Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Anghialo, near Vinci, Republic of Florence, present-day Italy. Leonardo was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intellect embodied the ideal of the Renaissance man, perhaps more than any other individual.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953, 53.600.3177, www.metmuseum.org
His paintings "The Last Supper” (1495-98) and “Mona Lisa” (c. 1503-19) are among the most famous masterpieces of the Renaissance period. His notes reveal a spirit of exploration, invention, and engineering centuries ahead of his time.
The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed during his lifetime and which has withstood the criticisms of time is due in large part to his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided his creativity, thinking and behavior throughout his life.
Life and creativity
Early Period: Florence
At the time of Leonardo's birth, his parents were not married. His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landowner, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant who soon after married an artisan. Leonardo grew up in his father's family estate, where he was treated as a "legitimate" son and received the usual elementary education of the time: reading, writing and arithmetic. Leonardo did not seriously study Latin, the key language of traditional learning, until much later, when he himself acquired a working knowledge of it. Nor did he engage in higher mathematics—advanced geometry and arithmetic—until the age of 30, when he began to study it in earnest.
Leonardo's artistic inclinations must have appeared early. When he was about 15 years old, his father, who enjoyed a good reputation among the Florentine public, apprenticed him to a painter Andrea del Verrocchio, where Leonardo received a versatile training that included painting and sculpture, as well as being trained in various techniques and arts. In 1472, Leonardo was accepted into the painters' guild in Florence, but remained in his master's workshop for another five years, after which he worked independently in Florence until 1481.
“Adoration of the Magi”, Linear perspective study for the Adoration of the Magi, silverpoint, pen, and bistre heightened with white on prepared ground by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1481; in the Uffizi, Florence
Many superb pen and pencil drawings survive from this period, including many technical sketches – for example of pumps, weapons, mechanical devices – that testify to Leonardo's interest and knowledge of technology early in his career.
First Milanese period (1482-99)
In 1482, Leonardo moved to Milan to work in the service of the city's duke—a surprising move, especially when we know that the 30-year-old artist had just received his first significant commissions in his native Florence. The more rigorous academic atmosphere in Milan attracted him. In addition, he was undoubtedly also attracted by the glittering court of Duke Ludovico Sforza and the limitless possibilities that await him there.
Vitruvian Man, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490; in the Galleries of the Academy of Venice
During the 17 years spent in Milan, Leonardo completed six works. According to contemporary sources, Leonardo was commissioned to create three more paintings, but they have disappeared or were never created.
Lady with an Ermine, oil on panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1489–91; in the National Museum, Kraków, Poland
During this first period, he also created one of his most famous works - the monumental mural "The Last Supper” (1495-98) in the refectory of the monastery “Santa Maria delle Grazie“.
During this period, Leonardo worked on a grand sculptural project that seems to have been the real reason he was invited to Milan—a monumental bronze horse statue to be erected in honor of Francesco Sforza, founder of the Sforza dynasty. Leonardo devoted 12 years to this task, with little interruptions. In 1493, the clay model of the horse was exhibited in a public place on the occasion of the wedding of Emperor Maximilian with Bianca Maria Sforza and preparations begin to cast the colossal figure, which is to be 16 feet (5 meters) tall. But due to the impending danger of war, the metal ready to be cast was used to make cannons, which halted the project. The fall of Ludovico in 1499 spelled doom for this failed undertaking, perhaps the most grandiose conception of a monument in the 15th century. The war that followed reduced the clay model to a pile of ruins.
Second Florentine Period (1500-2008) of Leonardo da Vinci
In December 1499 or at the latest in January 1500 – shortly after the victorious entry of the French into Milan, Leonardo left the city. He returns to Florence, where, after a long absence, he is received with honors. In the same year, he was appointed as an architectural expert in a commission that investigated the damage to the foundations and structure of the church "San Francesco al Monte".
Screw-cutting machine, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500; in the Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France, Paris
Perhaps because of his constant search and desire for knowledge, Leonardo left Florence in the summer of 1502 to enter the service of Cesare Borgia as "senior military architect and chief engineer". Borgia, the infamous son of a pope Alexander VI, was also commander-in-chief of the papal army. When he enlists the services of Leonardo, he is at the height of his fame. Only 27 years old, he is undoubtedly the most imposing and feared figure of his time. Leonardo, twice his age, was probably captivated by his personality. For 10 months, Leonardo traveled and explored the territories under Borgia rule. He sketched some plans of some of the cities and produced the topographical maps, laying the foundations of modern cartography.
Head of a Woman (also called La Scapigliata), oil, earth, and white lead pigments on poplar wood by Leonardo da Vinci, 1500–10; in the National Gallery, Parma, Italy
In the spring of 1503, Leonardo returned to Florence to make an expert survey of a project that attempted to divert the Arno River behind Pisa so that the city, then under siege by the Florentines, would be deprived of access to the sea. The plan proved unworkable, but his work led him to consider a plan first developed in the 13th century to build a grand canal to bypass the impassable section of the Arno and connect Florence by water to the sea. Leonardo developed his ideas in a series of studies. Using his own riverside landscape sketches, which can still be seen today, and using accurate terrain measurements, he created a map showing the route of the supposed canal. The project, considered again and again in the following centuries, was never realized, but centuries later, along the exact route chosen by Leonardo for his canal, the expressway from Florence to the sea was built. In 1503, Leonardo also painted the Mona Lisa (c. 1503-19).
Mona Lisa, oil on wood panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–19; in the Louvre, Paris
The second Florentine period was also a time of intense scientific research. Leonardo made dissections at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital and extended his anatomical work to a comprehensive study of the structure and functions of the human organism. He makes systematic observations of the flight of birds, about which he plans to write a treatise.
Courtesy of Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan
Even his hydrological studies "on the nature and movement of water" extended to studies of the physical properties of water, paying particular attention to water currents, which he compared to air currents.
Second Milanese Period (1508-13)
In the winter of 1507-08, Leonardo went to Florence, where he helped the sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici to execute his bronze statues for the Florentine baptistery, after which he settled in Milan.
Honored and praised by his generous patrons in Milan, Charles d'Amboise and King Louis XII, Leonardo enjoyed his duties, which were mostly limited to advice on architectural matters.
During this second period in Milan, Leonardo worked very little as a painter.
At that time he received an important order. Gian Giacomo Trivulzio returns in triumph to Milan as marshal of the French army and as the avowed enemy of Ludovico Sforza. He commissioned Leonardo to sculpt his tomb, which was to be a statue of an equestrian and placed in the chapel donated by Trivulzio to the church of San Nazzaro Maggiore. After many years of preparatory work on the monument, for which a number of important sketches have been preserved, the marshal himself abandoned the plan in favor of a more modest project. This is the second aborted project that Leonardo has faced as a sculptor.
During this period, Leonardo's scientific activity flourished. In collaboration with the famous anatomist from Pavia Marcantonio della Torre, his studies in anatomy reached new heights.
Human fetus, pen-and-ink studies by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1510
Leonardo outlined a plan for a comprehensive work that would include not only accurate and detailed reproductions of the human body and its organs, but also comparative anatomy and the entire field of physiology. He even planned to complete his anatomical manuscript in the winter of 1510-11. In addition, his manuscripts abounded in mathematical, optical, mechanical, geological, and botanical studies. These studies were increasingly guided by one basic idea: the belief that force and motion as basic mechanical functions give rise to all external forms in organic and inorganic nature and give them form.
The Last Years (1513-19) of Leonardo da Vinci
In 1513, political events - the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan - made the already 60-year-old Leonardo stir again. At the end of the year he left for Rome, hoping to find work there through his patron Giuliano Medici, brother of the new Pope Leo X. Giuliano provided him with a room in his Belvedere residence in the Vatican. He also gave Leonardo a substantial monthly stipend, but large orders never came. For three years Leonardo remained in Rome. During this period, art developed extremely actively - Raphael paints the last rooms of the Pope's new apartments, Michelangelo is struggling to finish the tomb of Pope Julius II, and many younger artists are also coming on the scene and becoming quite active. Drafts of embittered letters betray the frustrations of an aging master who remains in the background. During this time, he worked in his studio on mathematical research and technical experiments or looked at ancient monuments while walking around Rome. A magnificently executed map of the Pontic Marshes suggests that Leonardo was at least a consultant on the project that Giuliano de' Medici commissioned in 1514. He also made sketches for a spacious residence to be built in Florence for the Medici who were returning to power there in 1512. However, the building was never built.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, oil on wood panel by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–19; in the Louvre, Paris
Probably embittered, at the age of 65, Leonardo accepted the young king's invitation Francis I to enter his service in France. At the end of 1516 he left Italy forever. Leonardo spent the last three years of his life in the small residence of Clos (later called Clos-Luce), near the king's summer palace at Amboise on the Loire. Leonardo continued to make sketches for the court festivities, but the king treated him in every respect as an honored guest and allowed him freedom of action. For the king, Leonardo drew up the plans for the Romorantine palace and garden, which were intended as a dowager residence for the queen mother. But the carefully developed project, combining the best features of the Italo-French traditions in palatial and landscape architecture, had to be stopped because the region was threatened by malaria.
During his stay in France, Leonardo painted little, spending most of his time arranging and editing his scientific studies, his treatise on painting, and a few pages of his treatise on anatomy.
Leonardo died at Clos and was buried in the palatial church of Saint Florentin. The church was devastated during the French Revolution and completely destroyed at the beginning of the 19th century. His grave can no longer be found.
Self-portrait, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490/1515–16; in the Royal Library, Turin, Italy
Leonardo's total oeuvre in the field of painting is really quite small. Only 17 of the surviving paintings can be attributed with certainty to him, and several of them are unfinished. Leonardo's works, unaffected by the vicissitudes of aesthetic doctrines in subsequent centuries, stand out as perfect world masterpieces of painting.
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