Leonardo da Vinci ::: Project ETERNITY

Life

His life was first described in Giorgio Vasari's biography Vite.

This was before modern naming conventions developed in Europe. Therefore, his full name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means "Leonardo, son of Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Most authorities therefore refer to his works as "Leonardos", not "da Vincis". Presumably he did not use his father's name because of his illegitimate status.

Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. He was a vegetarian throughout his life. His early sketches were of such quality that as soon as his father showed them to the painter Andrea del Verrocchio the latter took the fourteen-year old on as apprentice. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence.

In 1476 he, along with three other young men, was anonymously accused of homosexual contact with a 17-year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. After two hard months in jail, he was acquitted for lack of witnesses. For a time Leonardo and the others were under the watchful eye of Florence's "Officers of the Night" — a kind of Renaissance vice squad.

That Leonardo was homosexual is generally accepted. His longest-running relationship was with a handsome delinquent, Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, whom he nicknamed Salai (Little Devil), who entered his household around 1488 at the age of 10, becoming his servant and assistant. In 1506 Leonardo meets Count Francesco Melzi, the fifteen year old son of a Lombard aristocrat, a youth of great personal beauty. After tempestuous jealosy scenes, Salai accepts the new arrangement and the three undertake various journeys throughout Italy. Though Salai was always introduced as his "pupil" he never produced a stitch of work. Melzi, however, became his pupil and life companion.

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino" and son of Pope Alexander VI) as a military architect and engineer. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries drove 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 has been assumed to be of pivotal importance in relocation of 'David', the great masterpiece of Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo was apparently quite unhappy about this.

Leonardo had a great number of friends, some of whom were:

Art

Leonardo is well known for the masterful paintings attributed to him, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan), painted in 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), painted in 1503–1506. There is significant debate however, whether Leonardo himself painted the Mona Lisa, or whether it was primarily the work of his students. Only seventeen of his paintings, and none of his statues survive.

Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished.

In 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece "The Adoration of the Magi". After extensive, ambitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan.

He there spent many years making plans and models for a monumental seven-metre (24-foot) high horse statue in bronze ("Gran Cavallo"), to be erected in Milan. Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to some of his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design.

Back in Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, the "Battle of Anghiari"; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties.

List of paintings

Science and engineering

Perhaps even more impressive than his artistic work are his studies in science and engineering, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing throughout his life. Explainable by 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.

His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, Leonardo the scientist was mostly ignored by contemporary scholars.

He participated in autopsies and produced many extremely detailed anatomical drawings, planning a comprehensive work of human and comparative anatomy. Around the year 1490, he produced a study in his sketchbook of the Canon of Proportions as described in recently rediscovered writings of the Roman architect Vitruvius. The study, called the Vitruvian Man, is one of his most well-known works.

His study of human anatomy led eventually 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.

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 it 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.

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 Sultan Beyazid II of Constantinople. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus known as the Golden Horn. It was never built, but Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway.

In astronomy, Leonardo believed that the Sun and Moon revolved around the Earth, and that the Moon reflects the sun's light due to its being covered by water.

In fiction

With the genius and legacy of Leonardo da Vinci having captivated authors and scholars generations after his death, the following examples of "Da Vinci fiction" can be found in culture and literature.

Further reading

See also

References

External links

Category:Leonardo da Vinci

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Leonardo

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