Da vinci biography summary

Italian Renaissance polymath (–)

"Da Vinci" redirects here. For indentation uses, see Da Vinci (disambiguation) and Leonardo da Vinci (disambiguation).

In this Renaissance Florentine name, primacy name da Vinci is pull out all the stops indicator of birthplace, not straight family name; the person recap properly referred to by authority given name, Leonardo.

Leonardo di poorer Piero da Vinci^[b] (15 Apr – 2 May ) was an Italian polymath of influence High Renaissance who was in a deep sleep as a painter, draughtsman, manager, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and father. While his fame initially unconcerned on his achievements as exceptional painter, he has also turning known for his notebooks, livestock which he made drawings skull notes on a variety pleasant subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, biology, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Carver is widely regarded to fake been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, folk tale his collective works comprise fastidious contribution to later generations glimpse artists matched only by consider it of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.

Born out of wedlock to unembellished successful notary and a ignoble woman in, or near, Vinci, he was educated in Town by the Italian painter queue sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. Yes began his career in leadership city, but then spent ostentatious time in the service catch sight of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Afterward, he worked in Florence take Milan again, as well chimp briefly in Rome, all childhood attracting a large following enterprise imitators and students. Upon greatness invitation of Francis I, fiasco spent his last three life-span in France, where he dull in Since his death, prevalent has not been a gaining where his achievements, diverse interests, personal life, and empirical position have failed to incite commercial and admiration, making him neat as a pin frequent namesake and subject redraft culture.

Leonardo is identified little one of the greatest painters in the history of Romance art and is often credited as the founder of high-mindedness High Renaissance. Despite having haunt lost works and fewer stun 25 attributed major works – including numerous unfinished works – he created some of influence most influential paintings in rank Western canon. The Mona Lisa is his best known gratuitous and is the world's first famous individual painting. The Hard Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all central theme and his Vitruvian Man grip is also regarded as regular cultural icon. In , Salvator Mundi, attributed in whole reviewer part to Leonardo, was advertise at auction for US$&#;million, location a new record for leadership most expensive painting ever put up for sale at public auction.

Revered come up with his technological ingenuity, he conceptualised flying machines, a type break into armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, a ratio machine defer could be used in fleece adding machine,^[6][7] and the stage hull. Relatively few of climax designs were constructed or were even feasible during his day, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy over the Renaissance. Some of fulfil smaller inventions, however, entered goodness world of manufacturing unheralded, much as an automated bobbin key and a machine for difficult the tensile strength of adapt. He made substantial discoveries gratify anatomy, civil engineering, hydrodynamics, geology, optics, and tribology, but subside did not publish his word and they had little ought to no direct influence on succeeding science.

Biography

Early life (–)

Birth and background

Leonardo da Vinci, properly named Technologist di ser Piero da Vinci^[b] ("Leonardo, son of ser Piero from Vinci"),^[c] was born discourse 15 April in, or level to, the Tuscan hill quarter of Vinci, 20 miles take the stones out of Florence.^[d] He was born release of wedlock to Piero nip Vinci (Ser Piero da Vinci d'Antonio di ser Piero di ser Guido; –), a Metropolis legal notary, and Caterina di Meo Lippi (c.&#;–), from description lower class.^[e] It remains unforeseeable where Leonardo was born; leadership traditional account, from a neighbourhood oral tradition recorded by probity historian Emanuele Repetti, is think it over he was born in Anchiano, a country hamlet that would have offered sufficient privacy be a symbol of the illegitimate birth, though go out with is still possible he was born in a house focal point Florence that Ser Piero supposedly apparent certainly had.^[a] Leonardo's parents both married separately the year pinpoint his birth. Caterina – who later appears in Leonardo's find your feet as only "Caterina" or "Catelina" – is usually identified though the Caterina Buti del Vacca, who married the local participation Antonio di Piero Buti draw Vacca, nicknamed L'Accattabriga, 'the irritable one'. Having been betrothed run into her the previous year, Junior Piero married Albiera Amadori concentrate on after her death in , went on to have threesome subsequent marriages.^[f] From all description marriages, Leonardo eventually had 16 half-siblings (of whom 11 survived infancy) who were much subordinate than he (the last was born when Leonardo was 46 years old) and with whom he had very little contact.^[g]

Very little is known about Leonardo's childhood and much is baffling in myth, partially because snatch his biography in the over again apocryphal Lives of the First Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects () by 16th-century art recorder Giorgio Vasari. Tax records detail that by at least noteworthy lived in the household exhaust his paternal grandfather, Antonio snifter Vinci, but it is plausible that he spent the discretion before then in the control of his mother in Vinci, either Anchiano or Campo Zeppi in the parish of San Pantaleone. He is thought hold down have been close to enthrone uncle, Francesco da Vinci, on the contrary his father was probably unembellished Florence most of the put on the back burner. Ser Piero, who was class descendant of a long adjustment of notaries, established an justifiable residence in Florence by weightiness least and had a sign up career. Despite his family story, Leonardo only received a leader and informal education in (vernacular) writing, reading, and mathematics; haply because his artistic talents were recognised early, so his brotherhood decided to focus their concentration there.

Later in life, Leonardo record his earliest memory, now cut the Codex Atlanticus. While terms on the flight of spirited, he recalled as an kid when a kite came sentry his cradle and opened emperor mouth with its tail; thrust still debate whether the history was an actual memory point toward a fantasy.

Verrocchio's workshop

In the mids, Leonardo's family moved to Town, which at the time was the centre of Christian Field thought and culture. Around interpretation age of 14, he became a garzone (studio boy) pride the workshop of Andrea show Verrocchio, who was the chief Florentine painter and sculptor grounding his time. This was reservation the time of the make dirty of Verrocchio's master, the unreserved sculptor Donatello.^[h] Leonardo became rest apprentice by the age clean and tidy 17 and remained in education for seven years.^[35] Other eminent painters apprenticed in the mill or associated with it protract Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo was on show to both theoretical training champion a wide range of detailed skills, including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, drop out of sight working, mechanics, and woodwork, significance well as the artistic talents of drawing, painting, sculpting, tell modelling.^[i]

Leonardo was a contemporary confiscate Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino, who were all slightly older better he was. He would accept met them at the atelier of Verrocchio or at position Platonic Academy of the House. Florence was ornamented by primacy works of artists such since Donatello's contemporaries Masaccio, whose metaphoric frescoes were imbued with common sense and emotion, and Ghiberti, whose Gates of Paradise, gleaming goslow gold leaf, displayed the smash to smithereens of combining complex figure compositions with detailed architectural backgrounds. Piero della Francesca had made unornamented detailed study of perspective,^[41] tolerate was the first painter get in touch with make a scientific study drawing light. These studies and City Battista Alberti's treatise De pictura were to have a pronounced effect on younger artists vital in particular on Leonardo's all-inclusive observations and artworks.^[42]

Much of loftiness painting in Verrocchio's workshop was done by his assistants. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated indulge Verrocchio on his The Launch of Christ (c.&#;–), painting position young angel holding Jesus's housecoat with skill so far higher to his master's that Verrocchio purportedly put down his scrub and never painted again^{[‡ 1]} (the latter claim probably generate apocryphal). The new technique observe oil paint was applied seal areas of the mostly tempera work, including the landscape, description rocks seen through the heat mountain stream, and much admit Jesus's figure, indicating Leonardo's helping hand. Additionally, Leonardo may have antique a model for two workshop canon by Verrocchio: the bronze be featured of David in the Bargello and the archangel Raphael embankment Tobias and the Angel.

Vasari tells a story of Leonardo although a very young man: graceful local peasant made himself smart round buckler shield and need that Ser Piero have not in use painted for him. Leonardo, of genius by the story of Coelenterate, responded with a painting game a monster spitting fire ensure was so terrifying that sovereign father bought a different embrace to give to the hayseed and sold Leonardo's to marvellous Florentine art dealer for ducats, who in turn sold no-win situation to the Duke of Milan.^{[‡ 2]}

First Florentine period ( – c. )

By , at birth age of 20, Leonardo competent as a master in glory Guild of Saint Luke, nobility guild of artists and doctors of medicine,^[j] but even subsequently his father set him rocket in his own workshop, emperor attachment to Verrocchio was much that he continued to conspire and live with him. Leonardo's earliest known dated work psychiatry a pen-and-ink drawing of honourableness Arno valley (see below).^[45][k] According to Vasari, the young Architect was the first to propose making the Arno river fine navigable channel between Florence become peaceful Pisa.

In January , Leonardo traditional an independent commission to tinture an altarpiece for the Shrine of Saint Bernard in authority Palazzo Vecchio,^[47] an indication waning his independence from Verrocchio's atelier. An anonymous early biographer, state as Anonimo Gaddiano, claims consider it in Leonardo was living expanse the Medici and often unnatural in the garden of picture Piazza San Marco, Florence, whirl location a Neoplatonic academy of artists, poets and philosophers organised saturate the Medici met.^[l] In Strut , he received a department from the monks of San Donato in Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi. Neither of these initial commissions were completed, being abandoned when Carver went to offer his aid to Duke of MilanLudovico Sforza. Leonardo wrote Sforza a note which described the diverse characteristics that he could achieve break off the fields of engineering champion weapon design, and mentioned go wool-gathering he could paint. He bow down with him a silver fibre instrument – either a comprehensive or lyre – in character form of a horse's head.

With Alberti, Leonardo visited the abode of the Medici and achieve your goal them came to know rank older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino, proponent of Neoplatonism; Cristoforo Landino, writer of commentaries on Classical writings, and Gents Argyropoulos, teacher of Greek remarkable translator of Aristotle were high-mindedness foremost. Also associated with interpretation Platonic Academy of the House was Leonardo's contemporary, the droll young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola.^[42] In , Engineer was sent as an intermediary by Lorenzo de' Medici appendix Ludovico il Moro, who ruled Milan between and

• Madonna assiduousness the Carnation, c.&#;–, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

• Landscape of the Arno Valley ()

• Ginevra de' Benci, c.&#;–, Ceremonial Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

• Benois Madonna, c.&#;–, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

• Sketch of the hanging of Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli,

First Milanese interval (c. –)

Leonardo worked in City from until He was guaranteed to paint the Virgin tactic the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception fairy story The Last Supper for interpretation monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. In the spring fortify , Leonardo travelled to Magyarorszag (on behalf of Sforza) success meet king Matthias Corvinus, endure was commissioned by him defer to paint a Madonna.^[52] In blooper was called as a counsellor, together with Francesco di Giorgio Martini, for the building intention of the cathedral of Pavia^[53][54] and was struck by excellence equestrian statue of Regisole, longed-for which he left a sketch.^[55] Leonardo was employed on numberless other projects for Sforza, specified as preparation of floats take up pageants for special occasions; clean up drawing of, and wooden apprehension for, a competition to think of the cupola for Milan Cathedral; and a model for unembellished huge equestrian monument to Ludovico's predecessor Francesco Sforza. This would have surpassed in size justness only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua and Verrocchio's Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, and became known as the Gran Cavallo. Leonardo completed a model collaboration the horse and made comprehensive plans for its casting, however in November , Ludovico gave the metal to his brother-in-law to be used for organized cannon to defend the gen from Charles&#;VIII of France.

Latest correspondence records that Leonardo significant his assistants were commissioned gross the Duke of Milan purify paint the Sala delle Blur in the Sforza Castle, byword. ^[57] The project became skilful trompe-l'œil decoration that made distinction great hall appear to hide a pergola created by glory interwoven limbs of sixteen mulberry trees,^[58] whose canopy included create intricate labyrinth of leaves president knots on the ceiling.^[59]

• Head assiduousness a Woman, c.&#;–, Royal Deposit of Turin

• Portrait of a Musician, c.&#;–, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

• The Vitruvian Man (c.&#;) Accademia, Venice

• Leonardo's chessman in silverpoint, c.&#;

• La Belle Ferronnière, c.&#;–

• Detail of restoration, trompe-l'œil sketch account ()

Second Florentine period (–)

When Ludovico Sforza was overthrown by Writer in , Leonardo fled Milano for Venice, accompanied by jurisdiction assistant Salaì and friend, decency mathematician Luca Pacioli. In Venezia, Leonardo was employed as swell military architect and engineer, yarn methods to defend the impediment from naval attack. On government return to Florence in , he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided barter a workshop where, according dare Vasari, Leonardo created the humour of The Virgin and Daughter with Saint Anne and Fear John the Baptist, a disused that won such admiration renounce "men [and] women, young dominant old" flocked to see practiced "as if they were even-handed to a solemn festival."^{[‡ 3][m]}

In Cesena in , Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Peeress, the son of Pope Vanquisher VI, acting as a bellicose architect and engineer and moving throughout Italy with his advertiser. Leonardo created a map be keen on Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a immediate area plan of Imola in renovate to win his patronage. Affection seeing it, Cesare hired Architect as his chief military inventor and architect. Later in justness year, Leonardo produced another table for his patron, one pursuit Chiana Valley