Artist Leonardo da Vinci – 53 Interesting Facts

Leonardo da Vinci and his work is totally fascinating. Not only was he a genius, but Leonardo da Vinci was also a painter, scientist, musician, sculptor, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, architect, inventor, botanist, geologist, cartographer and writer. He is the definition of a Renaissance man.
 

Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

 

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt,and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”~ Leonardo da Vinci ~

 

Leonardo da Vinci, The Genius

• Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452.

• Leonardo da Vinci’s full name at birth was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. The “ser” part of his name identified his father as a gentleman.

 

• Leonardo da Vinci was born in the town of Vinci which was located in the territory of Florence. Today that area is called Tuscany, Italy.

• Leonardo was the son of a wealthy man named Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci who was a legal notary. In contrast, his mother, Caterina, was a peasant.

• Leonardo’s parents were not married when he was born.

• Leonardo’s surname,“da Vinci”, means “of Vinci” which is the town where he was born.

 

“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose.”~ Leonardo da Vinci ~
 

• Little is known about Leonardo’s early life which, of course, makes us all even more curious.

• Leonardo’s father married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera who died young.

• Leonardo was an apprentice to the artist Andrea di Cione in 1466. Andrea di Cione was known as Verrocchio and he had one of the best workshops in Florence.

• After Leonardo turned sixteen, his father married Francesca Lanfredini who was only twenty years old.

 

The Baptism of Chirst

• Verrocchio never painted again after collaborating with Leonardo da Vinci on The Baptism of Chirst painting. Da Vinci painted the young angel who held the robe of Jesus and his painting proved to be far superior to Verrocchio, the master.

• Da Vinci, under the tutelage of masters, learned in an environment that was both theoretical and technical. It included such things as drafting, drawing, plaster, sculpting, modelling, metallurgy, carpentry and painting.

 

David (left) and Tobias and the Angel (right)

• Leonardo is thought to have been the model for the bronze statue of David in the Bargello and the Archangel Raphael in Tobias and the Angel.

• In 1472, Leonardo qualified as a master in the prestigious guild of artists and doctors of medicine known as the Guild of St Luke. Even though his father provided him with a workshop of his own, he continued his collaboration with Verrocchio.

• Leonardo’s earliest known work dated August 5, 1473, is a drawing of the Arno valley in pen and ink.

• In 1478, Leonardo da Vinci left Verrocchio’s studio.

• Da Vinci’s first independent commission was to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St. Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio in January 1478. This commission was not completed.

• Leonardo’s second independent commission was The Adoration of the Magi for the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto in March 1481. This commission was also not completed.

• By 1482, Leonardo da Vinci was a talented musician. He created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse’s head and took this lyre to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, as a gift to ensure peace.

• Leonardo worked in Milan, Italy, from 1482 until 1499.

 

The Virgin of the Rocks
 
Face closeup of The Virgin of the Rocks
 

• The Virgin of the Rocks was a painting commission for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception.

 
 

Last Supper Chirst
 

• Da Vinci was commissioned to paint The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

 
 

Closeup showing flaking and cracking on the Last Supper Chirst

• Because Leonardo da Vinci used tempera over a ground that was mostly gesso, the surface of The Last Supper had molded and flaked to the point where many believed it was ruined forever.

• Caterina, Leonardo da Vinci’s mother, lived with him between 1493 and 1495 according to his taxation documents. She died in 1495.

• In 1499, Leonardo da Vinci fled to Venice where he created a system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack.

• In 1500, Leonardo was provided a workshop by the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

 

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist

• The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, a cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci, was greatly admired.

• In 1502, as a military architect and engineer in the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, Leonardo traveled all over Italy.

 

Map of Imola

• After he had drawn an impressive map of Imola, Leonardo was hired as his chief military engineer and architect by Cesare.

• Leonardo also drew a map of Chiana Valley, Tuscany so that Cesare would be better prepared with the knowledge of the overlay of the land.

 

The Battle of Anghiari

• On October 18, 1503, Leonardo da Vinci rejoined the Guild of St Luke. For the next two years he designed and painted a mural of The Battle of Anghiari.

• Against Michelangelo’s will, a committee was formed to relocate the statue of David. In 1504, Leonardo da Vinci became part of that committee.

 

Mona Lisa

• The Mona Lisa was painted from 1503–1505/1507. It is the most famous painting in the world. Not only do the eyes “follow” you, but the elusive smile on her face lends an air of mystery. The shadows at the corners of the mouth and eyes is the reason that they are both so intriguing. This shadowing is called “sfumato” which means Leonardo’s smoke.

• From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo lived in the Belvedere located in the Vatican in Rome.

• In 1515, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to make a mechanical lion which could walk forward and open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.

• The last three years of Leonardo da Vinci’s life was spent at the royal Château d’Amboise wih his friend and apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi.

 

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”~ Leonardo da Vinci ~
 

• After Leonardo’s death, Melzi inherited the artistic and scientific works, manuscripts, and collections, as well as administering the estate of Leonardo Da Vinci.

• Leonardo’s work was unique. Because of his extensive knowledge of the human form and the way humans show emotions, he was able to paint expressions and gestures that other artists had never successfully conveyed. His method and technique of laying on the paint and gradation of tone were innovative.

• Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painted works are the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and the Virgin of the Rocks.

• Leonardo was a vegetarian.

• Because of his vegetarianism, Leonardo had a habit of purchasing caged birds and then releasing them into the wild.

 

Drawing of a rudimentary Helicopter

• Leonardo was a technological genius. He drew designs for a helicopter, calculator, tank, solar power, double hull and the beginnings of the theory of plate tectonics. Although his designs, except for a few, were not constructed during his lifetime, some of them, like the automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, were huge successes.

 

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”~ Leonardo da Vinci ~
 
Drawing of a Tank

• On 13,000 pages of journal drawings and notes, Leonard recorded all the things that sparked his interest.

 

Vitruvian Man

• The Vitruvian Man is one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous drawings. It is a study of the proportions of the human body.

• Leonardo’s drawings and notes range grocery lists and people who owed him money to designs for winged shoes to walk on water.

• Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From these studies he created over 200 pages of drawings.

• Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519, at Clos Lucé.

• It is believed the account that King Francis I held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died was fiction instead of fact.

• Sixty beggars followed his casket as requested in Leonardo da Vinci’s will.

 

Chapel of Saint-Hubert in Château d’Amboise

• Leonardo da Vinci was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in Château d’Amboise.

• Upon his death, Melzi became the principal heir and executor of Leonardo da Vinci’s estate. He received his money, tools, library, personal effects and all his paintings. Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis each received half of Leonardo’s vineyards. His brothers received land and his serving woman received a black cloak “of good stuff” with a fur edge.

• King Francis I, twenty years after the death of Leonardo da Vinci, was reported as saying, “There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher.”

• In 2003, Channel 4, a British television station, created a documentary called, “Leonardo’s Dream Machines.” Leonardo’s machines were built and tested according to his original drawn designs. Some were successful and others proved to be impractical after being tested.

In 1967 in The Life and Times of Leonardo, Liana Bortolon said, “Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge…Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe.”
 

“One can have no smaller or greater masterythan mastery of oneself.”~ Leonardo da Vinci ~
 
Obviously Leonardo da Vinci is one of my favorite artists. Are you blown away with his genius?