Preface
If I was talking about a man called Da Vinci. Would you recognize him?
"Yes, the one who painted Mona Lisa."
But Da Vinci means 'from Vinci!'
So, who’s Da Vinci?
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (5 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath* of 14th century belonging to the Italian Renaissance period. He was brilliant in Inventing, drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematic, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, writing, history, physiology, histology, embryology and cartography. He has been called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, architecture and painting. He is considered as the best painter of all time. He is the one who created the concept of parachute, helicopter and tank. He epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal. Many scholars regard Leonardo as the “Universal Genius” and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is considered as the most talented individual ever lived. the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history. "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote" told an art historian Helen Gardener. Marco Rosci notes that, while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality, his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, although the empirical methods he employed were unconventional for his time.
* is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of subject areas, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.
Childhood
Leonardo was born on 15th of April 1452 at the third hour of the night in Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno river in Republic of Florence. He was out of a wedlock named caterina and son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary. Leonardo had no surname in modern sense. His full name was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci which means Leonardo, (son) of (ser)Piero from Vinci. “ser” indicated shows that his father was a gentleman. More about his early life is unknown. He spend his 5 years in Hamlet of Anchiano (village near Vinci) in home of his mother, and from 1457 lived with his father, grandparents, and Uncle in a small house in Vinci. Later his father married a 16year old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died Young, In 1465 without children. When Leonardo was 16 years his father married again 25-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, who also died without kids. Piero’s Legitimate heir was born from his 3rd Margherita di Guglielmo (who gave birth to 6 children) and his 4th and final wife Lucrezia Cortigiani (who also gave birth to 6 children).
In all Leonardo had total of 12 half-siblings, who were so younger then him (in fact Leonardo’s last sibling was born when Leonardo was 40 years old). Leonardo had very few contacts with his Half-siblings and Step-Mothers because they cause him difficulties after his father’s death in dispute of inheritance.
Leonardo received an informal Education in Latin, geometry and mathematics.
Vasari, a 16th century biographer tells a story of Leonardo as a young man A local peasant made himself a round shield and requested that Ser Piero have it painted for him. Leonardo responded with a painting of a monster spitting fire that was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a shield decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow, which he gave to the peasant.
Physical Characteristics
Descriptions and portraits of Leonardo create an image of a man who was tall for his time & place. He was extremely handsome. He was at least 5’8” according his length of skeleton. His portrait indicates that as an old man, he had long hair, at the time most men wore cropped short. His hair reached his Shoulders. When most men prefer Clean-shave or short beard, Leonardo’s beard flow till his chest.
His clothing was described being unusual in his choice of bright colors. At his time when most mature men wear long garments, Leonardo’s preferred outfit was short Tunic and hose generally worn by younger men.
Vasari’s description
As said by Vasari “In the normal course of events many men and women are both with various remarkable qualities & talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvelously endowed by heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind… Everyone admitted that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty who displayed infinite grace in everything he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied were solved with ease. He possessed great strength and dexterity; he was a man of regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind..."
Left-Handed
It has been written that Leonardo “may be the most universally recognized left-handed artist of all-time”, a fact documented by various Renaissance authors and manifested conspiracy in his drawing and handwriting. In his notebook he wrote in mirror image because it was easier for him, he was falsely accused for trying to protect his work.
Portraits
Leonardo’s face is best known from a drawing in red chalk that appears to be self-portrait. However, they were some controversy over the identity of the subject, because the man represented appeared to be greater than 67 in age.
Character
Leonardo da Vinci was described by his early biographers as a man with great personal appeal, kindness, and generosity. He was generally loved by his fellow.
According to Vasari “Leonardo's disposition was so lovable that he commanded everyone's affection”. He was a “sparkling conversationalist” Who charmed Ludovico il Moro with his intelligence. Vasari sums him up by saying: “In appearance he was striking and handsome, and his magnificent presence brought comfort to the most troubled soul; he was so persuasive that he could bend other people to his will. He was physically so strong that he could withstand violence and with his right hand he could bend the ring of an iron door knocker or a horseshoe as if they were led. He was so generous that he fed all his friends, rich or poor.... Through his birth Florence received a very great gift, and through his death it sustained an incalculable loss."
Some of Leonardo’s Philosophies can be found in a series of fable that he wrote.
Little is known about Leonardo’s intimate relationships from his own writing. Some evidence of Leonardo’s personal relationships emerges both from historic records and his writings of his many biographers.
Verrocchio's workshop
In 1466, at the age of 14, Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Andreas di Cione, known as Verrocchio, whose workshop was finest in Florence. HE appeals as a studio boy to Andreas di Verrocchio, the leading Florentine Painter and sculpture of the day (and would do so for 7 years). other painters would associate with Domenico, Perugino, Botticelli and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo was exposed to both theoretical learning and vast range of technical skills. Including drafting, chemistry, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, painting, sculpting and modeling. Much of Verrocchio’s production was done by his employees. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his The Baptism of Christ, painting young angel holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was so far supercilious to his master’s that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again. Leonardo may have been model for 2 works by Verrocchio: The brown statue of David and the Archangel Raphael in Tobias and the Angel.
Florence at the time of Leonardo’s youth was the heart of Christian humanist thought and culture. Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio’s master, the great sculpture Donatello, died. The painter Uccello, whose early experiments with perspective were to influence the development of the landscape painting, was a very old man. The painter Piero Della Francesca & Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca Della Robia, and architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti were in their sixties. The successful artists of the next generation were Leonardo’s teachers Verrocchio, Antonio del Pullaiuolo, and the portrait sculptor Mino da Fiesole. The latter’s life like busts give the most reliable likenesses of Lorenzo Medici’s father Piero and uncle Giovanni.
By 1472 at the age of 20, Leonardo was qualified as a master in the Guild of the Saint Luke, the guild of artist and Doctor of Medicine. Later Leonardo’s father set him up a workshop, still his attachment with Verrocchio continued to collaborate with him. Leonardo’s earliest known dated is work in a pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5th August 1473.
Personal Relationship
Pupil
Leonardo maintained enduring relationship with 2 pupils who were apprenticed to him as children. These were Gian Giacomo Capprotti da Oreno, who entered his household in 1490 at the age of 10, and count Francesco Melzi, the son of a Milan aristocrat who was apprenticed to his father in 1506, at the age of 14, remaining with his until his death.
Gian Giacomo was nicknamed Salai or il Salaino sense “the little Devil”. Vasari defines him as “a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair”. The “little devil” lived up to his nickname: a year after his entering the household Leonardo made a list of the boy’s crimes, calling him a ‘thief, a lair, stubborn and a greedy gut”. But despite Salai’s thievery and general delinquency – he made off with money and valuables on at least 5 occasions, spent a fortune on apparel, including 24 pairs of shoes, and eventually died in duel – he remained Leonardo’s servant, and assistant for 30 years. At Leonardo’s death he bequeathed the Mona Lisa, a valuable price even then, valued in Salai’s own will at equivalent of £200,000.
Melzi escorted Leonardo in his final days in France. On Leonardo’s death he wrote a letter to inform Leonardo’s brothers, describing him as “like an excellent father to me” and goes on to say: “Everyone is grieved at the loss of such man that Nature no longer has it in her power to produce. Melzi played an important role as a guardian of Leonardo’s notebook, preparing them for publication in the form directed by the master, but was not to see project realized.
Little is revealed about Leonardo’s sexuality, as, although he left 100s’ of pages of writing, very little of it is personal in nature. He left no letters, poetry or diary that indicate romantic interest. He never married but it is said that he had secret affair with La Gioconda or popularly known as Mona Lisa.
The only historical document concerning Leonardo’s sexual life is accusation of sodomy made in 1476, while he was still in Verrocchio’s workshop.
Michael White points out that willingness to discuss aspects of Leonardo's sexual identity has varied according to contemporary attitudes. His near-contemporary biographer Vasari makes no reference to Leonardo's sexuality whatsoever. In the 20th century biographers made explicit reference to a probability that Leonardo.
Patrons, Friends & Colleague
Leonardo da Vinci had several powerful patrons, including the King of France. He had, over the years, a large number of followers and pupils.
• His patrons included the Medici, Ludovico Sforza and Cesare Borgia, in whose service he spent the years 1502 & 1503 And King Francis l of France.
• He had working relation with two other notable scientists, Luca Pacioli & Marcantonio Della Torre and was a close friend of Niccolò Machiavelli.
• He had a close, long-lasting friendship with Isabella d’Este, a renowned patroness of the arts, whose portrait he drew while on a Journey that took him through Mantua.
• The de Predis brothers & collaboration on Virgin of the Rocks.
• His relationships with Michelangelo was always tense and ambivalent, as the two had such contrasting characters.
Fame & Reputation
Leonardo’s fame within his own lifetime was such that king of France carried him like a Trophy and claimed to support him in his old age and held him in his arms as Leonardo died. Everyone continued to admire his paintings & sculptor. He inspired many individuals to write books.
By 19th century the scope of Leonardo’s notebook was known as well as his paintings. Hippolyte Taine wrote in 1866: “There may not be in the world an example of another genius so universal, so incapable of fulfilment, so full of yearning for the infinite, so naturally refined so far ahead of his own century and the following centuries." 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."
Interest
Vasari says of the child Leonardo "He would have been very proficient in his early lessons, if he had not been so volatile and flexible; for he was always setting himself to learn a multitude of things, most of which were shortly abandoned. When he began the study of arithmetic, he made, within a few months, such remarkable progress that he could baffle his master with the questions and problems that he raised... All the time, through all his other enterprises, Leonardo never ceased drawing...”
Music Ability
It appears from Vasari’s description that Leonardo first learned to play the lye as a child and that he was very talented at improvisation. In about 1479 he created a lyre in the shape of a horse's head, which was made "mostly of silver", and of "sonorous and resonant" tone. Lorenzo de' Medici saw this lyre and wishing to better his relationship with Ludovico Sforza, the usurping Duke of Milan, he sent Leonardo to present this lyre to the Duke as a gift. Leonardo's musical performances so far surpassed those of Ludovico's court musicians that the Duke was delighted.
Love of Nature
Leonardo always loved nature. One of the reasons was because of his childhood environment. Near his childhood house were mountains, trees, and rivers. There were also many animals. This environment gave him the perfect chance to study the surrounding area; it also may have encouraged him to have interest in painting. Later in life he recalls his exploration of an ominous cavern in the mountains as formative.
Science Inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo renowned In fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geometry, hydrodynamics, geology, mathematics, aerodynamics, physics, mechanical engineer, optic, pyrotechnics & zoology.
His scientific studies & theories are only capable of understanding in last 150 years. As an engineer, Leonardo convinced ideas vastly ahead of his time. He gave the concept of parachute improved version of helicopter, armored fighting vehicle, solar power, calculator and theory of double hull. He advanced great knowledge in anatomy, astronomy, physics, optics, aerodynamics & hydrodynamics.
Approach of Scientific Investigation
During the Renaissance study of Science was not perceived as mutually exclusive; on the contrary, the one was informing upon the other. Although Leonardo’s training was primarily as an artist, it was largely through his scientific approach to the art of painting, and his development of a style that coupled his scientific knowledge with his unique ability to render what he saw that created the outstanding masterpieces of art for which he is famous.
As a scientist Leonardo received no formal education in Latin and Mathematic and did not attend university. Because of these reasons his studies were largely overlooked by scholars. Leonardo’s approach to science was intense level of observation and recording, his tools of investigations was entirely his Eyes.
Leonardo’s notes & Journals
Leonardo kept a series of Journals in which he wrote almost daily, as well as separate notes and sheets of observation, comments and plans. He wrote and drew with his left hand and most of his scripts is in mirror scripts which makes it difficult to read. Much has survived to illustrate Leonardo’s studies, discoveries and inventions.
On his death he left his notes to his pupil Melzi with apparent intention that his scientific work should be published. This did not happen in Melzi’s lifetime, and the writings were eventually bound in difference forms and dispersed. Some of his works were published as a treatise on painting after 165 years after his death.
Publication
Leonardo illustrated a book on mathematical proportion in art written by his friend Luca Pacioli and called da divina proportione, published in 1509. He was also preparing a major treatise on his scientific observations and mechanical invention. It was to be divided into several sections or “Books”, Leonardo leaving some instructions as to how they were to be ordered. Many sections of it appeared in his notebook.
These pages deal with scientific subjects like specifically as they touch upon his creation of artworks. In relating to art, this is not science that dependent upon experimenting of theories.
Natural Science
Light
Leonardo wrote:
The light which may illuminate opaque bodies of 4 kinds. These are; diffused light as that of the atmosphere; And Direct, as that of the sun; The third is Reflected Light; and there is 4th Which can pass through bodies (translucent) bodies, as the paper or linen etc.
For an artist working in 15th century, some study of light was important. It was by the effective painting of light falling on that modelling, or a 3-dimentional appearance was to be achieved in a 2-dimension medium. It was also understood by artist like Leonardo’s teacher, Verrocchio, that an appearance of space and distance could be achieved in a background landscape of by painting in tones that were less in contrast and colors that were less bright than in foreground of the painting. The effect of light on solids were achieved by trial and error, since few artists except Piero Della Francesca had accurate knowledge of the subject.
At the time Leonardo commenced painting, it was unusual for figures to be painted with extreme contrast of light and shade. Faces were shadowed in a manner that was bland and maintained all the features and contours clearly visible. Leonardo broke with this. In the painting generally titled “The lady with Ermine” (1483) he sets figure diagonally to the picture space and turns her head so that her face is almost parallel to the to her nearer shoulder. The back of her head and the further shoulder are deeply shadowed. Around the ovoid solid of her head and across her breast and hand the light is diffused in such a way that the distance and position of light in relation to the figure can be calculated.
Leonardo’s treatment of light in painting such as “The Virgin of the Rocks” and “Mona Lisa” was to change forever the way in which the artist perceives light and used it in their painting. Of all Leonardo’s scientific legacies, this is probably the one that had the most immediate and noticeable effect.
Human Anatomy
Leonardo wrote:
...to obtain a true and perfect knowledge ... I have dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all the other members, and removing the very minutest particles of the flesh by which these veins are surrounded, ... and as one single body would not last so long, since it was necessary to proceed with several bodies by degrees, until I came to an end and had a complete knowledge; this I repeated twice, to learn the differences…
Topography Anatomy
Leonardo commenced the formal study of anatomy of the Human Body when apprenticed to Verrocchio. As a student he would have been taught to draw human body from life, to memorize the muscles, tendons and visible subcutaneous structure and to familiarize himself with the mechanics of various parts of the skeleton and muscular structure. It was common workshop practice to have plasters casts of parts of human available for students to study and draw.
Leonardo is the one who painted arms and Torso Christ in “The Baptism of Christ” on which he famously collaborated with his master Verrocchio, then his understanding of topographical anatomy had surpassed that of his master at an early age as can be seem by comparison of the arms of Christ with those of “John the Baptist” in the same painting.
In 1490s he wrote about demonstrating muscle and sinews to students:
Remember that to be certain of the point on origin of any muscle, you must pull the sinew from which the muscle springs in such a way as to see that muscle move, and where it is attached to the ligaments of the bones.
He continued his investigation in this field occupied many pages of notes, each dealing systematically with an aspect of anatomy. It appears that the notes were intended for publication, a task entrusted on his death his Melzi.
In conjunction with studies of aspects of body are drawings of faces displaying different emotions and many drawings of people suffering facial deformity, either congenital or though illness. Some of these drawings, generally referred to as “caricatures”, on analysis of skeleton proportions, appear to be based on anatomical studies.
Dissection
As Leonardo became successful as an artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Later his dissected in Milan at Hospital Maggiore and in Rome at the hospital Santa Spirito (1st mainland Hospital in Italy). He collaborated with Dr Marcantonio Della Torre for his study from 1510 to 1511.
I have removed skin from a man who was so shrunk by illness that the muscles were worn down and remained in a state like thin membrane, in such a way that the sinews instead of merging in muscle ended in wide membrane; where the bones were covered by the skin they had very little over their natural size.
In 30 years, Leonardo has dissected many Women and Men corpses from different ages. Together with Marcantonio, he prepared to publish theorical work on anatomy and made more than 200 drawings. However, this book was only published in 1680 (161 years after his death) under heading “Treatise on Painting.”
Among the detailed images that Leonardo drew are many studies of Human skeleton. He was the first to describe the double S form of backbone. He also studied the inclination of pelvis and sacrum and stressed that sacrum is not uniform but composed of 5 fused vertebrae. He also studied anatomy of Human foot and its connection to the leg, from these studies he was able to study biomechanics.
Leonardo was a physiologist as well as an anatomist, studying the function of the human Body as well as examining and recording its structure. He dissected and drew the Human skull and cross-sections of the brain, transversal, sagittal and frontal. These drawings may be linked to a search for the census communis, the locus of the human senses, which, by medieval tradition, was located at the exact physical center of the skull.
Leonardo studied internal organs, being the first one to draw Human appendix and the lungs, mesentery, urinary tract, reproductive organs, muscles of cervix and a detailed of cross-section of coitus. He was one of the first ones to draw a scientific representation of the fetus intrautero.
Leonardo studied vascular system and drew a dissected heart in detail. He correctly worked out how heart valves ebb flow of blood, yet he fully didn’t fully understand the circulation as he believed that blood was pumped to the muscles where it was consumed. In 2005 a UK heart surgeon, Francis Wells, from papworth Hospital Cambridge, pioneered repair of damaged hearts, using Leonardo’s depiction of the opening phase of the mitral valve to operate without changing its diameter allowing a patient to recover fast. Wells told “Leonardo had a depth of appreciation of anatomy and physiology of body – its structure and function – that perhaps overlooked by some.”
Leonardo’s observational acumen, drawing skills and clarity of deception of bone structure reveals him at his finest as a anatomist. However, his deception of the internal soft tissue of the body are incorrect in many ways, showing that he maintained concepts of anatomy and functioning that were in some cases millennia old, and that his investigation was probably hampered by lack of preservation techniques available at the time. Leonardo’s detail drawing of internal organ of a woman reveal many traditional misconceptions.
Leonardo’s study of Human anatomy led also to the design of automation which has come to be called Leonardo’s robot, which was probably made around the year 1495 but was only reinvented in 1950s.
Comparative Anatomy
Leonardo not only study Human anatomy but also animals. He dissected Cows, birds, horses, dogs, monkeys and frogs comparing in his drawing their anatomical structure with that of human. On one page of his journal he drew 5 profile studies of Horse with its teeth bared in anger and, for comparison a snarling lion and snarling man.
I have found that in composition of human body with animals’ bodies, the organs of sense are duller and coarser… I have seen in lion tribe that the sense of smell is connected with part of brain which come down the nostrils, which form a spacious receptacle for sense of smell, which enters by a great number of cartilaginous vesicles with several passage leading up to where brain, as before said, come down.
In the early 1490s Leonardo was commissioned to create a monument in honor of Francesco Sforza. In his notebooks are a series of plans for an equestrian monument. There are also large number of related anatomical studies of horses. They include several diagrams of a standing horse with the angle and proportion annotated, anatomical studies of a horses’ heads, a dozen detailed drawings of hooves and numerous studies of horses rearing.
He studied the topographical anatomy of a bear in detail, making many drawings of its paws. There is also a drawing of the muscles and tendons of the bear's hind feet. Other drawings of interest include the uterus of a pregnant cow, the hindquarters of a decrepit mule and studies of the musculature of a little dog.
Botany
Leonardo wrote:
All the branches of the tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk.
The science of botany was long established in Leonardo’s time, a treatise on the subject having been written as early as 300 BCE. Leonardo's study of plants, resulting in many beautiful drawings in his notebooks, was not to record in diagrammatic form the parts of the plant, but rather, as an artist and observer to record the precise appearance of plants, the manner of growth and the way that individual plants and flowers of a single variety differed from one another.
One such study shows a page with several species of flower of which ten drawings are of wild violets. Along with a drawing of the growing plant and a detail of a leaf, Leonardo has repeatedly drawn single flowers from different angles, with their heads set differently on the stem.
Apart from flowers the notebooks contain many drawings of crop plants including several types of grain and a variety of berries including a detailed study of bramble. There are also water plants such as irises and sedge. His notebooks also direct the artist to observe how light reflects from foliage at different distances and under different atmospheric conditions.
Several the drawings have their equivalents in Leonardo's paintings. An elegant study of a stem of lilies may have been for one of Leonardo's early Annunciation paintings, carried in the hand of the Archangel Gabriel. In both the Annunciation pictures the grass is dotted with blossoming plants.
Geology
As an adult, Leonardo had only 2 childhood memories, one of which finding a cave in Apennines. Although fearing that he might be attacked by wild beast, he ventured in driven “by burning desire to see whether there might be any marvelous thing within.”
Leonardo’s earliest