Early
life, 1452-1466
Leonardo was
born on April 15, 1452, at Anchiano, a hamlet near the Tuscan
hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River
in the territory of Florence. He was the illegitimate son
of Ser Piero da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina,
a peasant. Little is known about his early life, which has
been the subject of historical conjecture by Vasari and others.
Leonardo was
later to record only two incidents of his childhood. One,
which he regarded as an omen, was when a hawk dropped from
the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing
his face.
The second incident
occurred while he was exploring in the mountains. He discovered
a cave and recorded his emotions at being, on one hand, terrified
that some great monster might lurk there and on the other,
driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.
At the age of
five, he went to live in the household of his father, grandparents
and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci, where his
father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera,
who loved Leonardo but unfortunately died young.
Vasari, the 16th
century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells the story
of how a local peasant requested that Ser Piero ask his talented
son to paint a picture on a round plaque. Leonardo responded
with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying
that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold
it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit,
Ser Piero bought a plaque decorated with a heart pierced by
an arrow which he gave to the peasant.
Section references:
Liana Bortolon,Vasari
Verrocchio's
workshop, 1466-76
In 1466 Leonardo
was apprenticed to one of the most proficient artists of his
day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. The workshop of
this renowned master was at the centre of the intellectual
currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education
in the humanities. Among the painters apprenticed or associated
with the workshop and also to become famous, were Perugino,
Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi.
In a Quattrocento
workshop such as Verrocchio's, artists were regarded primarily
as craftsmen and only a master such as Verrocchio had social
standing. The products of a workshop included decorated tournament
shields, painted dowry chests, christening platters, votive
plaques, small portraits, and devotional pictures. Major commissions
included altarpieces for churches and commemorative statues.
The largest commissions were fresco cycles for chapels. As
a fourteen-year-old apprentice Leonardo would have been trained
in all the countless skills that were employed in a traditional
workshop.
Although many
craftsmen specialised in tasks such as frame-making, gilding
and bronze casting, Leonardo would have been exposed to a
vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to
learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster
casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well
as the obvious artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting
and modelling.
Although Verrocchio
appears to have run an efficient and prolific workshop, few
paintings can be ascertained as coming from his hand. And
on one of those, according to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated.
The painting
is the Baptism of Christ. According to Vasari, Leonardo painted
the young angel holding Jesus’ robe. Verrocchio, overwhelmed
by the sweetness of the angel’s expression, its moist
eyes and lustrous curls, put down his brush and never painted
again. This is probably an exaggeration. The truth is that
on close examination the painting reveals much that has been
painted or touched up over the tempera using the new technique
of oil paint. The landscape, the rocks that can be seen through
the brown mountain stream and much of the figure of Jesus
bears witness to the hand of Leonardo.
The other creation
of Verrocchio’s which is particularly pertinent to the
young Leonardo is the bronze statue of David, now in the Bargello
Museum. Apart from the exquisite quality of this work of art,
it is significant in holding the claim to be a portrait of
the apprentice, Leonardo. If this is the case, then in the
figure of David we see Leonardo as a thin muscular boy, quite
different to the rounded androgynous figure made by Verrocchio’s
teacher, Donatello.It is also suggested that the Archangel
Michael in Verrocchio's Tobias and the Angels is a portrait
of Leonardo.
When Leonardo
was twenty he joined the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists
and doctors of medicine, but even after his father set him
up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such
that he continued to work with him.
Section references:
Bortolon, Vasari,[8] della Chiesa, Martindale
Professional
life, 1476-1519
The earliest
known dated work of Leonardo's is a drawing done in pen and
ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August, 1473.
It is assumed
that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476
and 1481. He was commissioned in 1478 to paint an altarpiece
for the Chapel of St Bernard and in 1481 by the Monks at Scopeto
for The Adoration of the Magi. In 1482 Leonardo, whom Vasari
tells us was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre
in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was
so impressed with this that he decided to send both the lyre
and its maker to Milan, in order to secure peace with Ludovico
il Moro, Duke of Milan. At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted
letter to Ludovico, describing the many marvellous and diverse
things that he could achieve in the field of engineering and
informing the Lord that he could also paint.
Between 1482
and 1499, when Louis XII of France occupied Milan, much of
Leonardo’s work was in that city. It was here that he
was commissioned to paint two of his most famous works, the
Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate
Conception, and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa
Maria delle Grazie. While living in Milan between 1493 and
1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina as among his
dependants in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495,
the detailed list of expenditure on her funeral suggests that
she was his mother rather than a servant girl.
Study of horse from Leonardo's journals.
Study of horse from Leonardo's journals.
For Ludovico,
he worked on many different projects which included the preparation
of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for
a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian
monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico’s predecessor.
Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay. Known as the “Gran
Cavallo”, seventy tons of metal were set aside for casting
it in bronze. It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian
statues of the Renaissance, Donatello’s statue of Gattemelata
in Padova and Verrocchio’s Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice.
The monument remained unfinished for several years, which
was not in the least unusual for Leonardo. Michelangelo rudely
implied that he was unable to cast it. In 1495 the bronze
was used for cannons to defend the city from invasion under
Charles VIII.
The French returned
to invade Milan in 1498 under Louis XII and the invading French
used the “Gran Cavallo” for target practice.
With Ludovico
Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salaino and
friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice.
In Venice he was employed as a military architect and engineer,
devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.
Returning to
Florence in 1500, he entered the services of Cesare Borgia,
the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect
and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron.
In Forlì he met Caterina Sforza, of whom it is speculated
by some that the Mona Lisa may be a portrait. At Cesenatico
he designed the port. In 1506 he returned to Milan, which
was in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries
had driven out the French. Many of Leonardo’s most prominent
pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with
him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio
Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione.
Old age
From 1513 to
1516, Leonardo lived in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo
were both active at the time. In Florence, he was part of
a committee formed to relocate, against the artist’s
will, Michelangelo’s statue of David.
In 1515, François
I of France retook Milan. Leonardo was commissioned to make
a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between
the French king and Pope Leo X in Bologna. In 1516, he entered
François' service, being given the use of the manor
house Clos Lucé[13] next to the king's residence at
the royal Chateau Amboise. It was here that he spent the last
three years of his life. The King granted Leonardo and his
entourage generous pensions: the surviving document lists
1,000 écus for the artist, 400 for Count Francesco
Melzi, (his pupil, named as "apprentice"), and 100
for Salaino ("servant"). In 1518 Salaino left Leonardo
and returned to Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel.
Leonardo died
at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François
I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King
held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died, although
this story, beloved by the French and portrayed by Ingres
in a romantic painting, has been shown to be legend rather
than fact.[14] Vasari also tells us that in his last days,
Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive
the Holy Sacrament. According to his wish, sixty beggars followed
his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in
the castle of Amboise. Although Melzi was his principal heir
and executor, Salaino was not forgotten, receiving half of
Leonardo's vineyards and the Mona Lisa.
|
