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Leonardo da Vinci

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Artists; Engineers and
inventors

   CAPTION: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

   Portrait in red chalk, circa 1512 to 1515, widely (though not
   universally) accepted as an original self-portrait.
   Portrait in red chalk, circa 1512 to 1515, widely (though not
   universally) accepted as an original self-portrait.
      Born     April 15, 1452
               Anchiano, Florence, Italy
      Died     May 2, 1519
               Amboise, Indre-et-Loire, France
    Residence  Italy and France
   Nationality Italian
      Field    Geometry, anatomy, mathematics, physics, visual arts, dynamics
    Known for  Engineering, architecture, astronomy, paleontology, anatomy,
               painting
    Religion   Roman Catholic Church

   Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an
   Italian polymath: architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor,
   mathematician, musician, and painter. He has been described as the
   archetype of the " Renaissance man", a man infinitely curious and
   equally inventive. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest
   painters of all time.

   Leonardo is famous for his realistic paintings, such as the Mona Lisa
   and The Last Supper, as well as for influential drawings such as the
   Vitruvian Man. He conceived of ideas vastly ahead of his own time,
   notably conceptually inventing a helicopter, a tank, the use of
   concentrated solar power, a calculator, a rudimentary theory of plate
   tectonics, the double hull, and many others. Relatively few of his
   designs were constructed or were feasible during his lifetime; modern
   scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their
   infancy during the Renaissance. In addition, he greatly advanced the
   state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, astronomy, civil
   engineering, optics, and the study of water ( hydrodynamics). Of his
   works, only a few paintings survive, together with his notebooks
   (scattered among various collections) containing drawings, scientific
   diagrams and notes.

   Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense; "da Vinci" simply means
   "from Vinci". His full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci",
   meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci."

Professional life

   The earliest known dated work of Leonardo's is a drawing done in pen
   and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August 1473. It is assumed that
   he had his own workshop between 1476 and 1478, receiving two orders
   during this time.

   From around 1482 to 1499, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan , employed
   Leonardo and permitted him to operate his own workshop, complete with
   apprentices. It was here that seventy tons of bronze that had been set
   aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue (see below) were cast
   into weapons for the Duke in an attempt to save Milan from the French
   under Charles VIII in 1495.
   Leonardo da Vinci statue outside the Uffizi, Florence
   Enlarge
   Leonardo da Vinci statue outside the Uffizi, Florence

   When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a
   fight, overthrowing Sforza . Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time, until
   one morning when he found French archers using his life-size clay model
   of the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with Salai, his
   assistant and intimate, and his friend Luca Pacioli (the first man to
   describe double-entry bookkeeping) for Mantua, moving on after 2 months
   to Venice (where he was hired as a military engineer), then briefly
   returning to Florence at the end of April 1500.

   In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope
   Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer; with Cesare
   he travelled throughout Italy. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the
   hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the
   French.

   From 1513 to 1516, he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and
   Michelangelo were active at the time, though he did not have much
   contact with these artists. However, he was probably of pivotal
   importance in the relocation of David (in Florence), one of
   Michelangelo's masterpieces, against the artist's will.
   Leonardo da Vinci tomb in Saint Hubert Chapel (Amboise).
   Enlarge
   Leonardo da Vinci tomb in Saint Hubert Chapel (Amboise).

   In 1515, Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was
   commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace
   talks between the French king and Pope Leo X in Bologna, where he must
   have first met the King. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being
   given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé (also called "Cloux"; now a
   museum open to the public) next to the king's residence at the royal
   Chateau Amboise, where he spent the last three years of his life. The
   King granted Leonardo and his entourage generous pensions: the
   surviving document lists 1,000 écus for the artist, 400 for Count
   Francesco Melzi, (his pupil and allegedly one of the great loves of his
   life, named as "apprentice"), and 100 for Salai ("servant"). In 1518
   Salai left Leonardo and returned to Milan, where he eventually perished
   in a duel. Francis became a close friend. Some twenty years after
   Leonardo's death, Francis told the artist Benevenuto Cellini that he
   believed that "No man had ever lived who had learned as much about
   sculpture, painting, and architecture, but still more that he was a
   very great philosopher."

   Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on 2nd May, 1519 (Romantic legend
   said that he died in Francis' arms). According to his wish, 60 beggars
   followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the
   castle of Amboise. Although Melzi was his principal heir and executor,
   Salai was not forgotten; he received half of Leonardo's vineyards.

Selected works

     * The Baptism of Christ (1472–1475) – Uffizi, Florence, Italy (from
       Verrocchio's workshop; angel on the left-hand side is generally
       agreed to be the earliest surviving painted work by Leonardo)
     * Annunciation (1475–1480) – Uffizi, Florence, Italy
     * Ginevra de' Benci (c. 1475) – National Gallery of Art, Washington,
       D.C., United States
     * The Benois Madonna (1478–1480) – Hermitage Museum, Saint
       Petersburg, Russia
     * The Virgin with Flowers (1478–1481) – Alte Pinakothek, Munich,
       Germany
     * Adoration of the Magi (1481) – Uffizi, Florence, Italy
     * The Madonna of the Rocks (1483–86) – Louvre, Paris, France
     * Lady with an Ermine (1488–90) – Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, Poland
     * Portrait of a Musician (c. 1490) – Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan,
       Italy
     * Madonna Litta (1490–91) – Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg,
       Russia
     * La belle Ferronière (1495–1498) – Louvre, Paris, France —
       attribution to Leonardo is disputed
     * Last Supper (1498) – Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan,
       Italy
     * The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist (c.
       1499–1500) – National Gallery, London, UK
     * Madonna of the Yarnwinder 1501 (original now lost)
     * Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503-1505/1507) – Louvre, Paris, France
     * The Madonna of the Rocks or The Virgin of the Rocks (1508) –
       National Gallery, London, UK
     * Leda and the Swan (1508) - (Only copies survive — best-known
       example in Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy)
     * The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (c. 1510) – Louvre, Paris,
       France
     * St. John the Baptist (c. 1514) – Louvre, Paris, France
     * Bacchus (or St. John in the Wilderness) (1515) – Louvre, Paris,
       France

Science and engineering

   The rhombicuboctahedron, by Leonardo, as it appeared in the Luca
   Pacioli's Divina Proportione, 1509.
   Enlarge
   The rhombicuboctahedron, by Leonardo, as it appeared in the Luca
   Pacioli's Divina Proportione, 1509.

   Renaissance humanism saw no mutually exclusive polarities between the
   sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and
   engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work,
   recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and
   drawings, which fuse art and science. These notes were made and
   maintained through Leonardo's travels through Europe, during which he
   made continual observations of the world around him. He was left-handed
   and used mirror writing throughout his life. This is explainable by the
   fact that it is easier to pull a quill pen than to push it; by using
   mirror-writing, the left-handed writer is able to pull the pen from
   right to left and also avoid smudging what has just been written. He
   wrote in his diaries (journals) using mirror writing.

   His approach to science was an observational one: he tried to
   understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost
   detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanation.
   Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary
   scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach
   himself Latin. It has also been said that he was planning a series of
   treatises to be published on a variety of subjects though none were
   ever done.
   The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo's study of the proportions of the human
   body.
   Enlarge
   The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo's study of the proportions of the human
   body.

Anatomy

   Leonardo started to discover the anatomy of the human body at the time
   he was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio, as his teacher insisted
   that all his pupils learn anatomy. As he became successful as an
   artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the
   hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Later he dissected in Milan at
   the hospital Maggiore and in Rome at the hospital Santo Spirito (the
   first mainland Italian hospital). From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated
   with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre (1481 to 1511). In 30 years,
   Leonardo dissected 30 male and female corpses of different ages.
   Together with Marcantonio, he prepared to publish a theoretical work on
   anatomy and made more than 200 drawings. However, his book was
   published only in 1680 (161 years after his death) under the heading
   Treatise on painting. Leonardo also dissected cows, birds, monkeys,
   bears, and frogs, comparing their anatomical structure with that of
   humans.
   Studies of Embryos by Leonardo da Vinci (circa 1510)
   Enlarge
   Studies of Embryos by Leonardo da Vinci (circa 1510)

   Leonardo drew many images of the human skeleton, and was the first to
   describe the double S form of the backbone. He also studied the
   inclination of pelvis and sacrum and stressed that sacrum was not
   uniform, but composed of five fused vertebrae. He was also able to
   represent exceptionally well the human skull and cross-sections of the
   brain ( transversal, sagittal, and frontal). He drew many images of the
   lungs, mesentery, urinary tract, sex organs, and even coitus. He was
   one of the first who drew the fetus in the intrauterine position (he
   wished to learn about "the miracle of pregnancy") as well as the first
   to draw the human appendix. He often drew muscles and tendons of the
   cervical muscles and of the shoulder. He was a master of topographic
   anatomy. He not only studied human anatomy, he studied the anatomy of
   many other animals, as well. Leonardo could simultaneously draw with
   one hand and write with the other.

   It is important to note that he was not only interested in structure
   but also in function, so he became a physiologist in addition to being
   an anatomist. He actively searched for models among those who had
   significant physical deformities, for the purpose of developing
   caricature drawings.

   His study of human anatomy led also to the design of the first known
   robot in recorded history. The design, which has come to be called
   Leonardo's robot, was probably made around the year 1495 but was
   rediscovered only in the 1950s. It is not known if an attempt was made
   to build the device. He correctly worked out how heart valves eddy the
   flow of blood yet he was unaware of circulation as he believed that
   blood was pumped to the muscles where it was consumed. A diagram
   drawing Leonardo did of a heart inspired a British heart surgeon to
   pioneer a new way to repair damaged hearts in 2005.
   An armoured tank designed by Leonardo at the Château d'Amboise
   Enlarge
   An armoured tank designed by Leonardo at the Château d'Amboise

Inventions and engineering

   Fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, Leonardo produced detailed
   studies of the flight of birds, and plans for several flying machines,
   including a helicopter powered by four men (which would not have worked
   since the body of the craft would have rotated) and a light hang glider
   which could have flown. On January 3, 1496 he unsuccessfully tested a
   flying machine he had constructed.
   The interior of Leonardo da Vinci's armoured tank
   Enlarge
   The interior of Leonardo da Vinci's armoured tank

   In 1502, Leonardo da Vinci produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot
   (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman
   Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet
   at the mouth of the Bosphorus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not
   pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was
   impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller
   bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. In May 2006, the
   Turkish government decided to construct Leonardo's bridge. It is
   expected to be finished by October 2006.

   In 1490, he made a sketch that conceptualized a stepless continuously
   variable transmission (CVT). Modern variations of Leonardo's
   transmission concept are being used in some automobiles produced today.
   Continuously variable transmissions have been available in tractors,
   snowmobiles, and motorscooters for many years.

   Owing to his employment as a military engineer, his notebooks also
   contain several designs for military machines: machine guns, an
   armoured tank powered by humans or horses, cluster bombs, a working
   parachute, a diving suit made out of pig's leather and a hose
   connecting to air, etc. even though he later held war to be the worst
   of human activities. Other inventions include a submarine, a
   cog-wheeled device that has been interpreted as the first mechanical
   calculator, and one of the first programmable robots that has been
   misinterpreted as a car powered by a spring mechanism. In his years in
   the Vatican, he planned an industrial use of solar power, by employing
   concave mirrors to heat water. While most of Leonardo's inventions were
   not built during his lifetime, models of many of them have been
   constructed with the support of IBM and are on display at the Leonardo
   da Vinci Museum at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise .

Notebooks

   Leonardo kept notebooks throughout his life, in which he wrote daily,
   often in a private "backwards" or mirror-image handwriting. While the
   popular belief that he did this to keep some amount of secrecy may have
   some truth, the more plausible reason is that he did this naturally due
   to his left-handedness. He wrote about his sketches, inventions,
   architecture, elements of mechanics, painting ideas, human anatomy,
   grocery lists and even people that owed him money. These
   notebooks—originally loose papers of different types and sizes,
   distributed by friends after his death—have found their way into major
   collections such as the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the
   Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, and the Victoria and Albert Museum and
   British Library in London. The British Library has put a selection from
   its notebook (BL Arundel MS 263) on the web in the Turning the Pages
   section. The Codex Leicester is the only major scientific work of
   Leonardo's in private hands. It is owned by Bill Gates, and is
   displayed once a year in different cities around the world.

   Why Leonardo did not publish or otherwise distribute the contents of
   his notebooks remains a mystery to those who believe that Leonardo
   wanted to make his observations public knowledge. Technological
   historian Lewis Mumford suggests that Leonardo kept notebooks as a
   private journal, intentionally censoring his work from those who might
   irresponsibly use it (the tank, for instance). They remained obscure
   until the 19th century, and were not directly of value to the
   development of science and technology. In January 2005, researchers
   discovered the hidden laboratory used by Leonardo da Vinci for studies
   of flight and other pioneering scientific work in previously sealed
   rooms at a monastery next to the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata,
   in the heart of Florence.

Personal life

   St. John the Baptist
   Enlarge
   St. John the Baptist

   Leonardo kept his private life secret. He claimed to have a distaste of
   physical relations: his comment that "the act of procreation and
   anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings
   would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous
   dispositions", was later interpreted by Sigmund Freud, in an analysis
   of the artist, as indicative of his "frigidity".

   In 1476, while still living with Verrocchio, he was accused anonymously
   of sodomy with a 17 year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a youth already
   known to the authorities for his sexual escapades with men. After two
   months of investigation he was acquitted, ostensibly because no
   witnesses stepped forward though others claim it was due to his
   father's respected position. For some time afterwards, Leonardo and the
   others were kept under observation by Florence's Officers of the Night
   - a Renaissance organization charged with suppressing the practice of
   sodomy, as shown by surviving legal records of the Podestà and the
   Officers of the Night.

   Leonardo's alleged love of boys was a topic of discussion even in the
   sixteenth century. In "Il Libro dei Sogni" (The Book of Dreams), a
   fictional dialogue on l'amore masculino (male love) written by the
   contemporary art critic and theorist Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Leonardo
   appears as one of the protagonists and declares, "Know that male love
   is exclusively the product of virtue which, joining men together with
   the diverse affections of friendship, makes it so that from a tender
   age they would enter into the manly one as more stalwart friends." In
   the dialogue, the interlocutor inquires of Leonardo about his relations
   with his assistant, il Salaino, "Did you play the game from behind
   which the Florentines love so much?" Leonardo answers, "And how many
   times! Keep in mind that he was a beautiful young man, especially at
   about fifteen."
   Leonardo's servant and assistant, Caprotti il Salaino by an anonymous
   artist (1495)
   Enlarge
   Leonardo's servant and assistant, Caprotti il Salaino by an anonymous
   artist (1495)

   Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, nicknamed Salai or il Salaino ("The
   Little Unclean One" i.e., the devil), was described by Giorgio Vasari
   as "a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair, in which
   Leonardo greatly delighted." Il Salaino entered Leonardo's household in
   1490 at the age of 10. The relationship was not an easy one. A year
   later Leonardo made a list of the boy’s misdemeanours, calling him "a
   thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton." The "Little Devil" had made
   off with money and valuables on at least five occasions, and spent a
   fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of shoes.
   Nevertheless, il Salaino remained his companion, servant, and assistant
   for the next thirty years, and Leonardo’s notebooks during their early
   years contain pictures of a handsome, curly-haired adolescent.

   Il Salaino's name also appears (crossed out) on the back of an erotic
   drawing (ca. 1513) by the artist, The Incarnate Angel, at one time in
   the collection of Queen Victoria. It is seen as a humorous and
   revealing take on his major work, St. John the Baptist, (based on
   Salaino's appearance) also a work and a theme imbued with homoerotic
   overtones by a number of art critics such as Martin Kemp and James
   Saslow Another erotic work, found on the verso of a foglio in the
   Atlantic Codex, depicts il Salaino's behind, towards which march
   several penises on two legs. Some of Leonardo's other works on erotic
   topics, his drawings of heterosexual human sexual intercourse, were
   destroyed by a priest who found them after his death .

   In 1506, Leonardo met Count Francesco Melzi, the 15 year old son of a
   Lombard aristocrat. Melzi himself, in a letter, described Leonardo's
   feelings towards him as a sviscerato et ardentissimo amore ("a deeply
   passionate and most burning love"). Salai eventually accepted Melzi's
   continued presence and the three undertook journeys throughout Italy.
   Melzi became Leonardo's pupil and life companion, and is considered to
   have been his favourite student.

   Though Salai was always introduced as Leonardo's "pupil", the artistic
   merit of his work has been a matter of debate. He is credited with a
   nude portrait of Lisa del Gioconda, known as Monna Vanna, painted in
   1515 under the name of Andrea Salai. The other portrait of Lisa del
   Gioconda, the Mona Lisa was bequeathed to Salai by Leonardo, a valuable
   piece even then, as it is valued in Salai's own will at £200,000.

   Both of these relationships follow the pattern of eroticized
   apprenticeships which were frequent in the Florence of Leonardo's day,
   relationships which were often loving and frequently sexual. (See
   Historical pederastic couples.) Besides them, Leonardo had many other
   friends who are figures now renowned in their fields, or for their
   influence on history. These included Cesare Borgia, in whose service he
   spent the years of 1502 and 1503. During that time he also met Niccolò
   Machiavelli, with whom later he was to develop a close friendship. Also
   among his friends are counted Franchinus Gaffurius and Isabella d'Este,
   whose portrait he drew while on a journey which took him through
   Mantua.

Vegetarianism

   It is apparent from the works of Leonardo and his early biographers
   that he was a man of high integrity and very sensitive to moral issues.
   His respect for life led him to being a vegetarian for at least part of
   his life. The term " vegan" would fit him well, as he even entertained
   the notion that taking milk from cows amounts to stealing. Under the
   heading, "Of the beasts from whom cheese is made," he answers, "the
   milk will be taken from the tiny children." . Vasari reports a story
   that as a young man in Florence he often bought caged birds just to
   release them from captivity. He was also a respected judge on matters
   of beauty and elegance, particularly in the creation of pageants.

   It is possible that Leonardo da Vinci embraced vegetarianism at a young
   age, and unverified claims have been made that he remained so for the
   entire duration of his life.

Johannite heresy

   It has been the subject of much speculation whether da Vinci was an
   orthodox Christian or whether he was a heretic. Many conspiracy
   theorists believe that he was "infected" with the Johannite heresy,
   that is he regarded not Jesus Christ but John the Baptist as the real
   Christ. This subject has also been the source for many best-selling
   books in recent times.

Cultural depictions of Leonardo da Vinci

   With the genius and legacy of Leonardo da Vinci having captivated
   authors and scholars generations after his death, many examples of "da
   Vinci fiction" can be found in culture and literature. As of 2006, the
   most prominent example is Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code (2003),
   which is concerned with Leonardo's role as a supposed member of a
   secret society called the Priory of Sion.

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