Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci)

(Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci) painter, sculptor, goldsmith, musician, architect, physicist, astronomer, scientist, geologist, surveyor, anatomist, botanist, alchemist, visionary inventor, mechanical engineer, and soldier, watchmaker, town planner, and man of multidisciplinary and ultra prolific Italian genius science (Vinci, April 15, 1452 - Amboise, May 2, 1519).

A man of universal spirit, at the same time artist, scientist, inventor and humanist philosopher, Leonardo embodies the universalist spirit of the Renaissance of which he was one of the major symbols and remains one of the greatest men of that time.

* 1452 April 15, Leonardo was born of an illegitimate love relationship between his father, Ser Piero da Vinci, notary of the republic from a wealthy family of Italian notables, and his mother, Catarina, a humble peasant girl, in the small Tuscan village of Anchiano (2km from the village of Vinci, 80km from Florence, 50km from Pisa in Italy)
* (He was born on April 15 of the Julian calendar, the year or Italy adopts the Gregorian calendar)
* At this time modern naming conventions had not yet developed in Europe. Only the great families use the name of their "tribe" (eg Lorenzo de' Medici, whose clan must have originally included a few doctors). The man of the people is designated by his first name, to which any useful details are added:the name of the father, the place of origin, a nickname (Botticelli), the name of the master for a craftsman (Andrea del Verrocchio), etc. Therefore, the name of the artist is Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, which means Leonardo, son of master Piero, from Vinci. Leonardo himself simply signs his works Leonardo or Io, Leonardo (Me, Leonardo). Most authorities therefore report his works as Leonardo without the da Vinci. Presumably he does not use his father's name because he is an illegitimate child.
* Leonard lives miserably with his mother Catherina
* 1457:he was 5 years old when his mother married a peasant from Anchiano. He was then admitted to the house of his father's family, from the village of Vinci, who, in the meantime, had married a young girl of good family, aged sixteen, Donna Albiera Amadori. This childless one transfers all her affection to Leonardo, but she dies very young at the age of 24 in 1465 while Leonardo is 13 years old. He was considered part of his father's notable rich family but was never legitimized by this father who married four times and gave him ten brothers and two legitimate sisters who came after him.
* 1466:Leonardo is 14 years old and his blended family settles in Florence. The young Leonardo, is close to nature, which he observes with keen curiosity and is interested in everything, he already draws caricatures and writes upside down (mirror writing) in the Tuscan dialect. Giorgio Vasari, in his biography of Leonardo, tells an anecdote about the first steps in the artistic career of the man who was to become one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance. One day, Leonardo's father, Ser Piero, "took several of his drawings and submitted them to his friend Andrea del Verrocchio whom he urged to tell him if Leonardo, if he should devote himself to the art of drawing, could achieve something in this matter. Andrea was greatly amazed at Leonardo's extraordinary beginnings and urged Ser Piero to allow him to choose this profession, whereupon Ser Piero resolved that Leonardo would enter Andrea's studio. Leonardo didn't need to be asked twice; not content with practicing this profession, he then practiced all those related to the art of drawing. This is how Leonardo was placed as an apprentice student in one of the most prestigious Renaissance art workshops in Florence under the patronage of Andrea del Verrocchio to whom he owes his excellent polytechnic training, where he rubbed shoulders with other artists like Sandro Botticelli, Perugino and Domenico Ghirlandaio. Verrocchio was a renowned polytechnic and very eclectic artist:a trained goldsmith, painter and sculptor who worked for the wealthy patron Lorenzo de' Medici. After a year spent cleaning brushes and other small jobs, Verrocchio introduced Leonardo to the preparation of colors, decoration, engraving, painting frescoes as well as marble and bronze sculpture, then he entrusted his pupil that he finds exceptional the privileged care to finish his paintings. There are no known works by Leonardo during this period.

* 1472 at the age of 20, he is registered in the Red Book of the company of St Luke, famous guild of painters in Florence, the Campagnia of Pittori. His career as a painter began with immediately remarkable works such as The Virgin with a Carnation, or The Annunciation (1473). He improves the technique of sfumato (misty impression) to a point of refinement never reached before him.
* 1476 he is still mentioned as Verrocchio's assistant, but it is assumed that between 1476 and 1478 he also had his own workshop because during this period he received two personal orders. He painted his first painting, Madonna with a Carnation, and the same year entered the studio of Paolo Ucello, where he studied perspective.
* 1478 At the age of 26, he leaves his master after having brilliantly surpassed him in all disciplines. Leonardo da Vinci then became an independent master painter.
* 1481 the monastery of San Donato commissioned The Adoration of the Magi from him, but Leonardo, annoyed at not being chosen by Pope Sixtus IV for the decoration from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel in Rome where he was in competition with Michelangelo, never finished this painting and left Florence to go to Milan to work for the patron and Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza
* This last employment to various tasks. The artist is thus "ordainer of parties and shows with sumptuous decorations" of the palace and invents theater machines that amaze the public, he paints several portraits of the Milanese court and undertakes studies to make the Martezana canal navigable. In 1483, he began to paint one of his most admired masterpieces:The Virgin of the Rocks, for the chapel of San Francesco Grande. It was also at this time that he thought about technical and military projects. He improves the clocks, the loom, the cranes... He also studies town planning and proposes plans for ideal cities.
* 1490 around this date, he creates an academy bearing his name where he teaches for a few years his knowledge while noting his research in small treatises. During this period, he studied for "Il Cavallo", a giant equestrian statue of a prancing horse mounted by Francesco Sforza (the father of the Duke of Milan), a technical feat for the time, but this sculpture will never be cast in bronze.
* 1495 the Dominicans of the monastery of Sainte-Marie-des-Grâces commissioned him The Last Supper which he painted in fresco on the wall of the refectory of the convent and in 1498, he produced the ceiling of the Sforza palace.
* 1499 the troops of Louis XII take the Duchy of Milan and dismiss the Duke Ludovico Sforza. His prancing equestrian statue is destroyed. Louis XII wants to cut the wall representing the Last Supper to take it to France.

The aerial screw in 1486 incorrectly called the helicopter:this blueprint does not include the appropriate driving force that will be necessary to implement, moreover the machine would turn on itself
The aerial screw in 1486 incorrectly called the helicopter:this drawing does not include the appropriate driving force that will be necessary to implement, moreover the machine would turn on itself

* 1500 In March he is in Venice for two months after having stayed in Mantua in the company of the scientific monk Luca Pacioli where he was strongly noticed for a portrait of Isabelle d'Este (Louvre cabinet of drawings). At the end of April he is back in Florence. During his stay on the shores of the Adriatic Sea he studied the defenses of the eastern border of the Serenissima against a possible attack from the Turks.
* 1501 Stay in the convent of the Santissima Annunziata he receives the consecration for the preparatory sketch representing The Virgin and Saint Anne. Brief stay in Rome at the Villa Tivoli for the study of the Antiquities, realization for the powerful secretary of state of Louis XII, Florimond Robertet, of a Virgin with a spindle, today disappeared.
* 1502 Called by Prince César Borgia, Duke of Valentinois, with the title of "captain and general engineer", he stays in the Marches and Romagna to inspect the fortresses and territories newly conquered by the son of Pope Alexander VI. Meeting with Nicolas Machiavelli "spy" of Florence in the service of César Borgia.
* 1503-1506 Installation in the convent of Santa Maria Novella, the painter's new studio for the cartoon of the Battle of Anghiari.
* 1504 Leonardo is consulted by the Lordship for the location of Michelangelo's David, his opinion is opposed to that of the "divine", the latter wins his case. His father dies and Leonardo is excluded from the inheritance by his illegitimacy. Louis XII solicits Florence, where Da Vinci carries out anatomical studies and tries to classify his innumerable notes, so that the master returns to Milan. If the Mona Lisa is Mona Lisa del Giocondo, nothing is less certain, start of the posing sessions.
* 1505 Study on the flight of birds, drafting of the Turin Codex
* 1506 The government of Florence allows him to join the French governor of Milan Charles d'Amboise, who keeps him with him despite the protestations of the Lordship.
* 1507 The painter becomes the heir of his uncle Francesco, but his nephews initiate proceedings to break the will. Louis XII is in Milan and Leonardo is again the organizer of the festivals given in the Lombard capital.
* 1508 Beginning of the design of Saint Anne, today in the Louvre
* 1511 Death of Governor Charles d'Amboise France loses and leaves the Milanese after the Battle of Ravenna
* 1513 In September, Leonardo da Vinci leaves for Rome to work for the Pope Leo X, of the rich and powerful Medici family. If the Mona Lisa is the mistress of Duke Giuliano de' Medici, the pope's brother, a very probable hypothesis (Carlo Pedretti, André Chastel), the beginning of its realization.
* 1514 "Deluges" series one answer partial to the version offered by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Project to drain the Pontine marshes, belonging to Duke Giuliano de Medici.
* 1515 In September, the new King of France François 1er reconquers the Milanese by the Battle of Marignan
* 1515 In November he looks into a new development project for the Medici district in Florence. In December meeting in Bologna with King François 1er.
* 1516 he left to work in France with his assistant painter Francesco Melzi where his new patron and protector, the King of France François Ier installed him at Clos Lucé near Amboise (Indre-et-Loire) as "the king's first painter, engineer and architect". François I is fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci and considers him a father. Project to build a new palace in Romorantin with diversion of a river in the Sauldre.

* 1519 on May 2, after having made his will on April 23 before the notary of Amboise, ill for many months, Leonardo da Vinci died of illness at Clos Lucé at the age of 67. Vasari[1], his first biographer, claims that he died in the arms of Francis I but this is disputed.[2] His tomb is located in the Saint-Hubert chapel, within the walls of the Château d'Amboise.
* Leonardo da Vinci, celibate and abstinent all his life, never having had a wife or child, bequeaths all of his considerable work to have them published, his manuscripts, notebooks, and documents and his instruments to his pupil and favorite disciple, Francesco Melzi, his pupil since the age of 10 who, after having accompanied him in France, remained close to him until his death and who will manage his inheritance for 50 years after the death of his master, and numerous paintings (among which the Mona Lisa, the Virgin, the Child and Saint Anne, the S. Gerolamo...) which were still in his possession in his studio to his other favorite pupil and disciple, Giacomo Caprotti also called Salai, who entered his service at the age of 15, and his other goods to his servants.
* 1570 death of Francesco Melzi who kept his legacy all his life without publishing it. From this time began the dispersion and the disastrous loss of his legacy, two thirds of the 50,000 original multi-disciplinary documents written in old Tuscan encrypted by Leonardo da Vinci, including each notebook, manuscript, page, sketch, drawing, text, note , etc. is considered a work of art in its own right. Only about 13,000 documents remain, most of which are archived in the Vatican.

Works in painting

Leonardo da Vinci perfectly embodies the spirit of the Renaissance, the era of the Great Discoveries. Universal genius, curious about everything (music, poetry, science, philosophy, anatomy, botany, techniques, architecture,...) he devoted his life to the search for knowledge. Leonardo is especially famous for his drawings and his paintings in which he introduced his notions of mathematics and used perspective. Overflowing with ideas, he experiments with many new techniques that often turn out to be disastrous.

Leonardo made many portraits of women but only one portrait of a man (a musician) has been found to date. In his paintings, he perfectly masters chiaroscuro, masterfully uses the technique of sfumato (process of vaporous modeling). He wrote:"The character most worthy of praise is the one who by his movement best conveys the passions of the soul". Leonardo believed that painting was superior to any other form of art.

Leonardo also carried out a large number of studies on zoology, botany, anatomy and geology. He imagines multiple devices and machines, including the first flying machine, which will remain at the drawing stage. More than as a scientist proper, Leonardo da Vinci impressed his contemporaries and the following generations with his methodical approach to knowledge, to knowing how to learn, to knowing how to observe, to know how to analyze. The approach he deployed in all of the activities he tackled, both in art and in technology (the two were indistinguishable in his mind), particularly in watchmaking, proceeded from a prior accumulation of detailed observations, knowledge scattered here and there, which tended to surpass what already existed, with perfection as the objective. Many of Leonardo da Vinci's sketches, notes and treatises are not, strictly speaking, original finds, but are the result of research carried out with an encyclopedic concern, before their time.

By Leonardo da Vinci, 7,000 notes and drawings remain today, and forty attested works, eight of which have disappeared.

Major works

* The Annunciation (c. 1473-75), Uffizi Gallery, Florence
* The Virgin with the Carnation (1476), Alte Pinakothek, Munich
* Madonna Benois (c. 1478-80), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
* Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci (c. 1478-80), National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
* Saint Jerome (c. 1480-82), Vatican Pinacoteca, Rome
* Adoration of the Magi (c. 1481-82), Uffizi Gallery , Florence
* The Virgin of the Rocks (1483-84), Louvre Museum, Paris
* The Lady with an Ermine (1490), portrait of Cecilia Gallerani. This portrait is the favorite of the Duke of Milan, Narodowe Museum, coll. Czartoryski, Krakow
* Portrait of an unknown lady, known as "La Belle Ferronnière" (c. 1490-95), Louvre Museum, Paris
* the Last Supper (1495-1498), Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
* Virgin of the Rocks (The Virgin, the Child Jesus, Saint John the Baptist and an Angel) (c. 1495-99 and 1506-08), National Gallery, London
* The Mona Lisa or Mona Lisa (1503-04 and 1510-15), Musée du Louvre, Paris
* Saint Anne, the Virgin and the Child Jesus (1502-13), Louvre Museum, Paris
* Series of Grotesque caricatures (1490-1505)
* The Battle of Anghiari (1504-06, unfinished), mural for the Grand Council Chamber of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, destroyed as early as the 16th century, taken over by Rubens and an unknown person.
* Saint John the Baptist (1513-16), Louvre Museum, Paris
* Saint John the Baptist sou s the attributes of Bacchus (1513-19), Louvre Museum, Paris

Other works

* Portrait of Ginevra de’Benci (1478-1480), sister of a famous astronomer, friend of Leonardo; kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
* La Belle Ferronière (1490), portrait of an unknown woman. It is not certain that this painting is by Leonardo.
* Portrait of Francino Gaffurio (1490), portrait of a musician. This is Leonardo's only male portrait
* Madonna Benois (1475-1478)
* Virgin of the Rocks (1483-1486, first version) company of the brothers of Predis, Léonard engages in 1483 in the realization of a polyptych for San Francesco Grande. Linked to the iconography of the Immaculate Conception, the painting evokes an episode taken from the Apocryphal Gospels
* The Adoration of the Magi (1481-1482), commissioned by the monks of San Donato in Scopeto , this unfinished panel nevertheless remains sufficiently elaborate to capture the upheavals it brings to iconography, style and meanings.
* The Virgin of the Rocks (1493-1495 and 1507-1508, second version), on this version made to replace the first sold in the meantime, Leonardo adds the halos and the staff, an attribute of Jean Baptiste.
* Madonna of Laroque (first quarter of the Cinquecento), Virgin and Child with St John in the process of final allocation. One of the rare works by Léoanrd in private hands.

Works in architecture

He is the designer of a theoretical perfect city. This city was formed of 2 levels:one for the nobility, and another for the people.

Works in engineering

Leonardo da Vinci is part of a technical current and as such will have precursors among which we can cite Taccola or Francesco di Giorgio Martini, whom he will have as his superior during the construction of the Duomo in Milan and from whom he certainly borrowed a lot. Being probably less busy with his achievements than the latter, due to a less full order book, Leonardo da Vinci will be both more verbose but also capable of a change of method. This engineer, in the sense of a talented craftsman, produced designs that some will see as precursors to a large number of modern machines. Contemporary man sees there, for example, various sketches of vehicles, tanks and other weapons, the parachute, the plane, the Aerial Vis, ancestor of the helicopter... However, one must be careful before making Leonardo da Vinci the he inventor of our modern machines, just as the Aeolipile of Heron of Alexandria is not the ancestor of Thomas Newcomen's machine. The Clos Lucé Museum in Amboise contains many models and life-size objects based on the study of his notebooks. These machines are designed on principles of mechanics and hydraulics new to its time.

He invented wind tunnels in 1484.

Medicine

He founded scientific anatomy, dissecting corpses in the strictest discretion, to avoid the Inquisition.

In anatomy, he studied the circulation of blood and the action of the eye.

Works in sculpture

He designs large sculptures, in particular grandiose equestrian statues. We don't actually keep any of them. However, some drawings remain in his notebooks (notably the one he was projecting in Milan).

Quotes

* “Any instrument must be the fruit of experience. »
* « He who thinks little is wrong a lot. "
* "If you look at walls stained with lots of stains or made of multicolored stones with the idea of ​​imagining some scene, you will find there by analogy landscapes with mountains, rivers , rocks, trees, plains and hills of all kinds. You might also see battles and sharply gestured figures and strange faces and costumes and an infinity of things. » Pareidolia, the principle of which he exploited by wetting his parchments before drawing on them.
* « Make sure that your painting is always an opening to the world. »