characteristics:
According to descriptions and portraits, Leonardo da Vinci was tall for his time and place, athletic and extremely handsome. His height was at least 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m). Portraits indicate that as an older man, he wore his hair long, at a time when most men wore it cropped short, or reaching to the shoulders. While most men were shaven or wore close-cropped beards, Leonardo's beard flowed over his chest.
Leonardo's clothing is described as being unusual in his choice of bright colours, and at a time when most mature men wore long garments, Leonardo's preferred outfit was the short tunic and those generally worn by younger men.
According to Vasari, "He possessed great strength and dexterity; he was a man of regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind..." It must also be mentioned that Leonardo was ambidextrous while writing with his left hand but painting with his right hand (He also wrote everything in mirror image form so that his works could not be copied by others.).
Quotes from others about the person
Some 20 years after Leonardo's death, Francis I was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."
Giorgio Vasari: "In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease."
Art historian Bernard Berenson wrote in 1896: "Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line and for light and shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values."
Connections
Leonardo maintained long-lasting relationships with two pupils who were apprenticed to him as children. The first one was Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, who entered his household in 1490 at the age of 10, and the second pupil was Count Francesco Melzi, the son of a Milan aristocrat who was apprenticed to Leonardo by his father in 1506, at the age of 14, remaining with him until his death.
Father:
Ser Piero da Vinci
Friend:
Luca Pacioli
teacher:
Andrea del Verrocchio
patron:
Cesare Borgia
Friend:
Francis I of France
pupil:
Salai
pupil:
Francesco Melzi
References
Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?
An accessible portrait of a fascinating man who lived at a fascinating time—Italy during the Renaissance.
Leonardo da Vinci
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.
2017
Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered
A modern rethinking of the career and vision of one of the greatest artists of all time on the 500th anniversary of his death.
Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind: A Biography
A biography of the Renaissance artist, intellectual, scientist, and genius brings to life the complex world of a remarkable man, drawing on original translations of Leonardo's notebooks, as well as recently discovered contemporary accounts, to reconstruct his life and times, from his troubled childhood to his stunning accomplishments in a variety of fields.
Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci
In a book unlike anything ever written about the Renaissance genius, Mike Lankford explodes every cliché about Da Vinci and then reconstructs him based on a rich trove of available evidence -bringing to life for the modern reader the man who has been studied by scholars for centuries, yet has remained as mysterious as ever.