Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most influential people in history. Born as Leonardo di se Peiro da Vinci, Leonardo has been considered worldwide to be the genius of the Renaissance period. Many of his works exist today, and the large number and variety of them has led many to call him the most talented man in history. The legend of his life and the creation of his works have undergone much observation to discover the man beneath the hero.

His Early Moments

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in Italy on April 15, 1452. His father was a public official at the time, and his mother was a simple common woman. Until the age of five, he lived at his mother’s home in Anchiano, and then moved to the house of his father.

Little specific detail is known about Leonardo Da Vinci when he was a child, but it is noted that he received an education, albeit an informal one.  As a child, this hero studied mathematics and Latin, and at fourteen years old he became an apprentice to Verrocchio, an artist in Florence.

It was there that the legend truly begun, as Leonardo was exposed to many forms of training and gained many skills, including chemistry, carpentry, and workings of many types of materials. It was during this time that Verrocchio finally stopped painting, due to his opinion of Leonardo’s work of the “Baptism of Christ” being better than any of Verrocchio’s. By the time the hero was twenty years old, he had become a master in a guild of artists, namely the Guild of St. Luke. He carried on working with Verrocchio, however, on many projects.

Later in His Years

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci seemingly disappeared from 1476 to 1478, after being charged, along with several other people, for the crime of sodomy. He eventually returned, and subsequently left both the studio of Verrocchio and his father’s home. Soon after, he received two commissions, namely a chapel altarpiece and a painting for monks, which was later called “The Adoration of the Magi”. Both pieces were never completed.

Four years later, the growing legend made a silver lyre, being a great musician himself, which was given to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, as an offering of peace from Lorenzo de’ Medici. The next seventeen years of work was done in Milan. Some of his most famous works were created at this time, including “The Last Supper”, with most of them being commissions.

Thanks to his connection with Ludovico, Leonardo Da Vinci worked on many projects that involved designing homes, preparing floats, and creating models for monuments. The Second Italian War started, however, and in 1499, Leonardo and his friend Salai were forced to flee to Venice, whereupon he became both an architect and an engineer for the military. His work to help defend the city has helped give him credit as a hero.

In 1502, he started working in Cesena in the same positions for a man called Cesare Borgia. During his travels with his patron, Leonardo created many maps, including the town map of Imola, and one of Chiana Valley. At the time, maps were rare and Leonardo’s gave him the needed boost to become the chief engineer of Borgia, cementing his position as both hero and legend.

The hero returned to the St. Luke Guild in 1503, and while in Florence, created a mural for the Signoria. He was also one of the people called in to help move “David”, the famous statue made by Michelangelo.

Following his father’s death in 1504, Leonardo spent the next few years juggling between Milan and Florence, while attempting to arrange the dealing of his father’s estate amongst his brothers. Eventually, however, everything settled and Leonardo Da Vinci had his own home in Milan by 1508.

The Death of a Legend

Leonardo Da Vinci

The legend of Leonardo Da Vinci’s life came to an end on May 2, 1519, when he died at Clos Luce. The last years of his life until then had been spent mostly in the Vatican, Rome. He had become close friends with Francis I, the then king of France. As stated by Leonardo’s will, sixty beggars were chosen to follow his casket, and Count Francesco Melzi, Leonardo’s friend and apprentice, was the primary heir and received much of Leonardo’s possessions.

Leonardo was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the Chateau d’Amboise, the royal residence of the king, in France. The legend of this great artistic hero has lived on since then.

Famous Works of Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci is well known for his works during his life, both finished and unfinished. This includes paintings, sculptures, inventions and drawings, although it is the paintings that had brought most of his fame.

  • The earliest recorded piece of work by this legend was a drawing of the Arno valley, done in pen and ink when he was just twenty one years old.
  • Francis I commissioned Leonardo Da Vinci to create a mechanical lion that, having walked forward, opens its chest to reveal lilies.
  • Amongst Leonardo’s most famous pieces of legend is “The Last Supper”, a painting depicting the last scene of Jesus breaking bread and drinking wine with his disciples shortly before being taken by the Romans.
  • “The Mona Lisa” is yet another of Da Vinci’s most famous paintings, being of a woman with a curious smile. There have been any attempts to unveil the supposed mystery behind the painting, and many a legend has been created about it.

Interesting Trivia about Leonardo Da Vinci

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  • Leonardo Da Vinci never married and never had any children.
  • The hero of the Renaissance was a vegetarian – a rare thing in those times.
  • It took the hero ten years to paint only the lips of Mona Lisa.
  • He used to steal bodies from graveyards and study them for human anatomy purposes.
  • He made the first plans of an armored car in 1485.
  • It is said that this hero was both left handed and dyslexic.
  • He had trouble finishing his works and destroyed many of them.
  • He invented the bicycle about three hundred years before it would ever be seen in use.

By Daniel

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