Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was a celebrated Italian Renaissance architect, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter.

He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo is well known for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for his many inventions that were made well before their time but were never published in his lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering.

Life

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

Leonardo was born in Vinci, Italy. His father Ser Piero da Vinci was a well-off landowner or craftsman and his mother, Caterina, a peasant girl. It has been suggested that Caterina was a slave of middle eastern origin owned by Piero, but the evidence is scant.

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 he was an illegitimate child.

Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. He was a vegetarian throughout his life. He became an apprentice to painter Andrea del Verrocchio about 1466. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence.

From 1482 to 1499 he worked for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan and maintained his own workshop with apprentices there. Seventy tons of bronze that had been set aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue was cast into weapons for the Duke to save Milan from the French under Charles VIII in 1495 — .

When the French returned under Louis XIII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time, until one morning he found French archers using his life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with Salai and his friend (and inventor of double-entry bookkeeping) Luca Pacioli for Mantua, moving on after 2 months for Venice, then moving again to Florence at the end of April 1500.

Self-portrait, c. 1513

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino" and son of Pope Alexander VI) as military architect and engineer. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries drove out the French. There he met Francesco Melzi, who would become a close friend and companion until Leonardo's death, and later his heir.

From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time; he did not have much contact with these artists, however.

In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (of a mechanical lion) for the peace talks in Bologna between the French king and Pope Leo X, where he must have first met the king. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé next to the king's residence at the Royal Chateau at Amboise, and receiving a generous pension. The king became a close friend.

He died in Cloux, France in 1519. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise.

Leonardo appears to never have had intimate relations with women. In 1476 he was anonymously accused of homosexual contact with a 17-year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. He was, together with three other young men, charged with homosexual conduct and acquitted because of lack of evidence. 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.

Robert Payne, a biographer of Leonardo, believes that he loved women and men equally. Most modern scholars believe that one of Leonardo's lovers was Salai, a.k.a. Gian Giacomo Caprotti. Salai was Leonardo's servant and assistant.

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

• Fazio Cardano — mathematician, jurist
• Francesco Melzi — painter, pupil
• Girolamo Melzi — Captain in Milanese militia
• Giovanni Francesco Rustici
• Cesare Borgia — warrior
• Niccolo Machiavelli — writer
• Andrea da Ferrara
• Francesco Nani — Brother in the Franciscan Order in Brescia
• Iacomo Andrea — architect and author
• Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli — Franciscan father
• Galeazzo da Sanseverino — Commanded ducal army of Milan, singer
• Giovanni de' Benci
• Atalante Miglioretti — singer, artist, actor
• Tomasso Masini da Peretola a.k.a. Zoroastro — student of alchemy, occultist
• Bendetto Dei — writer

Art

The Last Supper (1498)
Leonardo da Vinci
(original)

Leonardo is well known for his masterful paintings, 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. Only seventeen of his paintings, and none of his statues survive. Of these paintings, only Ginevra de' Benci is in the Western Hemisphere.

Mona Lisa (1503–6)

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 Da Vinci'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.

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Vinci's books available at Project Gutenberg

Here is a List of Leonardo da Vinci's Books (http://www.gutenberg.net/author/Vinci) available at Project Gutenberg

Vinci in fiction

In the Star Trek episode "Requim for Methuselah", Leonardo da Vinci is revealed to be one of many aliases to "Flint", an immortal man born in the year 3834 BC. Da Vinci's abilities and knowledge are thus attributed to centuries of scientific and artisic study. Da Vinci appears again in the Star Trek universe, in the series Star Trek Voyager, where his workshop is created as a holographic simulation. Actor James Daly played Flint / Da Vinci in Star Trek: The Original Series, while John Rhys-Davies portrayed Da Vinci in Star Trek Voyager.

Further reading

• The 100, Michael H. Hart, Carol Publishing Group, July 1992, paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0806513500

See also

• Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport near Rome
• Leonardo da Vinci Art Institute, Cairo
• List of painters
• List of Italian painters
• List of famous Italians

External links

• Alternative views on Leonardo da Vinci (http://www.aiwaz.net/Leonardo/)
• Discovery channel article on his mother (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020923/davinci.html)
• Works of Leonardo Da Vinci (http://www.gutenberg.net/author/Leonardo_da_Vinci) from Project Gutenberg (omits the drawings)
• Some digitized notebook pages with explanations (http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation.html) from the British Library (Macromedia Shockwave format)
• BBC Leonardo homepage (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo)
• The Leonardo Bridge Project (http://www.vebjorn-sand.com/thebridge.htm)
• Leonardo's Horse (http://www.leonardoshorse.org)
• Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman (http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Leonardo_Master_Draftsman/draftsman_splash.htm)
• Anonymous accusation of homosexuality (http://www.kausal.com/leonardo/denunciation.html)
• Leonardo da Vinci Homepage (http://users.skynet.be/fa021719/leonardo/)
• Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci (http://www.visi.com/~reuteler/leonardo.html)