EARLY LIFE AND WORKS OF
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Part 1 : Preparation
Our History teacher told us to pick a topic for our Leaving Cert project
and
I have decided to do research on Da Vinci because, I have done a little
study about him for my Junior Cert
and I found it very interesting.
I was very interested in the topic and in the essay I’m especially going
to concentrate on his early life and
work.
I truly believe this man was visionary and the fact is we still are
influenced by him shows what an important historical figure he is .
The aims of my project are
1-To study his early life from 1452-1466 .
2-To look at his time in
Verrocchio’s workshop from 1466-1476.
3-To examine his professional life from 1476-1519.
4-To look briefly at the last years of his life and finally.
5-To look at his relationship and influences.
I choose a topic and told my teacher
. He said I should go and work on it .
I went to the local library were I collected a few books about the
topic, I read the books and took down the most important and vital parts of his
biography .
I also went to various website to found out more about Leonardo Da
Vinci.
The books I used were:
Published by David +Charles PLC c
London 2006
Published Grosser +Dunlop London
2005
To study his early life from
1452-1466
Leonardo was born on
He was born in the Tuscan hill
town of
His full birth name was “Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci”, meaning
“Leonardo, son of (Mes) ser Piero from Vinci”. Leonardo
da Vinci's mother was married off to one Antonio di Piero
Leonardo said later that he only remembered two parts from his childhood .One was when a kite fell from the sky and hovered
over his cradle. This he regarded as a sign .The second took place while he was
exploring in the mountains. He found a cave and he remembered, being afraid of some giant monster
there and he was also, driven by curiosity to find out what was inside .
Vasari, the 16th
century biographer of Renaissance painters tells the story of how a local
peasant asked that Ser Piero get his talented son to paint a picture on a round plaque .Leonardo painted
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 decorated ornament with a heart pierced
by an arrow which he gave to the peasant.
Leonardo da Vinci
grew up with his father Piero in
craftsmen, metal
workers, and youthful painters, among whom was Botticelli.
In 1466 , at the age of fourteen ,Leonardo was now working with Verrocchio.
The workshop of this renowned master was at the centre
of the intellectual currents of
Although Verrocchio appears to have run an efficient and prolific workshop,
he was primarily a goldsmith and metalworker. Most of the painted production of
his workshop was done by his employees, and few paintings can be discovered which
he completed himself.On one of those, as
coming from his hand. On one of those, according to Vasari, Leonardo
worked with him. The painting was the Baptism of
Christ. According to Vasari, Leonardo painted the young angel
holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was much better than his master’s that
Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again.
There are few document from this
time which indicate of Leonardo's life. One of his earliest known dated work, a
drawing done in pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on the 5th August 1473. By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo became a master in 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[2].
In June 1472
Leonardo was listed in the red book of painters from
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, which became known as the "Gran
Cavallo". It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of
the Renaissance, Donatello’s statue of Gattemelata in Padua and
Verrocchio’s Bartolomeo Colleoni in
The French returned to invade
Returning to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the
Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with
a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin
and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, a work that won such
admiration that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it
"as if they were attending a great festival". In 1502 Leonardo
entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope
Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling
throughout
In 1506 he returned to
However, he did not stay in
From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the
Belvedere in the
Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François I had become a close friend. . Vasari
also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his
confession and to receive the Holy
Sacrament. In accordance to his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. He
was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was the principal heir
and executor, receiving as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library
and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and
companion, Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half
of Leonardo's vineyards,
his brothers who received land, and his serving woman who received a black
cloak of good stuff with a fur edge