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Leonardo was born on 15th April 1452, in the little
town of Vinci in Tuscany.
Although as a boy Leonardo received a good education,
there was a limit to what could be learnt in a small
village. His father could see that Leonardo had artistic
talent, and by 1469 sent him to Florence to be an
apprentice in the workshop of the painter and sculptor
Andrea Verrocchio, a well-known artist who worked for
Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence.
This was the period in history called as the
Renaissance, when, after hundreds of years of
selfdom and superstition, there was at last a renewal
in the study of sciences. Europe had left the Dark
Ages and the feudal system behind. New schools of
learning were opening and people were leaving the
countryside for cities.
The Renaissance reached Verrocchio’s workshop,
where painting and sculpting went together with
being a goldsmith, making fine mechanical objects
and musical instruments. Elementary engineering was
a basic part of an artist’s job.
As an apprentice in the workshop, Leonardo learned
these skills as well as painting and sculpting, and
became familiar with a wide assortment of tools for
activities such as lifting, carrying and digging. Later in
life he would use this knowledge as a starting point
for numerous ideas and inventions.
After living and working in Florence for 14 years,
Leonardo was looking for new challenges. His years in
Florence had given him the opportunity to study and
perfect his art, as well as time to design inventions
that would later make him famous. Milan, a city state
north of Florence, was threatened by enemies and
Leonardo wanted to put his designs to work for the
benefit of the city.
In a letter to Francesco Sforza, the ruler of Milan,
Leonardo praised his own ability to make cannons,
catapults, war ships, to dig tunnels under the
enemies, drain moats and scale castle walls.
Sforza hired the artist and aspiring inventor, but
Leonardo soon found that his employer was mostly
concerned with making Milan a beautiful city like
Florence. And so Leonardo worked as an artist once
again.
THE BRONZE HORSE
Leonardo’s first project in Milan was to build a huge
statue of Sforza’s father on horseback.
Leonardo had a brilliant plan to make a statue like no
other – the largest ever of a man on horseback. Here
we begin to see that his marvelous plans were not
always realized. For several years he planned the
statue, and it took eleven years for him to complete a
clay model of the horse, 26 feet high- as tall as two
storey house.
Once the model was completed, Leonardo had the
task of making the actual statue. He had to find a way
of pouring 200,000 tons of melted bronze into a mold
without ruining the job. Before Leonardo was able to
solve his problem, the bronze he needed was used to
make cannons, and then in 1499 the French took over
Milan and destroyed the clay model. Despite 16 years
of planning and working on the statue Leonardo had
to give up.
THE LAST SUPPER
The horse only took up part of Leonardo’s attention;
he was also painting the walls of a monastery.
The painting was of the last supper of Christ. For
many years Leonardo had thought about how to
make this painting. Many other artists before him had
made their own versions of Jesus Christ having his last
meal with the 12 disciples.
When Leonardo painted the picture, however, the
scene was alive with action and new meaning that no
one else was able to give, or has been able to give
since. Five hundred years later the “Last Supper” is
one of Leonardo’s most famous works.
Although Leonardo’s “Last Supper” must have been
incredibly beautiful when just finished, it soon began
to flake and fall apart.
There was too much moisture in the walls of the
monastery, and to make matters worse a heavy
rainstorm caused a flood in the room. In the centuries
after Leonardo completed his work the painting was
restored many times, sometimes poorly, causing
more harm to the work.
During World War II, a bomb hit the monastery ,but
missed the painting. In recent years the “Last Supper”
was again restored, and it is now possible to see
Leonardo’s original forms and colors .
THE COURT ENTERTAINER
Leonardo was busy with many other projects while he
lived in Milan. He continued to paint, but he was also
a court entertainer for the rulers of Milan playing the
lute, singing and reciting poetry. When there was a
festival he would make costumes and art work.
THE MILITARY INVENTOR
He was forever busy with the drawing of plans for
military inventions; missiles, mortar bombs, tanks and
fortresses. The tank , for example, was not used until
World War I, almost 450 years after his drawing of a
horseless armored car. He also planned a sewage
system for Milan and devised how to rebuild the city
so that the Black Plague would not be as dangerous a
threat.
THE MONA LISA
In 1500, Leonardo returned to Florence, and three
years later he completed his most famous painting
“Mona Lisa”. She sits above a landscape of rocks,
trees and water, her eyes gazing off to the side and
her mouth forming her ageless half smile.
What does that smile mean? And what is she looking
at? The more we look at her the more we wonder. But
it is not only this woman who is so mysterious to us.
Twenty years before the “Mona Lisa” was painted, the
same curious smile was on the face of The Virgin, her
mother and the angel in “The Madonna of the Rocks”.
THE ENGINEER
In 1506, Leonardo returned to Milan. The French
were still in control of the city state, and he came to
work for Charles d’Amboise, the commander of the
French troops. For the next seven years he painted
little, but spent most of his time studying mechanics,
optics, anatomy and Mathematics.
Leonardo spent his last years in France at the court
of King Francis I. Living in a small castle next to the
royal residence at Amboise, he had a perfect place
to pursue his art, work on his notes, and conduct
scientific experiments. He died on 2nd May 1519, at
the age of 67.
HIS NOTEBOOKS AND MIRROR WRITING
When Leonardo da Vinci died, he left behind over
5,000 pages of drawings and notes. He wrote his
notes in a backwards “secret” handwriting which he
taught himself. Why did he disguise his writings? We
must not forget that even though the Renaissance
was a period of learning, the Church was still very
powerful.
Much of what Leonardo wrote went against the
teaching of the Church, and it is a wonder that he did
not find himself in great trouble. Another theory is
that, as a left-handed person, the eccentric Leonardo
simply found more comfortable to write this way, and
no teacher had ever tried to change him.
LEONARDO – THE WEDDING OF ARTS TO SCIENCE
“He is not well rounded who does not have an equally
keen interest in all of the things within the compass of
painting”, wrote Leonardo in his notes. Leonardo
definitely had an interest in “all things”. Biology,
anatomy, botany and engineering are part of his
paintings. Take for example his painting “Adoration of
the Magi”, made in 1481-1482, in which the baby
Jesus first appears before the world.
The painting includes dozens of men and women,
several horses, a camel, trees, rocks and a structure
made of columns, stairs and arches. When painting a
man leaning over in the “Adoration”, Leonardo was
concerned with the details of every muscle. To paint
this correctly meant that he had to understand the
human body.
To paint a horse rearing up on its hind feet also
required that Leonardo knew the anatomy of a horse.
The building in the background is both graceful and
exact, showing Leonardo’s knowledge of architecture
and engineering. A painting for Leonardo was
therefore as much an exercise in science as it was in
art.
TREATISE ON PAINTING
An important part of his notes were devoted to
helping others learn to paint. He believed that there
are rules of painting just as there are laws of
Mathematics. His Treatise on Painting includes a
study of geometry, optics, perspective and
proportion, all of which were central to his work.
ANATOMICAL STUDIES
One of Leonardo’s greatest contributions was in the
study of human anatomy. While most artists thought
of anatomy as a tool for their drawings, Leonardo was
interested in understanding how the human body
worked. From his studies he was able to make a
model of the human heart, eye and brain. He wrote
detailed notes of the dissection of corpses which
show that his understanding of the human body was
far ahead of his time.
Leonardo made many sketches from these studies.
One is an open womb with the embryo inside. The
position of the umbilical cord and embryo were
surprisingly correct. He was also the first to draw
parts of the body in cross-section, labeling the
individual parts. This method is still used today.
He paid special attention to the eye, and understood
what are now known to be basic principles of optics.
He noted for examples that images are reversed on
the retina, and remarked on the bending properties
of light. He also understood that the eye is a lens
which is connected by nerves to brain.
THE BOTONIST
Before Leonardo only magicians and makers of
medicines were concerned with plants. He studied
them and made detailed observations and drawings.
His discoveries in botany included that the age of a
tree could be determined by the number of rings in
its trunk.
At Leonardo’s
times the Church followed the
traditional belief that the earth and sea were created
only a few thousands ago. Walking in the mountains
of Italy, it is not unusual to find fossils of sea creatures
in the rocks.
Leonardo wondered how fish and other animals of
the sea had come to be in the mountains. He noted
that there must have been a primeval sea which
covered the rocks. He proposed that sediments fell to
the bottom of the ancient sea and later became
rocks, enclosing fossilized fish. He saw that this must
have happened long ago, longer than the Church
claimed.
LEONARDO AND FLIGHT
Another of Leonardo’s interests was flight. His
notebook, On the Flight of Birds, was a study of birds
and bats. He spent a lot of time trying to invent a way
for humans to fly as birds do. His designs failed
because they featured flapping wings instead of the
stiff design that modern airplanes have, and because
he lacked a modern power source, but his drawings
show that he had given some thought to the concept
of gliding.
With more work, Leonardo might have succeeded in
putting humans in the sky. He also drew designs for a
helicopter and a parachute, hundreds of years before
they were constructed.
“I WISH TO WORK MIRACLES”
Leonardo’s many discoveries and inventions were
truly marvelous. When he was still young he wrote” I
wish to work miracles”.
The Renaissance was an age when people were just
beginning to discover and rediscover the world
around them. They were artists, musicians, scientists,
architects, mathematicians, engineers, inventors and
philosophers, but only Leonardo da Vinci was all of
these at once.
He had endless imagination and original thoughts.
“Whoever in discussion cities authority uses not
intellect but memory”, he wrote. Leonardo, the true
Renaissance man, used his intellect to look to the
future and help make the world we live in today.