Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci. One of the exponents of the Renaissance , sculptor, architect, engineer and scientist. He stood out for his deep passion for knowledge and research, clear principles that highlighted his work. He became a clear innovator in the field of painting, leading to the evolution of Italian art for more than a century after his death. On the other hand, he also stood out in the field of science , his research in the areas of anatomy, optics and hydraulics, anticipated many advances of modern science.

Summary

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• 1 Biographical summary
• 2 Scenario of his childhood
• 3 Beginnings
• 4 Youth and technical discoveries
• 5 First Milan period
• 6 In Medicine
• 7 In Education
• 8 In Sports
• 9 Painting and science
• 10 Great Works of Da Vinci
• 11 Other contributions and discoveries
• 12 Fonts

Biographical summary

He was born on April 15 , 1452 in Anchiano , a village near the City of Vinci in the Arno Valley, within the territories of Florence , Italy . Although for others he was born in Vinci, hence his surname, before the naming conventions currently in force in Europe were adopted , so his father’s Ser Piero was added to his given name and the town of birth was then Leonardo. say Being Piero da Vinci. However, Leonardo used to sign his works as Leonardo or Io, Leonardo, I Leonardo, that is, without using the name of his father, which leads one to think that he was an illegitimate son. He was the natural son of a peasant woman, Caterina (who married a local craftsman shortly after), and Ser Piero, a wealthy Florentine notary.

Scene from his childhood

Italy was then a mosaic of city states like Florence , small republics like Venice , and fiefdoms under the power of princes or the pope. The Eastern Roman Empire fell in 1453 to the Turks and the Holy Roman Empire barely survived, very reduced ; It was a violent time in which, however, the splendor of the courts had no limits.

His father married four times and had eleven children, with whom Leonardo ended up having disputes over his paternal inheritance with his last two marriages, so Leonardo was raised as an only child.

the beginning

His enormous curiosity manifested itself early, drawing mythological animals of his own invention, inspired by a deep observation of the natural environment in which he grew up. Giorgio Vasari , his first biographer, recounts how Leonardo’s genius, while still a child, created a shield of Medusa with dragons that terrified his father when she stumbled upon it by surprise.

Little is known of his early years, which have been the subject of historical conjecture by Vasari and others. Leonardo would later only talk about two incidents from his childhood. One of them, which he considered a prophecy, was that a hawk came down from the sky and flew over his crib, its tail feathers brushing his face. Since he was a child he showed aptitude for the plastic arts, mainly drawing, as well as geometry, mechanics and music. He had a great capacity for observation, which earned him not only his artistic work but also other subjects he studied such as physics ( mainly mechanics), music or naturalism (now biology ), great realism and outstanding naturalness.

Already aware of his son’s talent, his father authorized him, when Leonardo turned fourteen, to enter as an apprentice in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio , where, throughout the six years that the painters’ guild prescribed as instruction Before being recognized as a free artist, he learned painting, sculpture, techniques and mechanics of artistic creation. The first work of his that is known with certainty was the construction of the copper sphere designed by Brunelleschi to crown the Church of Santa Maria dei Fiori . Next to Verrocchio’s workshop, there was also that of Antonio Pollaiuollo , where Leonardo made his first studies in anatomy and, perhaps, also began his knowledge of Latin and Greek.

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most fascinating figures of the Renaissance . In addition to being one of the creators who has given rise to the greatest number of myths about his person. Considered the paradigm of Renaissance Homo universalis, he ventured into fields as varied as aerodynamics , hydraulics , anatomy , botany , painting and architecture , among others. His legacy has been as impressive as the magnitude of his myth. His fruitful scientific research was, to a large extent, forgotten and undervalued by his contemporaries, while in his work as a painter they saw in him a master and a wise man, who manages to elaborate and capture the ideal of beauty that presides over the artistic activity of the High Renaissance .

In the company of the Florentine painters of Saint Jesus, Leonardo is mentioned for the first time in the year 1462 .

Leonardo set up his own workshop as a freelance writer in Florence . On January 10 , 1478 he received his first public commission, an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saint Bernard in the Palacio de la Señoría; He received 25 florins in advance, but did not begin the work, entrusted in 1483 to Domenico Ghirlandaio and then to Filippino Lippi , who finished it in 1485 .

As a multiform genius – artist, architect, musician, doctor, engineer, designer and inventor – he managed to merge sciences and arts in his extensive work. Da Vinci’s manuscripts, jealously preserved in the French museum Clos-Lucé, in Amboise, a town where he died at the age of 67, are very revealing of his ability. It could be added that many of his ingenuities, whether exploring pictorial techniques, hydraulics, anatomy, sculpture or mechanics, took more than two centuries to be understood. Inventor of the wrench , author of the famous Mona Lisa painting , father of the anemometer , or dreamer of the speed change, to name just a tiny part of what he contributed to the society of that time.

Youth and technical discoveries

He was a handsome and vigorous young man who had inherited the physical strength of his father’s lineage; It is very likely that he was the model for the head of Saint Michael in Verrocchio’s painting Tobias and the Angel , with fine and beautiful features. For the rest, his great creative imagination and the early mastery of his brush soon surpassed those of his teacher: in the Baptism of Christ , for example, where a dynamic and inspired angel painted by Leonardo contrasts with the abruptness of the Baptist . made by Verrocchio .

There, the young disciple used for the first time a new technique that had recently arrived from the Netherlands : oil painting, which allowed for greater softness in the line and deeper penetration into the canvas. In addition to the extraordinary drawings and virtuoso participation in other works of his master, his great works of this period are a Saint Jerome and the large panel The Adoration of the Magi (both unfinished), notable for the innovative dynamism granted by the mastery in the contrasts of features, in the geometric composition of the scene and in the extraordinary use of the chiaroscuro technique .

Florence was then one of the richest cities in Europe ; Its silk and brocade manufacturing workshops from the East and wool from the West, and its numerous weaving factories made it the great commercial center of the Italian peninsula; There the Medici had established a court whose splendor owed no little to the artists it had. But when the young Leonardo found that he received nothing from Lorenzo the Magnificent but praise for his virtues as a good courtier, at the age of thirty he decided to seek a more prosperous horizon.

First Milan period

In 1482 he appeared before the powerful Ludovico Sforza , the strong man of Milan at the time, at whose court he would remain for seventeen years as “pictor et ingenierius ducalis.” Although his main occupation was that of a military engineer, his projects (almost all unrealized) included Hydraulics , Mechanics ( with innovative lever systems to multiply human force), architecture, as well as painting and sculpture. . It was the period of his full development; Following the mathematical bases established by Leon Bautista Alberti and Piero della Francesca , Leonardo began his notes for the formulation of a science of painting, while at the same time he practiced in the execution and manufacture of lutes.

Stimulated by the dramatic plague that devastated Milan and whose cause Leonardo saw in the overcrowding and dirt of the city, he designed spacious villas, made plans for river canalization and ingenious defense systems against enemy artillery. Having received from Ludovico the commission to create a monumental equestrian statue in honor of Francesco, the founder of the Sforza dynasty, Leonardo worked for sixteen years on the project of the “great horse”, which would only materialize in a model, destroyed shortly after. later during a battle.

In medicine

It was Leonardo da Vinci, in 1508 , who was the first to observe that placing the head in a glass container of water changed vision. Over the years, different researchers perfected this ancient theory to what we know today as contact lenses.

The figure of Leonardo da Vinci was crucial in the development of Western culture, being recognized as the father of the high Renaissance. His anatomical studies collected in the “Anatomical Manuscript A” ( 1510 – 1511 ) focus on osteology and myology, and his attempts to understand human functioning are reflected in his plates. In addition to the scientific contribution, the plates resulting from Leonardo’s studies contain some of the most brilliant anatomical drawings ever created.

At the end of 1513 , Leonardo carried out his anatomical research at the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Rome , but was forced to give up his studies when in 1515 , he was accused of sacrilegious practices and Pope Leo X prohibited him from entering the Hospital. thus truncating his anatomical career.

Leonardo planned, although he never wrote, a treatise on Anatomy (“Il libro dell’Anatomia”). Although sketches and parts of it exist, most of his anatomical work has been lost. Da Vinci was a genius in all the fields he cultivated, and although he was one of the most original and insightful anatomists of all times, and while his paintings were widely known, only a few friends and collaborators had any knowledge of the depth of his work. their medical research. He also performed dissections of the human body, and drew drawings of the bones and muscles, which are used in medical schools today.

Some of his many inventions:

• He invented the helicopter
• The war tank
• Earth drilling machines
• Lifevest
• Centrifugal pump
• Butt-loading cannon
• conical screw
• Belt transmission
• Dredgerfor canal constructions
• link chain
• Endless screw
• Submarine
• Compass
• Apparatus for winding and twisting wool
• Spindle
• Shuttle
• Parachute
• Chimney
• boat slide

In education

Although Leonardo did not seem to care too much about forming his own school, in his Milanese workshop a group of faithful apprentices and students was gradually created: Giovanni Boltraffio , Ambrogio de Predis , Andrea Solari , his inseparable Salai , among others; Scholars have not yet agreed on the exact attribution of some works from this period, such as the Madona Litta or the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli .

Hired in 1483 by the brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception to paint a painting for the church of San Francisco, Leonardo undertook the creation of what would become the famous Virgin of the Rocks, the final result of which, in two versions, would not be ready at the age of eight. months that the contract indicated, but twenty years later. The triangular structure of the composition, the grace of the figures, the brilliant use of the famous sfumato to enhance the visionary sense of the scene, make both works a new aesthetic revolution for their contemporaries.

On the sport

Da Vinci also established a unique analogy with certain sports tools or implements of the present. In the year 1486 he was attracted to the flight of birds and the results of his studies led him to outline the principles of aeronautics. Later, between 1510 and 1515 he designed the glider, whose illustrations constituted the first description of controlled flight, similar to the later development of aviation through the spectacular delta wings.

Some historians insist on describing this prophet of the industrial era as a man who had a gloomy concept of the future, since most of his discoveries pursued war aims. However, when we read: “subjugate the air and rise above it, with great wings (man) will manage to overcome its resistance”, we understand that the parachute and the flying machine were conceived with other aims.

In one of the rooms of the aforementioned Clos-Lucé museum, the great-grandfather of all parachutes hangs from the ceiling, made of wood and fabric, in the shape of a cone. If we compare it with the modern ones, we will observe that the upper opening and the ropes in charge of directing the trajectory were added to the genius’s design. That sketch of the pyramidal parachute, inspired by the tent, appears outlined in the Atlanticus codex and was made in 1845 , where in the margin of the drawing the author noted: “Even if it has a cloth tent, in which all the openings have been covered, and that it is 12 fathoms diagonal (approximately six meters) by 12 high, it can be thrown from no matter what height without fear of any injury. The application of some inventions on the surface or in the deep sea allows us to ensure that, in addition, he perfected immersion equipment capable of achieving surprising modernism.

The latter is made up of a floating dome with several holes and other reinforced tubes, which lead to a system of valves that enable inspiration and expiration. Such equipment is complemented by the immersion suit, with boots and pants in which there were specifications for natural needs, highlighted in the Atlanticus codex itself. To the same extent we find the outline of the lifeguard, used by an individual who adopts the crawl (free) swimming style position. The caricature of a young man in Renaissance dress on an implement with two wheels, traced with a compass, and the eight-spoke rims that appear colored, offer the surprising revelation of the bicycle. A strange T-shape, joining the front wheel by two arched stems, is the main element that allows the operation of the device to be interpreted from a third support point in the center of the chassis. There is another wheel provided with thick wooden teeth, cubic and pointless, with two pedals linked by a chain to another smaller wheel.

Although the authorship of the ball, kicked years ago by football players, is attributed to the Chinese in ancient times, among the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, dating back to 1509 and illustrators of the work De divina proportione ( Luca Pacioli ), there are numerous polyhedra regular and irregular. In this scheme, made up of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons, the coincidence with the current design of the ball is notable, and it casts doubt on the hypothesis that Da Vinci knew the calcium matches in the Plaza Della Signaria in his native Florence.

The great difficulty in ensuring all of the inventions proposed lies in the publication of his notebooks in the final years of the 19th century , a time when many scientists reinvented what he had previously created.

Painting and science

When Leonardo is considered in relation to the variety and complexity of his artistic and scientific activities, his defining features are his categorical rejection of the principle of authority and the affirmation of experience as an exclusive value. In his activity as a painter this will also be his defining trait. Having learned the two basic principles of Florentine painting of the Quattrocento , the three-dimensional representation system and the appreciation of classical Antiquity as a teacher, he will oppose them, surpassing them and proposing a new representation system; To the geometric construction of space and the linear perspective achieved by the quattrocentists, he opposes aerial perspective, whose basis is found in his continuous research on the phenomenon of light. Faced with the lesson of classical antiquity, he reacts through a rational, vast and experienced knowledge of the phenomena of nature.

Great Works of Da Vinci

“The Vitruvian Man, canon of the human body”

The squaring of the circle achieved by Leonardo da Vinci The Vitruvian Man is the drawing made by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1492 in one of his diaries and which is accompanied by anatomical notes. The drawing is done in pencil and ink and measures 34.2 x 24.5 cm.

It is currently part of the collection of the Academy Gallery in Venice. It is a study of the proportions of the human body, made from the texts of the Roman architect Vitruvius entitled -Vitruvii De Architectura-, and from which the drawing takes its name. Leonardo represents himself naked and in two superimposed positions of arms and legs and inscribed in a circle and a square.

His friendship with the mathematician Luca Pacioli , a Franciscan friar who in 1494 published his treatise on the Divina proportione , illustrated by Leonardo , was especially fruitful . Considering sight as the most accurate instrument of knowledge available to human beings, Leonardo maintained that through careful observation objects should be recognized in their shape and structure in order to describe them in painting in the most exact way. In this way, the drawing became the fundamental instrument of his teaching method, to the point that it could be said that in his notes the text was to explain the drawing, and not the text to illustrate the former, which is why Da Vinci has been recognized as the creator of modern scientific illustration. Leonardo da Vinci’s notes accompanying the drawing determine the proportions of the human body according to Vitruvius’ ancient text:

• A palm is the width of four fingers.
• A foot is the width of four palms.
• A forearm is the width of six palms.
• The height of a man is four forearms (24 palms).
• One step is equal to four forearms.
• The length of a man’s outstretched arms is equal to his height.
• The distance between the hairline and the chin is one-tenth of a man’s height.
• The height of the head to the chin is one eighth of a man’s height.
• The distance from the hairline to the top of the chest is one-seventh of a man’s height.
• The height of the head to the end of the ribs is a quarter of the height of a man.
• The maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man’s height.
• The distance from the elbow to the end of the hand is one fifth of a man’s height.
• The distance from the elbow to the armpit is one eighth of a man’s height.
• The length of the hand is one tenth of a man’s height.
• The distance from the chin to the nose is one third of the length of the face. -The distance between the hairline and the eyebrows is one third of the length of the face.
• The height of the ear is one third of the length of the face.

The ideal of saper vedere guided all his studies, which in the 1490s began to take shape as a series of treatises (unfinished, which were later compiled in the Codex Atlanticus , so called because of its large size). It includes works on painting, architecture, mechanics, anatomy, geography, botany, hydraulics, Aerodynamics , fusing art and science in an individual cosmology that also provides an outlet for an aesthetic debate that was anchored in a rather sterile Neoplatonism. .

The Portrait of Geneva by Benci ( 1475 – 1478 ) belongs to this same period , with its innovative relationship of proximity and distance and the expressive beauty of La belle Ferronière. But around 1498 Leonardo finished a mural painting, initially a modest commission for the refectory of the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria dalle Grazie, which would become his definitive pictorial consecration: The Last Supper . Today we need an effort to understand its original splendor, since it deteriorated quickly and was poorly restored many times. The brilliant plastic capture of the dramatic moment in which Christ says to the apostles “one of you will betray me” gives the scene a psychological unity and a dynamic apprehension of the fleeting moment of surprise of the diners (from which only Judas is excluded). The mural became not only a celebrated Christian icon, but also

It has become an object of pilgrimage for artists from all over the continent.

Arno valley landscape. This pen drawing, the oldest we have by Leonardo, is dated in his handwriting using mirror writing: “The day of Our Lady of the Snows, August 5, 1473.” The region reproduced in it has been identified as a mountainous region near Vinci. On the back appears the notation «I am satisfied […]». Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

The Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1481-1482). In March 1481 Leonardo received the commission for this oil painting (today in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence) from the monks of San Donato di Scopeto, in Florence. The administrator of the monastery was Leonardo’s father, and it is very likely that he induced the monks to hire his son.

Leonardo created The Last Supper , his best work, the most serene and far from the temporal world, during those years.

The Last Supper (1495-1498), by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Work of art that has been described by the writer Dan Brown in his book “The Da Vinci Code”, although experts consider it to be inaccurate and incoherent, only to make sense of the plot of his bestseller.

characterized by war conflicts, intrigues, worries and calamities. He finished it, although, eternally dissatisfied, he declared that he would have to continue working on it. She was exposed to the sight of all and contemplated by many. The fame that the “great horse” had given rise to was established on more solid foundations. From that moment on he was considered without a doubt one of the first teachers in Italy, if not the first. The artists came from far away to the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, looked at the painting carefully, copied it and discussed it. The king of France, upon entering Milan, toyed with the idea of ​​removing the fresco from the wall to take it to his country. During its creation, countless legends were woven around the master and his work. The stories of Bandello and Giraldi, otherwise dedicated to radically different themes, also include the genesis of The Last Supper. The Mona Lisa is the portrait that has generated the most literature throughout the history of art; It has given rise to stories, novels, poems and even operas. It was a famous work from the moment of its creation; young Rafael drank from it. His smile has made rivers of ink flow. HE

He has seen cruelty in it and it has been considered the merciless smile of the woman who enslaves the man. Others have been dazzled by her charm, by her sweetness. For Walter Pater she symbolizes the “modern spirit with all its pathogenic traits.” There is also a more prosaic explanation, based on Leonardo’s own notes: the master brought out that expression in his model with the playing of the lute. Let us quote Vasari: «Monalisa was very beautiful and Leonardo, while he painted, made sure that there was always someone singing, playing an instrument or joking. In this way, the model remained in a good mood and did not adopt a sad, fatigued appearance […]»

The Cloux Palace in Amboise was Leonardo’s last residence and is currently a museum in his honor.

Other contributions and discoveries

500 years ago, Leonardo Da Vinci solved an ancient astronomical puzzle: the mystery of Earth’s glow. When you think of Leonardo Da Vinci, you probably think of the Mona Lisa or 16th-century submarines, or perhaps a certain thriller novel. That’s all old school. From now on, think of the Moon.

Little known to most, one of Leonardo’s best works is not a painting or an invention, but something more related to astronomy; Da Vinci solved the riddle of Earthshine.

You can observe the Earth’s glow when there is a crescent moon on the horizon at sunset. For thousands of years humans have marveled at the beauty of this ashy glow, or the old moon in the arms of the new moon. But what was it? No one knew until the 16th century when Leonardo solved the mystery.

In 2005 , after Apollo, the answer may seem obvious. When the Sun sets on the Moon, it darkens—but not completely. There is still a source of light in the sky: the Earth. Planet Earth illuminates the lunar night with a brightness 50 times brighter than a full moon, producing the ashy glow.

Visualizing this in the 1500s required a wild imagination. No one had ever been to the Moon and looked down at the Earth. Most people did not even know that the Earth orbited the Sun. Copernicus ‘s heliocentric theory was not published until 1543 , twenty-four years after Leonardo’s death.

Overflowing imagination was one thing Leonardo had in abundance. His notebooks are filled with sketches of flying machines, military tanks, aqualungs, and other fantastic devices centuries ahead of his time. He even designed a robot: an armored knight who could sit, wave his arms, and move his head while he opened and closed an anatomically correct jaw.

For Leonardo, the glow of the Earth was an attractive enigma. As an artist, he was keenly interested in light and shadow. As a mathematician and engineer, he was fond of geometry. All that remained was a trip to the Moon.