Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian pronunciation: [leonardo da vvinti] About t his sound pronunciation (helpinfo); April 15,

1452 May 2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathemati cian, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writ er. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renai ssance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive im agination".[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] Acco rding 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 h imself mysterious and remote".[1] Marco Rosci states that while there is much sp eculation 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 r enowned Florentine painter Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spen t 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 Fra ncis 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 m ost reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only b y Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Ma n 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 have s urvived, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, ex perimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[nb 1] Nevert heless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, sc ientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contrib ution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying ma chines, a tank, concentrated solar power, an adding machine,[6] and the double h ull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of h is 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 machin e for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing u nheralded.[nb 3] He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, op tics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no dir ect influence on later science.[7] Contents [hide] 1 Life 1.1 Childhood, 145266 1.2 Verrocchio's workshop, 146676 1.3 Professional life, 14761513 1.4 Old age, 151319 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, 145266 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 smal l 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-ofwedlock son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florenti ne legal notary, and Caterina, a peasant.[8][10][nb 5] Leonardo had no surname i n the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name wa s "Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, (son) of (Mes)ser Piero f rom 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 th e hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother, then from 1457 he lived in the h ousehold 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 L eonardo 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 m arriages that Ser Piero produced legitimate heirs.[12] Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In l ater life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents. One, which he regarde d as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face.[13] The second occurred while exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monst er might lurk there and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.[11] Leonardo's early life has been the subject of historical conjecture.[14] Vasari, the 16th-century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells of how a local peasa nt made himself a round shield and requested that Ser Piero have it painted for him. Leonardo responded with a painting of a monster spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a shield decor ated with a heart pierced by an arrow, which he gave to the peasant.[15] Painting showing Jesus, naked except for a loin-cloth, standing in a shallow str eam in a rocky landscape, while to the right, John the Baptist, identifiable by the cross that he carries, tips water over Jesus' head. Two angels kneel at the

left. Above Jesus are the hands of God, and a dove descending. The Baptism of Christ (14721475)Uffizi, by Verrocchio and Leonardo Verrocchio's workshop, 146676 In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Andrea d i Cione, known as Verrocchio, whose workshop was "one of the finest in Florence" .[16] Other famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi.[11][17] Leonar do would have been exposed to both theoretical training and a vast range of tech nical skills[18] including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plast er casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic ski lls of drawing, painting, sculpting and modelling.[19][nb 6] Much of the painted production of Verrocchio's workshop was done by his employee s. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his The Baptism of Christ, painting the young angel holding Jesus' robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never paint ed again.[20] On close examination, the painting reveals much that has been pain ted or touched-up over the tempera using the new technique of oil paint, with th e landscape, the rocks that can be seen through the brown mountain stream and mu ch of the figure of Jesus bearing witness to the hand of Leonardo.[21] Leonardo may have been the model for two works by Verrocchio: the bronze statue of David in the Bargello and the Archangel Raphael in Tobias and the Angel.[10] By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine,[nb 7] but even after his fa ther set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate with him.[11] Leonardo's earliest known dated work i s a drawing in pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on August 5, 1473.[nb 8][17 ] Professional life, 14761513 An unfinished painting showing the Virgin Mary and Christ Child surrounded by ma ny figures who are all crowding to look at the baby. Behind the figures are a di stant landscape and a large ruined building. More people are coming, in the dist ance. The Adoration of the Magi, (1481)Uffizi Florentine court records of 1476 show that Leonardo and three other young men we re charged with sodomy but acquitted.[10][nb 9] From that date until 1478 there is no record of his work or even of his whereabouts.[22] In 1478 he left Verrocc hio's studio and was no longer resident at his father's house. One writer, the " Anonimo" Gaddiano claims that in 1480 Leonardo was living with the Medici and wo rking in the Garden of the Piazza San Marco in Florence, a Neo-Platonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers which the Medici had established.[10] In Janu ary 1478, he received his first of two independent commissions: to paint an alta rpiece for the Chapel of St. Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio and, in March 1481, The Adoration of the Magi for the monks of San Donato a Scopeto.[23] Neither com mission was completed, the second being interrupted when Leonardo went to Milan. In 1482 Leonardo, who according to Vasari was a most talented musician,[24] crea ted a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de' Medici sent Leonar do to Milan, bearing the lyre as a gift, to secure peace with Ludovico Sforza, D uke of Milan.[25] At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter describing the many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve in the field of eng ineering and informing Ludovico that he could also paint.[17][26] Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and The L ast Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.[27] In the spring of 1

485, Leonardo travelled to Hungary on behalf of Ludovico to meet Matthias Corvin us, for whom he is believed to have painted a Holy Family.[28][not in citation g iven] Between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina among his de pendents in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, the list of funeral e xpenditures suggests that she was his mother.[29] A page with two drawings of a war-horse, one from the side, and the other showin g the chest and right leg. Study of horse from Leonardo's journals Royal Library, Windsor Castle Leonardo was employed on many different projects for Ludovico, including the pre paration of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Mi lan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Lu dovico's predecessor. Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not unusual for Leonar do. In 1492 the clay model of the horse was completed. It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua and Verrocchio's Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, and became known as the " Gran Cavallo".[17][nb 10] Leonardo began making detailed plans for its casting;[ 17] however, Michelangelo insulted Leonardo by implying that he was unable to ca st it.[11] In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze to be used for cannon to de fend the city from invasion by Charles VIII.[17] At the start of the Second Italian War in 1499, the invading French troops used the life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. With Ludovi co Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathema tician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice[30] where he was employed as a milita ry architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack .[11] On his return to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgi n and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, a work that won such admirat ion that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were atten ding a great festival".[31][nb 11]