LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Biography

He was born April 15,1452 in the town of Vinci,Italy

The son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci a Florentine(Florence,Italy) Civil Law Notary and Caterina a peasant.

His full name Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci means Leonardo the son of Mes(ser) Piero from Vinci.

Biography

•Spent his first five years in this hamlet( a settlement located in a rural area)•Then from 1457 he lived in the household of his father, grandparent and uncle Francesco in Vinci.

Education

He received an informal education of Latin, Geometry and Mathematics

At the age of fourteen Leonardo was apprenticed by Andrea del Verrocchio a famous artist whose workshop was one of the finest in Florence, Italy.

Verrocchio

(True Eye)

Education/Early Paintings

In Verrochio’s workshop he learned a variety of technical skills such as drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modelling.

Left Verrocchio’s studio/workshop in 1478 because he along with 3 others was charged with sodomy(anal or sexual activity with the same gender or animals)but later acquitted.

The Baptism of Christ

Artist: Andrea del Verrocchio & Leonardo da Vinci

Year: 1472-1475

Type: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 177 cm × 151 cm (70 in × 59 in)

Location: Uffizi, Florence

The painting depicts(shows) the Baptism of Jesus byJohn the Baptist as recorded in the Biblical GospelOf Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Adoration of Magi

Artist: Leonardo Da VinciYear: 1481Type: Oil on woodDimensions: 246 cm × 243 cm (97 in × 96 in)Location: Uffizi, Florence

The Virgin Mary and Child are depicted in the foreground and form a triangular shape with the Magi kneeling in adoration. Behind them is a semicircle of accompanying figures, including what may be a self-portrait of the young Leonardo (on the far right).

Painting Description

•Palm tree is the symbol of victory for Ancient Rome or in general represents triumph over ancient Rome’s persecution of Christians•Much of the composition of the painting is based in an earlier work of Rogier Van der Weyden’s Lamentation of Christ•The ruins are a possible reference to the Basilica of Maxentius, which, according to Medieval legend, the Romans claimed would stand until a virgin gave birth

Lamentation of Christ

Artist: Rogier van der WeydenYear: 1460–1463 Type: Oil on panel Dimensions: 96 cm × 110 cm (38 in × 43 in)Location: Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The painting has a rectangular shape, and shows Christ being buried with the weeping Mary and John the Evangelist holding his hands. The corpse is supported by a richly dressedJoseph of Arimathea.A kneeling Mary Magdalene is depicted in the low foreground.

Leonardo’s Professional Life

Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 to 1499

Was commissioned to paint the “Virgin of Rocks” for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and “The Last Supper” for the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie

Virgin of the Rocks

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Year: 1483-1486

Type: Oil on panel (transferred to canvas)

Dimensions: 199 cm × 122 cm (78.3 in × 48.0 in)

Location: Louvre, Paris

The Last Supper

Artist: Leonardo da VinciYear: 1494–1498 Type: tempera on gesso, pitch and masticDimensions: 460 cm × 880 cm (181 in × 346 in) Location: Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

Tempera - is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with egg yolk.Gesso – white paint mixturePitch – derived from coal tar o plantsMastic – gum or tree extract

Leonardo’s Professional Life

In 1502 Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia the son of Pope Alexander VI and mistress Vannozza de Cattanei acting as military architect.

As maps were rare in that time, he made a map of Cesare’s stronghold

Old Age

From September 1513 to 1516, under Pope Leo X, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere(Courtyard) in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time.

In 1516, he entered François' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé near the king's residence at the royal Château d'Amboise. It was here that he spent the last three years of his life.

Died May 2,1516

Famous Paintings - Ginevra de' Benci

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Location: National Gallery of Art

Dimensions: 1' 3" x 1' 3" (38 cm x 37 cm)

Subject: Ginevra de' Benci

Created: 1474–1478

Type: Oil paint

Ginevra de’ Benci was an aristocrat from fifteenth-century Florence, admired for herintelligence by Florentine contemporaries.

Famous Paintings - Vitruvian Man

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Dimensions: 1' 2" x 0' 10" (34 cm x 26 cm)

Created: 1490

Type: Ink

The Vitruvian Man, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius.

Famous Paintings - St. John the Baptist

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Location: The Louvre

Dimensions: 2' 3" x 1' 10" (69 cm x 57 cm)

Subject: John the Baptist

Created: 1513–1516

Type: Oil paintSt. John the Baptist is an oil painting on walnut Wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Completed from 1513 to 1516, when the High Renaissance was metamorphosing into Mannerism, it is believedto be his final painting.

Famous Paintings - Benois Madonna

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Location: Hermitage Museum

Created: October 1478

Media: Oil paint

Subject: Mary, Madonna and Child, Child Jesus, MadonnaMadonna and Child with Flowers, otherwise known as the Benois Madonna, could be one of two Madonnas Leonardo da Vinci had commented on having started in October 1478. The other one could be Madonna of the Carnation from Munich.

Famous Paintings – Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.”

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Location: The Louvre (since 1797)

Dimensions: 2' 6" x 1' 9" (77 cm x 53 cm)

Subject: Lisa del Giocondo

Created: 1503–1517

Other Famous Paintings

Lady with an Ermine (1490 AD) The Battle of Angiari(1505 AD) Annunciation (1475 AD) La Belle Ferroniere( 1496 AD ) Madonna of the Carnation( 1480 AD ) Madonna of the Yarnwinder( 1507 AD ) Madonna Litta The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the

Baptist( 1500 AD) Head of a Woman ( 1508 AD) St. Jerome in the Wilderness ( 1480 AD) Salvator Mundi ( 1519 AD) Portrait of a Musician ( 1490 AD ) Medusa ( Date not available)

Leonardo's horse Leda and the Swan (1508 AD) Horse and Rider(1508 AD) Bacchus ( 1515 AD) Portrait of a man in red chalk(1512) Drapery for a Seated Figure(1470) Madonna of Laroque(1503 AD)

General Overview

In general, the studies and inventions of Leonardi Da Vinci includes: Painting, Anatomy , Science , Engineering , Geology, Cartography, Hydrodynamics, Astronomy, Alchemy, Mathematics, Music (Viola Organista) and Flight (he invented the first models of flying machines).

Scientific Studies-Anatomy

As a scientist, Leonardo had no formal education in Latin and mathematics and did not attend a university. Because of these factors, his scientific studies were largely ignored by other scholars. Leonardo's approach to science was one of intense observation and detailed recording, his tools of investigation being almost exclusively his eyes. His journals give insight into his investigative processes.

Studies of a fetus from Leonardo's journals

Scientific Studies-Anatomy

Investigating the motion of the arm.

Leonardo kept a series of journals in which he wrote almost daily, as well as separate notes and sheets of observations, comments and plans. He wrote and drew with his left hand, and most of his writing is in mirror script, which makes it difficult to read. Much has survived to illustrate Leonardo's studies, discoveries and inventions.

Scientific Studies-Light and Anatomy

Study of the graduations of light and shade on a sphere.

Study of the proportions of the head.

Scientific Studies – Anatomy/Dissection

Anatomy of a Male Nude Dissected Skull

Scientific Studies – Anatomy

Leonardo studied the vascular system and drew a dissected heart in detail. He correctly worked out how heart valves ebb the flow of blood yet he did not fully understand circulation as he believed that blood was pumped to the muscles where it was consumed.

Scientific Studies – Comparative Anatomy

Leonardo not only studied human anatomy, but the anatomy of many other animals as well. He dissected cows, birds, monkeys ,frogs and dogs comparing in his drawings their anatomical structure with that of humans. On one page of his journal Leonardo drew five profile studies of a horse with its teeth bared in anger and, for comparison, a snarling lion and a snarling man.

Scientific Studies - Botany

Study of sedge

Leonardo's study of plants, resulting in many beautiful drawings in his notebooks, was not to record in diagramform the parts of the plant, but rather, as an artist and observer to record the precise appearance of plants, the manner of growth and the way that individual plants and flowers of a single variety differed from one another.

War Machines

Artillery Park (1487) drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.Drawing of Leonardo’s proposed Tank