Leonardo Da Vinci - The Renaissance Man Documentary

The man known to history as Leonardo da Vinci was born on the 15th April 1452 in the small town of Vinci, or, according to other scholars, in the small village of Anchiano near Vinci, in the region of Tuscany in what is now known as Italy, around thirty miles outside of Florence. Da Vinci’s father was Ser Piero da Vinci, who was born in 1426 and hailed from an upper middle-class and landowning family who had lived in the village of Vinci since the 13th century; given their long-standing connection to their home village, the family adopted the village’s

name as their family name pre-fixed with “da”, which literally means “from” as in “Leonardo from Vinci,” a widespread practice during this time, while “Ser” as in “Ser Piero” is an honorific title for a lawyer. Ser Piero da Vinci was a prominent notary, or someone who ensured documents were official and served in a role similar to that of a lawyer or clerk in the legal profession; while working in this capacity, Piero spent much of his time in Florence, though sometime in 1451 he became romantically involved with Leonardo’s mother and the pair eventually conceived out of wedlock,

which was particularly scandalous due to Piero’s middle-class status; however, Leonardo’s parents ignored the potential stigma and pronounced his birth openly. Until recently, not much was known about da Vinci’s mother, although it is believed that she was a servant named Caterina. Recently, art history publications name her as Caterina di Meo Lippi, a fifteen-year-old orphan who lived near Vinci, while other works of recent speculative historical fiction such as the work by Italian literature professor Carlo Vecce, theorize that she was an enslaved woman from the Caucasus, a theory supported by a document signed by Ser Piero in autumn

1452, in which he freed an enslaved woman named Caterina from bondage. Although he would grow to become a great mind and master in science, painting, architecture, and other pursuits, da Vinci was born into a provincial life as an illegitimate child, a factor which historians propose may have propelled him into his varied pursuits, as it prevented him from assuming the rights of his father’s station. Da Vinci spent the first year of his life with his mother Caterina, but was then raised by his father’s parents, Antonio and Lucia, who were in their 80s and 60s respectively at

this time, with Leonardo hardly seeing his mother or his father after this point, as his father was living and working, and was eventually married, in Florence; Caterina herself eventually married another man and would go on to have five more children – his father would be married a total of four times, and would come to parent eleven children. Unlike other wealthy children, because of his illegitimate status, da Vinci was not formally educated in Latin and was forbidden from entering college; however, he was taught arithmetic, how to read and write in Italian, and how to play the

lyre, while also learning farming techniques from his young uncle Francesco, an early experience that most likely contributed to his lifelong fascination with science and nature; his early education was undertaken within the household of his father, and would have involved both formal lessons, and incidental learning from his local environment, such as gaining an understanding of elementary mechanics from the operation of water wheels and potteries. Several years later, in 1464 when Leonardo was twelve years of age, Ser Piero’s first wife Albiera died and in the following year, he wed Francesca di Ser Giuliano Landredini, who became Leonardo’s

second stepmother; following this remarriage and then the death of his grandparents, Leonardo joined his father in Florence, which was an artistic mecca and hub for the Renaissance and home to around 100,000 people in the 1460s. The Renaissance, literally meaning “rebirth” in French, refers to the renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman scholarship and art as well as the rebirth of European culture after what was viewed as the academic and artistic downturn of the Medieval period; the term was coined in 1855 by Jules Michelet in his work of the same name, which argued that the period

saw the revival of classical writing, artwork and related themes deployed to meet a contemporary socio-political environment; in areas of Italy, reference was often made to the Roman Empire in nationalistic terms, as a way of highlighting the grand and impressive heritage of this collection of states. Importantly, it should be noted that the term “Renaissance” is what scholars call a “Eurocentric” term, meaning that, although this period from the 14th to the 17th century saw a rebirth of European art and learning in contrast to the previous “dark ages,” other places and people in Asia and the great Islamic

empires had already been succeeding in innovations and scholarship in the previous period when Europe was stagnant. However, the term is useful in describing the greater movement of which da Vinci was a leading figure. During the Renaissance, Italy was not yet unified; instead, it was made up of powerful city states and rural landscapes, and endured consistent wars between the urban elite and the Papal State, a term which refers to the swathe of land – with its own army – that was controlled by the Pope and the Catholic Church; moreover, nobility and those who controlled cities and

land at this time commonly hailed from one of two groups: either those who still retained power and land from the feudal era, or the bourgeoisie who had flocked to cities to make their fortunes or consolidate their wealth in banking, shipping, and other trades. Within Florence itself, there were also split factions and in-fighting, which is confirmed in the layout of the city streets during the Renaissance. Based on historic maps and written evidence, historians have remarked that a mixture of families lived in each neighborhood in Florence, without large visible income gaps, so a wide variety of people

and families from different trades might have occupied the same neighborhood, with a family from the nobility having lived in that same neighborhood for centuries, almost a sort of holdover from feudal times should families and people need protection. Such an environment motivated many to acquire status-symbols which would demonstrate their wealth and societal position; in Florence these symbols were commonly based on the arts; private citizens with wealth invested heavily in sculptures, paintings and jewellery as a means of demonstrating their taste and expensive lifestyle; it was this dynamic which fuelled the rise of Florence as a centre of

the Renaissance, and the arts in particular, and it was this that gave Leonardo the opportunity to found his life as an artisan. Florence was one of the powerful city-states that made up Italy, and young Leonardo was one of the many to migrate from the country into the city during the 15th century, and there he grew accustomed to city life, including an after dark curfew and inpenetrable locks and security on buildings, as well as this, Florence itself was a walled city; indeed, life was made turbulent not only due to wars and political intrigue, but also due

to plague and famine, which periodically affected the population and led to a significant level of fear. During the 14th and 15th centuries, the Old Market and public squares were prime locations for political organizing and for communities to gather, and for Leonardo, the squares would have served as excellent opportunities for observing the human form or perhaps gaining potential clients and patrons for his art; some of the most significant movers of the artistic and political world of 14th, 15th, and 16th century Florence belonged to the powerful banking family the Medicis, though their origins were as humble peasant

farmers in Tuscany, In the 14th century they migrated to Florence to take advantage of economic opportunities, and over the next couple of centuries the Medici family would have members connected to the French throne as well as the Papacy. Importantly for Leonardo da Vinci’s story, the Medici and other powerful families were patrons of the arts. Beginning with Cosimo Medici, who was born in 1389 and not only established the political legitimacy of the Medici during a time when many were suspicious of bankers, but also began the tradition of the Medicis’ art patronage; Cosimo was particularly interested in

architecture, as exemplified by his support for sculptor Fillipo Brunelleschi’s design and implementation of the famous dome on the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Flower, or the Cathedral of Florence, completed around 1436. Renaissance-era Florence was a hub for artistic and scholarly achievement, spurred in part by the aristocracy’s interest and participation in the arts, and a cultural milieu that was motivated by both a revived interest in Greek and Roman history as well as humanist values; “humanism” at the time of Leonardo was not the modern atheistic movement of the same name, but was an intellectual and aesthetic school,

which highlighted the centrality of humans and the development of the human experience through art and literature in reference to classical ideas. Da Vinci, along with other artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael, are considered to be the leaders of the so-called “high Renaissance,” referring to the period from the late 15th century to the mid-16th century in which Renaissance art and science reached an all-time high in output; however, at this early phase of his life, Leonardo was not yet the rounded Renaissance man he would become; rather, in 1464, he was the illegitimate son of a lawyer and

soon to be an artist’s apprentice, and it was due to his illegitimate status, that, upon arriving in Florence, Leonardo was unable to follow in his father’s professional footsteps and become a lawyer; however, through his father’s connections, he was able to become Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio’s apprentice when he was fourteen years old, although apprenticeships of the time, would typically start a couple of years earlier around the age of twelve. Andrea del Verrocchio was born in 1435 in Florence, although he was the official sculptor for the powerful Medici family, Verrocchio was originally trained as a goldsmith,

eventually also mastering bronze and marble casting in fifteenth-century Florence. Verrocchio ran a shop which was called a bottega, which was essentially an art factory producing different types of art, theatre costumes and even tombstones; between 1464 and 1473, Verrocchio was commissioned to craft Cosimo d’Medici’s floor tomb in the Basilica di San Lorenzo as well as the tombs of Cosimo’s sons Piero and Giovanni; these lucrative and high-status connections catapulted Verrocchio into a position of influence, and his workshop took orders from many notable clients, demanding a range of wares. In addition to these tombs, Verrocchio designed and produced

many pieces, including the monumental group bronze sculpture Christ and St. Thomas, which was crafted over sixteen years and unveiled in 1483, this sculpture was designed for the exterior of the Orsanmichele in Florence, a church which dated to the early first century but was rebuilt in the early fourteenth century. Verrocchio was not only an esteemed sculptor, but a painter as well who was trained by Florentine master Fra Filippo Lippi, who was born in Florence around 1406, and was a renowned painter of the previous Renaissance generation who was at one time a priest and was also patronized

by the Medicis. He was known for his frescoes and altarpieces such as the Madonna and Child, painted sometime in the 1440s, he also had a scandalous reputation, at one time carrying on an affair with a nun while he himself was a priest, before he was arrested and tortured, his life spared by Cosimo d’Medici. It was in such a lineage of artists that young Leonardo was being trained, although it is worth noting that contemporaries considered artists, a form of craftsman. Clients would order custom wares from a workshop, whether this be a painting, sculpture, engraving or bronze,

and expected their specifications to be met; the nature of this market meant that Leonardo would have been trained not only in the mixing and application of paint, but also in stonemasonry, carving, casting bronze and drawing, as well as in the use of mathematics, engineering and music. As an apprentice working under Verrocchio, some scholars suggest that Leonardo painted the angel in Verrocchio’s painting “Baptism of Christ,” completed circa 1472, as well as the fish on a string and the dog in Verrocchio’s painting “Tobias and the Angel,” created around 1470. But it is suggested by some historians that

Verrocchio, perhaps jealous or in awe of his young apprentice’s skill as a painter as well as his understanding of colour, gave up painting and devoted himself to sculpture and goldsmithy instead; Da Vinci’s early work as an apprentice was crafted using tempera, a common painting medium during the Renaissance that was actually made using egg yolk, which acted as a binder for powdered pigments and water, and indeed, it was Leonardo’s experience with temperapura as an apprentice and as an artist in his own right, that may have led him to experiment with and be drawn to oil painting.

Using oil paints as a medium was a trend that spread to Italy during the Renaissance from the Netherlands, where it had been popularized by artists such as Jan van Eyk, though it had been used since the 7th century in Afghanistan; this form of oil paint was created using powdered pigments mixed with oils like linseed to bring the medium to a smooth paste texture, with artists able to add more painting medium at their will to further change the paint’s consistency, this also allowed an artist to produce more nuanced shadows and shading within their work – giving

rise to a style which emphasized distance and perspective. After studying under Verrocchio for six years, Leonardo ended his training at the age of twenty in 1472, soon after joining the Compagnia di San Luca, or the Company of St. Luke, the painter’s guild of Florence; throughout the Renaissance, artists could not open their own workshops without being a member of a guild, or an organization of people from a specific profession - although Leonardo joined the guild upon ending his apprenticeship, he continued to work as an assistant in Verrocchio’s workshop for five more years until 1477; however, as

a member of this organization, he would have been recognized as a qualified, independent artist. During this time as an assistant in Verrocchio’s workshop, Leonardo undertook his first solo painting, “The Annunciation” dated between 1472 and 1475, a painting which is now held in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence; based on the unevenness of tones and colors, some scholars doubt that this is Leonardo’s work; however, others argue that this work is without doubt Leonardo’s, but a young Leonardo’s before he had begun to truly understand the science behind painting that would bring a preciseness of passion to his later

works. In “The Annunciation,” one can view Leonardo’s care and interest in nature as well as the use of nature to establish the mood of a painting rather than, like his contemporaries, simply using nature as a background. Around this time in 1474, da Vinci also painted the “Ginevrarv de’ Benci” portrait, which is now displayed at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. - this portrait is of 16-year-old Ginevrrva de’ Benci, the daughter of a wealthy banker and a practicing poet, and, given that Ginevra was married in January 1474 to Luigi Niccolini, it is suspected that this painting

may have celebrated her wedding; however, it may have also been commissioned by one of several admirers including great Florentine leader and art patron Lorenzo de’ Medici, Cosimo’s grandson; Ginevraerva’s portrait also has a reverse side in which “Beauty Adorns Virtue” is written in Latin surrounded by a sprig of juniper to represent her name, as juniper in Romance dialect is “genevra”. The back of the painting is also decorated with laurel and palm leaves, while recent infrared scanning of the painting reveals another motto written in Latin: “Virtue and Honor,” which was the motto of the Venetian ambassador to

Florence, Bernardo Bembo; Bembo and Ginevrarv had an admiring platonic friendship, common at the time, and so it has also been mooted that the painting on the reverse side and the front portrait were actually commissioned by Bembo, although this, as well as suspicions of Lorenzo de Medici’s involvement are unproven. Between 1474 and 1478, da Vinci painted the “Madonna of the Carnation,” also known as the “Virgin with the vase of flowers” or the “Munich Madonna” as it is housed in the Alte Pinakothek gallery in Munich, Germany. Although the style of this painting is similar to his other

earlier work the “Annunciation”, in terms of the method of painting her plaited hair and the flowers in her vase, much of the painting remains difficult to decipher and analyze due to damage caused by previous poorly-made restoration attempts; for example, the Madonna’s head was entirely repainted using too much oil in the paint, leading some scholars to suggest that this was a Flemish technique and that the painting was in fact a Flemish copy. Da Vinci opened his own workshop in Florence in 1477, but although he received his first commission on the 10th January 1478, to paint a

nativity scene for the Chapel of San Bernardo, for reasons unknown, but perhaps due to his distractable nature, da Vinci never completed the assignment, despite being paid in advance, a commission which was later given to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a Florentine painter, but was eventually completed by Filippino Lippi; whilst running his workshop, Leonardo struggled to find the regular patrons that were necessary to sustain his work; yet despite this, in his early years of independent work, he took on an apprentice of his own named Paolo da Firenze, a man concerning whom, not much historical information remains, though we do

know from da Vinci’s documents that he was skilled at marquetry, the art of using veneer to create small decorative designs on furniture, and through Leonardo’s letters we know that he supposedly kept “bad company” and was eventually forced to flee the city. In July 1481, da Vinci was commissioned by Augustinian monks from the San Donato in Scopeto just outside of Florence to paint an altarpiece depicting the celebration of the feast of the Epiphany which was entitled the “Adoration of the Magi”; although per the terms of his commission he was due to finish the painting in 30

months, he never completely finished the painting, which today, is housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and consists of a mixture of watercolor, oil, and charcoal sketches. It underwent conservation efforts recently from 2012 to 2017 and altar pieces such as this, remained one of the most popular orders for artisans in Florence, as both churches and private patrons were interested in commissioning them as a way of expediating their passage to Heaven. Interestingly, whilst there is little known about Leonardo’s appearance, it has been suggested that the figure on the far right of the Adoration of the Magi

was a self-portrait; other records suggest that he was a striking figure, tall, and with blue eyes. Although scholars have no clear idea of his motivation for leaving earlier works uncompleted, by the time he abandoned this project, da Vinci had accepted a position in the court of Duke Sforza of Milan and moved there in September 1481, though it is not entirely known whether he was commissioned by Sforza to be his court musician or was sent as a diplomatic gift by Lorenzo de’ Medici. In the fifteenth century, Milan had a population of around 80,000, and had just

recently, in 1480, undergone a power shift when Ludovico Sforza seized control of Milan by assuming regency over his ten-year-old nephew, Gian Galeazzo. Politically clever, Ludovico forged and maintained alliances with Lorenzo de’ Medici of Florence and King Ferdinand I of Naples, both through marriage alliances and through other forms of diplomatic nicety; Ludovico was eager to make Milan into a cultural powerhouse with a status sufficient to rival Florence, and was keen to patronize Leonardo da Vinci as a means of acquiring this status. As the court musician for Duke Sforza, Leonardo used a silver lyre that was shaped

like a horse’s head, an unusual shape that was most likely intended to attract attention; historians have also discovered letters which were most probably unsent letters, addressed to the Duke in da Vinci’s journals which boasted of the many other skills he could offer the court, including building war machines. Throughout Leonardo’s journals, several war inventions were theorized and sketched such as a giant catapult, a multi-barreled gun, and even flame-throwers and an early tank; Milan was then at war with Venice, and was an established manufacturer of weaponry – on the basis of these designs, Leonardo would eventually be

appointed as an engineer to the Duke. In 1489, Sforza commissioned da Vinci to create a bronze statue of a horse which would serve as a monument to Ludovico Sforza’s father, Francesco; however, due to later wartime bronze shortages, he was unable to complete this work. During these years in Milan, Leonardo also took on another apprentice who would stay with him for the next thirty years until da Vinci’s death; Giovanni Giacomo di Pietro Caprotti, began his apprenticeship at the age of ten on the 22nd July 1490 and was soon known as Salai, meaning “Little Devil” or “Imp”

due to his propensity for theft and mischief making. Many scholars believe that Salai and Leonardo had a romantic affair during the thirty years they were together, and while, as posited by historian George Chauncy, actions now considered indicative of sexuality would have been interpreted differently at the time, open homosexuality would still have been wholly prohibited by the Church; however, for artists and supporters of the Renaissance, there may have been an interest in homosexuality given the commonplace relations between master and apprentice in Greek and Roman antiquity; indeed, upon Leonardo’s death, Salai was included in his will, receiving

a house and land in Milan as well as several pieces of artwork. Leonardo also undertook many other projects during this time in Milan, such as developing designs for centrally-planned round churches and classical municipal buildings; he worked alongside influential architects such as Donato Bramente, who was heavily influenced by the Renaissance, and wished to develop new buildings based on the style of ancient Athens and Rome; no buildings which survive today are obviously based on Leonardo’s designs, however several of his ideas were modelled; meanwhile, in 1494, French King Charles VIII invaded and attempted to conquer Naples; the following

year, Venice, Milan, Rome, and Spain formed an alliance to repel the French, and subsequently, in July 1495, France vacated Naples and the Italian territories despite winning the Battle of Fornovo because the battle occurred when the French were already abandoning the territory in response to the mass forces assembled against them. During this time, in 1495, Ludovico Sforza commissioned da Vinci’s famous fresco The Last Supper. Frescoes, a popular medium in the Renaissance, were murals painted with dry pigment directly onto wet lime plaster; commissioned to be painted on the dining room wall at the monastery of Santa Maria

delle Grazie in Milan, The Last Supper took two or three years of painting to complete with the help of many assistants; however, compared to other pieces from the 15th century, this was not a long time for completion. Leonardo experimented with a mixture of oil paint and tempera for this fresco, though the mixture made the artwork more susceptible to the damp conditions at the monastery and contributed to the painting’s quick degradation. By the mid-15th century, the artwork was a disaster, and today, The Last Supper has been restored many times, with only about twenty percent of what

remains having been actually painted by Leonardo himself. The paint on The Last Supper began to flake off soon after its completion, due to its medium being a mixture of oil, tempuratempera, and gesso, as well as due to the effects of humidity; in 1999, a restoration effort was undertaken by specialist Pinin Brambilla, which took over twenty years and millions of dollars and included removing five layers of paint. The work is notable for several other reasons, including the fact that Leonardo chose to render Judas, the traitor, alongside the other Disciples; Jesus holds the centre of the frame,

and the light on the faces of the others present comes from him, as indicated by da Vinci’s use of shadow; the work, now considered one of Leonardo’s greatest achievements, was the cause of some upset at the time, as his patrons were angered by the time it took to complete it and reportedly, Leonardo lost his temper with a particularly impatient Abbot, and threatened to portray him in the place of Judas in the fresco. During his time in the court of Ludovico, Leonardo worked as the official portrait artist to the nobility and their families; some of his

most striking work was undertaken in his role, and he was widely regarded for his ability to render expression and emotion in these pictures. He refined this technique with several studies, including studies in the grotesque and the beautiful, which can be seen in his Madonna paintings; he was also noted for his distinctive style in portraiture, in which he positioned his subject at a ‘three quarter view’ instead of wholly side on, which gave him the opportunity to capture shadow and depth; one of the most successful portraits he completed was that of Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico,

in which he also rendered her dog, a clear indication of his capacity to capture the movement and emotion of both humans and animals in his work. Leonardo also undertook several projects in which he attended and painted dissections, which would have been a highly unusual practice for an artist in his position, although it gave him greater knowledge of the composition of the human body, and allowed him to render living subjects with greater accuracy; he also completed several studies in which he analysed the effect of sunlight on a subject, and worked to define shadow in precise detail

in sketch form. In 1498, during his time in Milan working for Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo was appointed ingegnere camerale, which translates to “Chamber of Commerce Engineer,” a position that entailed designing defences and weaponry for Lombardy, a region in Italy, to prepare for a potential French attack; throughout these turbulent pre-war years, da Vinci also explored his interest in the intersection between mathematics and art by collaborating with mathematician Lucas Pacioli on Divina Proportione beginning in 1496; Lucas Pacioli was born in Sansepolcro in 1445, supposedly studying under Renaissance artist and mathematician Piero della Francesca, and, prior to being invited

by Ludovico Sforza to teach mathematics at his court in Milan, Pacioli worked in several cities, and published works such as Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalit, published in 1494. The first book in Pacioli’s Divina Proportione resulted from a collaboration between da Vinci and Pacioli, with Leonardo illustrating; it was eventually published as a three-book collection entitled Divinia Proportione that explored the “golden ratio” - a guiding principle when sectioning and dividing art, buildings, or other things to produce the most equal and aesthetically pleasing result; in considering these achievements, it is important to remember that Leonardo was

not trained in what was then refered to as ‘natural philosophy’, or science – da Vinci routinely emphasized the role that empirical observation had in his acquisition of knowledge, and argued that the world could not be understood through books alone. On the 5th October 1499, new French King Louis XII, a descendent of the first duke of Milan, invaded Milan with support from Venice, forcing Ludovico Sforza to flee the city, although he was eventually captured a year later while attempting to retake it; Louis had a claim to the city through the Visconti, whom Ludovico had overthrown before

assuming power; following the invasion, Leonardo fled the city with Salai and Pacioli, stopping first at Mantua and staying with the Marchioness Isabella d’Este of whom he sketched a portrait now housed in the Louvre in Paris; subsequently, the trio moved on to Venice in March of 1500, before returning to Florence and living in a house together. During his short stay in Venice, Leonardo experienced life under siege, as the Ottoman Empire threatened the city in a war between 1499 and 1503; Turkish warships lay off the coast during his stay, and he offered his services to the city

as a military engineer – this led him to develop designs for diving equipment, which he believed could be used by Venetian troops in assaults upon Ottoman vessels, as well as several forms of underwater defence which were designed to scuttle ships before they could reach the harbours, which would have allowed them to land an invasion force; once again, incredible though these designs were, they lacked practical application and were hence seldom attempted. In April 1500, Leonardo was once again in Florence, though it was no longer the Florence of his youth: the Medici family who had controlled the

city for so many generations had been ousted following Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son Piero the “Unfortunate’s” political blunder in 1494, when he met Charles VIII on the battlefield during his invasion of Naples and ceded multiple fortresses without Florence’s governing body, the Signngoria’s approval. Although he had faced difficultly securing a patron while setting up his own studio and career in Florence twenty years previously, now, due to the changing political culture in the city, Leonardo was seen as a great master of the “heroic style” that was in vogue; this respect resulted in him obtaining many commissions and jobs;

indeed, when the artist Filippino heard that da Vinci might be interested in an altar piece project that he himself had been commissioned for, the artist withdrew, allowing da Vinci to take on the project if he so chose; Leonardo lived in the Monastery of Santissima Annunziata, where he was commissioned to paint the “Virgin and Child with St Anne”, another work which he failed to finish. In 1502, Leonardo was appointed military engineer to Cesare Borgia, who is well known now for working with and being written about by Italian statesman Niccolo Macchiavelli; at this time, he was a

commander of the Pope’s armies who was using the forces in an attempt to seize control of central Italy; born in 1475, Cesare Borgia was Pope Alexander VI’s illegitimate son, and together with the Pope, he sought to establish himself as an Italian “prince” and reestablish the Papal State’s control over central Italy; after a fortuitous marriage to the King of Navarre’s sister Charlotte d’Albret, and following his appointment as duke of Valentinois by Louis XII, Cesare used his new access to French forces combined with his father’s Papal forces to establish dominance; after Cesare ordered the strangulation of Vitellozzo

Vitelli, Leonardo’s dear friend, he left his position and returned to Florence - meanwhile, in 1503, Cesare Borgia fell from power after his father’s death, before being imprisoned in Spain and eventually dying in battle in 1507. During this period, Leonardo completed more of his celebrated works, and indicated a talent for cartography in his rendering of a town plan of Imola, an Italian city, which had never before been mapped in such great detail; he also developed plans to link Florence to the sea via the Arno river, which involved detailed plans with water currents and flow models –

whilst the project was of military interest, it was soon abandoned; Florentine Republic officials, after their victory over the Medicis, ordered celebratory frescoes of battles won by the city: the Battle of Anghiari in 1440 and the Battle of Cascina in 1364; Michelangelo was commissioned for the latter and da Vinci was commissioned for the former; the Battle of Anghiari was fought for a single day between Milan and an alliance coalition of Florence and the Pope’s armies in a small Tuscan town named Anghiari, thus cementing the power of the Republic in this region. Another leading figure in the

Renaissance, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti was born in Caprese, Tuscany in 1475, making him 29 years old to Leonardo’s 51 when they were commissioned by Florentine officials to produce some of Michelangelo’s most famous works, such as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which took four years to complete, finishing in 1508, while another famous work, his statue of David at the Piazza die Signori was completed in 1494. Like da Vinci, Michelangelo lived and worked in and around Florence during his lifetime. Although both Michelangelo and da Vinci had been commissioned by the city to complete these

frescoes, both remained only partially finished; in Leonardo’s case, his own experimentation got the better of him when he tried a new method of painting frescoes by mixing oil paint and tempera, while in Michelangelo’s case, he was called away to work in Rome – eventually, both of these unfinished works were covered up by artist Giorgio Vasari in the 1560s; Michelangelo and Leonardo had something of a rivalry with one another, and some have contrasted their characters, indicating that Michelangelo was boastful, rude and untidy, whereas Leonardo was quiet, thoughtful and elegant – the two had an acrimonious relationship,

and Michelangelo often criticized the fact that Leonardo had so many unfinished works. In 1503, Leonardo da Vinci began painting one of his most famous works, the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa, or “Monna” short for “Madonna,” is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, although this assertion has always been contested; Da Vinci worked on this piece for four years, adding oil paint in many layers and adding to it throughout his life - Leonardo was evidently fond of the painting, and kept it for the remainder of his life

– this remains a mystery in itself, as if the portrait had been commissioned, then it would generally have been handed straight to the sitter after completion; the work remains arguably the most famous painting in the world; indeed, the Mona Lisa was stolen on 21st August 1911 by Italian painter Vincenzo Peruggia, though the painting was found two years later when he tried to sell it and Peruggia was imprisoned for eighteen months – the painting is currently in the Louvre in Paris. In around 1507, da Vinci was appointed as the court artist of King Louis XII of

France, who was then based in Milan holding onto the power that was wrested from the Sforrozas. While employed by the French King, Da Vinci was paid a salary and painted and designed sets for plays; and, though appointed court artist, in 1508, his principal patron in Milan during these years of French control was Charles d’ Amboise, the Lord of Chaumont - a French nobleman, marshal of France, and Governor of Milan from 1506 to 1511; although never constructed, da Vinci created plans for Charles’ villa, as well as sketching plans for an oratory to be built for the

church of Santa Maria alla Fontana, which, combining his love of science with art, included lavish gardens with hydraulic devices and aviaries. Da Vinci’s architectural plans and drawings for d’ Amboise included a loggia, or covered exterior corridor. Furthermore, some scholars posit that these designs were influenced by the villa Poggio Reale, home of the governor of Calabria, designed by Lorenzo de Medici and realised in 1488 by Giuliano da Maiano. During this period, da Vinci’s propensity for unfinished projects was catching up with him: the Signoria received a letter from d’ Amboise in May 1506 requesting that da Vinci

return to Milan to finish an unspecified work of art they had been promised and that he had not delivered. Unfortunately, da Vinci also owed unfinished work to the city of Florence: the Battle of Anghiari fresco. The Signoria granted Leonardo permission to travel to Milan and finish his projects for d’ Amboise; however, by September 1506, d’ Amboise wrote again to the Signoria requesting that da Vinci stay longer in Milan to finish his work; this request was denied - in true da Vinci fashion, he remained in Milan anyway, only returning to Florence to settle a personal lawsuit

with his brother pertaining to his father, who had died in 1504; Leonardo took on several new apprentices at this time, although his own artistic output as a painter was limited; his new apprentices included young men named Cesaro de Sesto, Giampetrino, Bernardoino Luini who became a noted fresco painter in his own right, and a man who would play an important role in the rest of his life, young Milanese nobleman Giovanni Francesco de’ Melzi. As with Salai, most scholars agree that Melzi and da Vinci were romantically involved, and that both Salai and Melzi served as Leonardo’s muses

throughout his life; all lived together for a long time and traveled with da Vinci from Milan to France and elsewhere - however, despite scholars like Sigmund Freud speculating about his sexuality, there are no blatant confirmations in Leonardo’s journals, sketches, or works that can truly confirm this. It was during this second period spent in Milan that da Vinci frequently traveled around the countryside, observing nature and fueling his interest in geology; as explored in his notebooks dated from autumn of 1508, da Vinci began some of his first notes on geology and botany as he attempted to understand

how fossils and shells could be found so far from the shore – ultimately, he argued that the land must have at one time been underwater, rather than positing that flood waters had brought the evidence so far inland as was generally believed at the time. As late as 1510, da Vinci created the unfinished “Virgin and Child and St. Anne.” Now in the Louvre, parts of this painting are uncompleted, such as the coverings of the virgin’s legs, while other parts of the painting were, to scholars, quite clearly completed by one of da Vinci’s apprentices or students and

not the artist himself; on 10th March 1511, Charles d’ Amboise died, and generals Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and Gaston de Foix took control of Milan, and, around this time, Da Vinci was commissioned by General Trivulzio to sculpt an equestrian statue to be placed in a tomb that Trivulzio had donated to the San Nazaro Maggiore church, a commission which was ultimately revoked. Scholars point out two difficulties da Vinci faced when sketching the designs for Trivulzio’s statue: how to fill the space beneath the horse’s belly and how to position the rider. While attempting to solve these issues, da

Vinci may have studied a classical statue of a horse and rider known as the Regisole, which was a pre-1st century bronze statue depicting an emperor or king riding a horse, believed to be King Theodoric of the Ostrogoths who reigned during the 5th century AD. The statue, though originating in Ravenna, was moved to Pavia, now Italy, within the century of its creation, it was perhaps moved by Emperor Charlemagne. Though the date of its creation remains unclear, the Regisole was undoubtedly an inspiration to artists during the Renaissance and was also undeniably destroyed on the 16th of May

1796 by Jacobins who were celebrating the arrival of Napoleon’s army and saw the statue as a symbol of tyranny; however, portions of the statue such as its base did survive until 1811 - in 1937, the director of the Brera Academy, Francesco Messina, to celebrate the bimillennial anniversary of Emperor Augustus’ life, commissioned a replica of the destroyed Regisole which was placed in the same spot in front of the Vicolo Regisole in Pavia. Though he had been studying human anatomy since the 1480s, during what is known as his “Second Milanese Period,” da Vinci devoted much time to

this subject, evidence of which remains visible to us through his notebooks and detailed anatomical sketches - from a notebook dated around 1512, it is clear that da Vinci drew one of the first drawings of a child in a womb; around 1510, da Vinci met and collaborated with Marc Antonio dalla Torre, a great anatomist; Torre was born in Verona in 1481, the son of a medical professor who trained in medicine and philosophy himself and went on to teach at the University of Padua and then later at the University of Pavia, though not much of his work

remains today, due to his premature death at the age of 30 from either cholera or the plague. Though many scholars attribute the excellence and accuracy of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings to his collaboration with Torre, others point out that da Vinci had been working on and thinking about anatomy for as long as Marc Antonio dalla Torre had been alive, and, based on his notebooks, it is believed that da Vinci dissected more than 30 human corpses, studies that peaked in the early 1500s and resulted in around 200 total drawings of the human body; however, while other artists during

the Renaissance dissected bodies to create studies for paintings, da Vinci was motivated by curiosity about the anatomy itself, rather than to create a specific painting; the process would have been unpleasant, since religious doctrine determined that dissections had to be conducted at night, and it was an activity which was likely to arouse suspicion. Meanwhile, in 1512, the Sforrozas attempted to return to power in Milan when Ludovico Sforza’s son Massimiliano, born in 1493, returned to the city with military power, backed by Switzerland; but, despite this effort, the combined forces of France and Venice pushed the Sforzas out

once again, with Massimiliano settling in Paris - a decade later, a Sforza, Ludovico’s other son Francesco, once again held the title of Duchy of Milan after being appointed by Charles V, though he was indeed the final Sforza to hold the title during this period. Amidst these continuing power struggles between the Milanese and the French, Leonardo went to live with twenty-year-old Francesco Melzi, who remained a close companion and potential lover for the rest of Leonardo’s life - upon Leonardo’s death, Melzi maintained control over many of his journals and his art. On 24th September 1513, Leonardo left

Milan with Melzi and Salai, journeying to Rome where he was hosted in the Belvedere of the Vatican by Giuliano de’ Medici, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son and the brother of the newly installed Pope Leo X, or Giovanni de’ Medici; many artists journeyed to Rome in these years to attempt to win Pope Leo’s favor, including Renaissance artists Raphael and Michelangelo. During his residency in Rome from 1513 to 1516, the Pope approached Leonardo for assistance in crafting a plan for draining the Pontine marshes, which was a malaria breeding ground and borderline uninhabitable, these were eventually drained and reclaimed

for agricultural use in the 1930s while da Vinci’s designs and plans, though not utilized for this purpose, can be viewed in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. Rome itself was still reeling from the Great Schism, which was concluded in 1417, a process which had seen two rival popes fight for power, between the Papal seat in Rome and a challenger in Avignon in France; this reactionary period was manifested in Rome with a drive to centre power and authority in the Vatican, which led to a period known as the High Renaissance. In 1516, Leonardo, Melzi, and Salai

sailed to France, the same year that King Francis I of France invaded and captured Milan, again forcing the Sforzas from power, although, unable to find work and patrons in Italy, da Vinci settled in France and became the official painter for King Francois I of France. Francois or Francis I, became King of France on 1st January 1515 after the death of Louis XII; Francis had wed Louis XII’s daughter Claude shortly before the king’s death – historians write that Francis invited Leonardo to his court purely to converse with him, which by all accounts they did every day.

While in France, da Vinci and Melzi lived in the small village of Cloux at a manor provided to them by King Francis, and it was here that da Vinci created his famous self-portrait drawn in red chalk, now held in the Royal Library of Turin in Italy; the drawings are estimated to be from 1512, depicting Leonardo around the age of sixty; some posit that da Vinci experienced paralysis leading up to his death from around this time, a claim based on an examination of some of his writings such as a sheet from October 1517 in the Codex

Atlantico which was written by Leonardo while living in Cloux - a large collection or journal of Leonardo’s thoughts and sketches made up of 1119 sheets dated from 1478 to 1519. While examining the Codex, scholars noted that some shading lines are ragged and unclear, leading them to suspect that while da Vinci maintained movement in his fingers, he lost movement of the arm itself; many of the works he produced towards the end of his life were apocolyptic, and concerned great floods and images of brute force; the last days of his life were spent trying to organize his

many thousands of pages of notes, which given their extent, he failed to complete. After living and growing into his later years in France, Leonardo da Vinci died on 2nd May 1519, at the age of 67. He was buried at the church of St. Florentin in Amboise in France; unfortunately, this church was demolished in 1802, leading to the disappearance of the final resting place of the great Renaissance mind and artist Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci left to history not only numerous frescoes and paintings, but his notebooks, which were said to have numbered around 20,000 pages

but of which only 7,000 pages have survived; today, some are held in Milan or England while others have been compiled and published as the Trattato della Pittura. The Trattato della Pittura is composed of eight books and 935 “chapters” and serves as an important source of Leonardo’s views on art and art as science because interestingly, Leonardo da Vinci expressed in his writing, the desire to bridge the gap between art and science, considering it his mission to establish art’s respectability as a science; likewise, he believed art possessed a “god-like” ability to recreate and distill the natural world

- significantly, these notebooks explore da Vinci’s fascination with water, flight, and dissection to understand the human form; Da Vinci was fascinated with the power of water from a young age after witnessing the flooding of the Arno River, which may have led him to a greater interest in the destructive power of nature and man’s potential ability to harness such power. Leonardo was also fascinated with the possibility of human flight, and designed what many consider the first parachute, which da Vinci sketched in 1485; this parachute, shaped like a pyramid, was tested on the 26th of June in

2000 by English skydiver Adrian Nicholas, and it was a success! A leading figure of the “high renaissance,” Leonardo da Vinci was a mathematician, architect, and painter who was dedicated to innovation and exploration, whether that meant exploring within the human body or in the sky or experimenting with new painting mediums; though in many ways restricted by his time, such as when he had to repeatedly move around Italy and France depending on the political situation and to seek patrons to support his existence, at times it was these very restrictions that allowed him to walk so many paths

during one lifetime; he was chiefly remembered as an artist during his lifetime, but a study of his notes after his death have revealed the extent to which his thoughts were applied to engineering, mathematics and science also. Leonardo managed to attain fame and influence during his own lifetime but even more so after his death – despite the fact that he finished almost none of his projects. There are many questions over the extent to which he contributed to many of the artworks attributed to him, and his works have often been repaired and restored several times over the

centuries since they were created, leading some to question the extent to which we can fully appreciate his artistic talent as a modern audience. Impacted by his illegitimate birth which blocked him from certain opportunities in his life, da Vinci, despite these setbacks – or, as posited by some historians, perhaps because of these setbacks – excelled; however, at the same time, there were many cases when da Vinci did not complete works he had been paid for, and in other cases, such as with his experimentation with painting medium in The Last Supper, his experiments did not work out

for the best, and cost us today the opportunity to view his work in its full glory. But, as with other great minds throughout history, we can ask ourselves what is innovation without risk? What do you think of Leonardo da Vinci? Is his status as the “Renaissance Man” well deserved, or do you think his influence has been overstated at the expense of other important contributors to this period of European history? Please let us know in the comment section, and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.