If we ask a random person who Leonardo da Vinci is, everyone will answer that he was the greatest painter who lived during the Renaissance. His works, such as the famous Mona Lisa, delight and amaze to this day. Few people know that Master Leonardo worked during his lifetime mainly as a scientist, engineer, and inventor. Modern medicine also owes him a lot. Learn the most important information and interesting facts about the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci, as well as his works and inventions.
Leonardo da Vinci lived from 1452 to 1519. He was the illegitimate son of a Florentine lawyer. To this day, historians are studying who his mother might have been. Was she an ordinary maid or a slave brought from Constantinople? However, she did not have a big impact on his life, as little Leonardo was taken by his father at the age of 5 and raised in Florence. Leonardo had numerous half-siblings with whom he had no contact.
Leonardo probably showed a talent for drawing from childhood, because his father sent him to study with the sculptor and painter, Andrea del Verrocchio. He studied Latin, math, and geometry as a child, but all his life he lamented that he did not complete his studies and was, in fact, self-taught. He studied with Verrocchio until 1469, learning the techniques of painting, sculpture, and the principles of perspective.
After graduating from school, Leonardo entered the guild of artists in Florence, and after a few years, he created his own studio. His early work, a portrait of Ginevra Benci, comes from the period of his work in Florence.
In 1482, the artist found a job at the court of Ludovic Sforza in Milan, where he became a court painter and engineer. He offered his services mainly as a musician and engineer. He used his talents mainly to design theatrical performances with amazing special effects. To entertain the prince's guests, he put together a collection of riddles and puzzles. Prince Sforza made his residence available to the painter as a studio and donated the estate with a vineyard.
During this period, Leonardo painted the famous fresco The Last Supper. Unfortunately, as a result of experiments and attempts to create frescoes using a new technique, the painting was destroyed very quickly. He also painted The Lady with an Ermine and the Madonna in the Grotto, but due to the flood of other works and interests, he did not have much time for painting.
After the French invasion of Lombardy and the heat of Ludovic Sforza, Leonardo left Milan for Mantua, to the court of Izabela D'Este. Then, in Venice, he created an expert opinion on the city's fortifications. Over the next years, he traveled taking various jobs, mainly engineering.
From 1513 he worked for the Pope in Rome. In 1516, he was invited to France by King Francis I. The king provided the artist with excellent living conditions and spent a lot of time talking with him. Leonardo, who was already partially paralyzed after a stroke, died in 1519.
Leonardo loved nature and animals. He followed a vegetarian diet. He also had a habit of buying birds to set them free. He also condemned hunting and never participated in it.
Biographers disagree as to whether he was a left hand. To this day, it is not known why Leonardo kept his notes from right to left. Was he left-handed and did not want to blur the text while writing? Or did he want to make it difficult for unauthorized people to read his notes?
No certain image of Leonardo has survived, and it is not entirely known what he looked like in his youth. However, it is known from written sources that he was a very good-looking man. He never got married. There are many speculations about his private life. Some biogaphs attribute to him romances with Ginevra Benci, Izabela D'Este or with Isabella Aragon. Others say he was homosexual. In his youth, Leonardo found himself in a group accused of using a male prostitute. The accusations were dismissed, but the painter became cautious and did not reveal details of his private life since then.
Interestingly, Leonardo did not consider himself a painter. He looked for work as an engineer or architect at the courts of the then princes. In letters to potential employers, he primarily provided information about the ability to build war machines, musical talents and presented his inventions. On the other hand, he gave information about his painting talent in passing, somewhere at the end. During his life, he probably painted only 22 paintings, while on his deathbed he regretted not devoting himself more to painting. Interestingly, during his lifetime he was highly valued as a painter. Princess D'Este could not ask to be portrayed. However, Leonardo was more interested in exploring the world, designing, creating inventions, and inventing new techniques that he did not have enough time to paint.
Famous works of Leonardo da Vinci that have survived to our times:
- Annunciation,
- Madonna with a carnation,
- Portrait of Ginevra Benci,
- Mona Lisa,
- Madonna Benois,
- La Bella Principessa,
- La belle Ferroniere,
- Lady with an Ermine,
- St. Hieronymus - an unfinished painting,
- Madonna in grotto 1,
- Madonna in the grotto 2,
- Portrait of a musician,
- Fresco The Last Supper,
- St. Anna lonely,
- Madonna with a distaff,
- Savior of the World,
- John the Baptist.
Apart from that, the sources provide information about 5 works that have gone missing. Moreover, numerous drawings and sketches of Leonardo have been preserved, as well as richly illustrated notebooks and notes.
As a multi-talented Renaissance man, Leonardo was also a sculptor. However, none of his sculptural works have been completed. Only numerous drawings and designs remain. He was commissioned to construct an equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. He made a number of drawings and designs, created a life-size plaster model, as well as prepared technically for the casting. However, there was a war with France, and the bronze for the monument was used for other purposes.
Currently, in Milan, there is a statue of a horse made exactly according to notes and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. The monument, unveiled in 1999, is located near horse racing and is one of Milan's tourist attractions.
Leonardo's architectural designs were also never implemented. The project of the bridge in Constantinople was interesting. Probably during his stay in Rome, Leonardo spoke with the envoys of the Sultan and gave them his letter with a job offer for Sultan Bayazid II. He made a bridge project for him. Interestingly, this project was carried out in Norway. In 2001, a bridge built according to a reduced design by Leonard was opened in As.
The Renaissance era began in Italy in the 14th century and lasted until the end of the 16th century. In the run-up to the fall of Constantinople, artists, thinkers, scientists, and art people fled from the Turks to Italy. It was the heyday of the Italian principalities, the discovery of ancient works, and a fascination with art, literature, and science.
Leonard is said to be a Renaissance man with a wide range of interests. All his life he conducted his own research on the world and took careful notes of his observations, which he began to carry out in his youth. He made hundreds of sketches and drawings. He began by learning to draw, examining the proportions of the human body. The fruit of his investigations is the "Vitruvian Man", that is, a diagram of body proportions. Leonardo created a huge number of notes, of which about 7,000 pages have survived to our times, which is half of what he created.
Working for Ludovic Sfrozy, he was involved in designing gardens and building wells. He studied the basics of mechanics, sewer construction, and mathematics on his own. He also learned Latin better in order to study the works of the ancients. Leonardo was also looking for work at the courts as a musician. Interestingly, a musical instrument was made in Poland, according to a previously unrealized design by Leonard.
Leonardo was interested in the human body initially as an artist in order to polish his drawing skills. In later years, he began studying the human body by performing autopsies in a Florentine hospital. Sections were then forbidden as a desecration of a body. That is why the artists of that time, such as Leonardo and Michelangelo, performed sections in secret, at night, struggling with disgust.
In the years 1511-1514, Leonardo studied the work of the heart, arteries, and veins. He probably based his observations on studies of human and animal carcasses. He was also interested in the origins of life. His drawings of a child in the womb or the action of sexual intercourse have been preserved. He was also a precursor to a healthy lifestyle as he discovered that disease could be prevented by moderate exercise and an improved diet.
Master Leonardo considered himself primarily an engineer. In a letter to the Sforza Glacier, he described his engineering skills, particularly in designing war machines. Already in his youth, he was interested in the art of war and created diagrams of machines he invented, for example, something like a machine gun. Leonardo also studied water flow and designed gardens and wells.
Most of Leonardo's inventions were never made during his lifetime and remained only as ideas in his notes. At the court of Ludovic Sforza, he worked mainly as an impressive performer, during which he used his knowledge of technology to create breathtaking special effects. On his deathbed, he wished he had devoted himself more to the painting that had brought him worldwide fame for centuries.
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