Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian pronunciation: [leoˈnardo da vˈvintʃi] About this sound pronunciation (help·info); April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.[2] According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote".[1] Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.[3]

Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded him by Francis I.

Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait[4] and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon,[5] being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[nb 1] Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a tank, concentrated solar power, an adding machine,[6] and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime,[nb 2] but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.[nb 3] He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.[7]

Contents

[hide] 1 Life 1.1 Childhood, 1452–66

1.2 Verrocchio's workshop, 1466–76

1.3 Professional life, 1476–1513

1.4 Old age, 1513–19

2 Relationships and influences 2.1 Florence: Leonardo's artistic and social background

2.2 Personal life

2.3 Assistants and pupils

3 Painting 3.1 Early works

3.2 Paintings of the 1480s

3.3 Paintings of the 1490s

3.4 Paintings of the 1500s

3.5 Drawings

4 Observation and invention 4.1 Journals and notes

4.2 Scientific studies

4.3 Anatomy

4.4 Engineering and inventions

5 Fame and reputation

6 See also

7 Footnotes

8 References

9 Bibliography

10 External links

Life

See also: Leonardo da Vinci's personal life

Childhood, 1452–66

Photo of a building of rough stone with small windows, surrounded by olive trees.

Leonardo's childhood home in Anchiano

Pen drawing of a landscape with mountains, a river in a deep valley, and a small castle.

Leonardo's earliest known drawing, the Arno Valley (1473), Uffizi

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 (Old Style), "at the third hour of the night"[nb 4] in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of the Medici-ruled Republic of Florence.[9] He was the out-of-wedlock son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina, a peasant.[8][10][nb 5] Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, (son) of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci".[9] The inclusion of the title "ser" indicated that Leonardo's father was a gentleman.

Little is known about Leonardo's early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother, then from 1457 he lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci. His father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but died young.[11] When Leonardo was sixteen his father married again, to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini. It was not until his third and fourth marriages that Ser Piero produced legitimate heirs.[12]

Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered

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