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Leonardo da Vinci, The Proportions of the Human Figure (after Vitruvius), c 1490

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Paul J Nicholson, Leonardo da Vinci, The Proportions of the Human Figure (after Vitruvius), c 1490, Occupational Medicine , Volume 69, Issue 2, March 2019, Pages 86–88, https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqy166

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In the quincentenary of his death Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) remains one of the most famous people who ever lived and museums worldwide will mark the event. However, anyone who hasn’t seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre ought to be forewarned that his most famous works include some of his smallest. That is the case for his pen and ink on paper Le proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio or The Proportions of the Human Figure (after Vitruvius) drawn sometime between 1490 and 1492. Commonly known as Vitruvian Man it measures 34.4 × 24.5 cm [ 1]. It is held by the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice but is not on display because prolonged exposure to light would fade the ink [ 2].

Leonardo’s drawing was inspired by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio who designed and built artillery in the Roman army in the 1st century BC [ 2]. Vitruvius became an architect and wrote De Architectura in which he proposed that the proportions of a temple should reflect those of the human body [ 1]. He also argued that a well-proportioned human body with arms and legs outstretched formed a circle with the umbilicus at the centre; and that arm-span equalled height such that a square could be formed at the centre of which was the root of the penis or Il membro virile [ 1, 2]. Above and below Leonardo’s drawing of Vitruvian Man are two blocks of manuscript written in reverse. In one block, Leonardo notes that, according to Vitruvius the measurements of the human body are distributed by nature and describes relations such as six palms make one cubit and four cubits make a man’s height [ 3]; a cubit being an ancient measure using the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger. Remaining text describes proportions based on Vitruvius which determined that relative to man’s height shoulder width was a maximum of a quarter; foot length a seventh; head height one-eighth; hand length one-tenth; and so on [ 2]. Leonardo commenced anatomy studies in 1489 and he modified proportions, for example Vitruvius proposed that foot length was one-sixth relative to height. In fact, less than half of the measurements are ones handed down by Vitruvius [ 2]. In the drawing readers will note that the left foot is positioned awkwardly; this was intentional to help demonstrate the proportions. While not evident in the reproduction one can see in the original indentations made by Leonardo’s pen and the pricks left by the points of his compass [ 2]. Two of Leonardo’s acquaintances Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Giacomo Andrea da Ferrara also drew Vitruvian men around the same time but neither drawing has the same precision or artistic merit. These drawings can be discovered on the internet.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Leonardo da Vinci

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• Early Florentine Period, 1469–1482/1483
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Leonardo da Vinci by Frank Zöllner , Sara Taglialagamba LAST REVIEWED: 30 January 2014 LAST MODIFIED: 30 January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920105-0033

Leonardo da Vinci (b. 1452–d. 1519) ranks alongside Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian as one of the most important artists of the Italian Renaissance. His influence and lasting fame rest not solely upon his innovative artistic oeuvre, but equally upon an extensive body of drawings, notes, reflections, treatises, and studies in almost all areas of knowledge. This very substantial artistic and written legacy, when read in conjunction with other contemporary source material, allows us to reconstruct a relatively detailed picture of Leonardo’s thinking, his creative oeuvre, and his intellectual development. We are today able to consult the surviving convolutes of Leonardo’s manuscripts, drawings, and studies in a number of different editions compiled with exemplary scholarship. In conjunction with modern findings on the handwriting, content, and sources of Leonardo’s writings, these convolutes remain the primary foundation for an understanding of the phenomenon that was Leonardo. The nature and extent of Leonardo’s authentic artistic oeuvre are meanwhile also largely established, not least on the basis of a large number of well-known primary sources. A number of recently discovered documents have led to the dates of certain paintings and drawings being revised, but they have also raised new questions, particularly concerning The Virgin of the Rocks and the Mona Lisa . Since the 1970s, scientific analysis and diagnostic scanning have on occasions yielded spectacular insights into paintings by Leonardo and his school. These discoveries have shed new light on the functioning and productivity of Leonardo’s workshop, but they have again raised new questions, such as the possibility that the master at times intervened directly on paintings by members of his workshop. Surprisingly intense and often very heated debate continues to surround the dating and attribution of autograph works by Leonardo, and of paintings by artists in his circle. The questions of interpretation and patronage that dominate the discussion of other artists play a noticeably less prominent role in Leonardo scholarship. By contrast, the relationship between Leonardo’s art and his science seems to be a perennial theme. Art historians have yet to reach a consensus as to whether these two spheres of Leonardo’s activity should be viewed as an inseparable whole. In almost every area of his interest, however, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we need to revise our perception of Leonardo as an isolated phenomenon, and that to situate his achievements within the context of the science and technology of his day is by no means to diminish his originality.

The literature on Leonardo da Vinci (like that on Michelangelo, it should be said) has been researched and catalogued in substantially greater depth than is the case with most other artists in European art history. This begins with the bibliography Verga 1931 , which brought together every single work of Leonardo scholarship then published, accompanied in many cases by a critical appraisal. The bibliographies Heydenreich 1952 and Brizio 1968 do the same, whereas Lorenzi and Marani 1982 lists only titles. Guerrini 1987 , Guerrini 1990 , and online searches of the Biblioteca Leonardiana in some cases include lists of contents and occasionally brief summaries as well. The e-Leo digital archive shares the same Biblioteca Leonardiana platform and can be accessed via numerous libraries.

Baroni, Costantino, et al. Leonardo da Vinci . New York: Reynal, 1967.

First published in 1938 (Milan: Hoepli). Alongside numerous essays on wide-ranging aspects of Leonardo scholarship, this weighty tome also contains a bibliography of the most important new publications from the years 1931–1952, grouped by subject. See pp. 527–543.

Biblioteca Leonardiana .

This online database is regularly updated and allows users to search by author, title, subject, and keyword. The results are shown in alphabetical order by author, and they contain abstracts and occasionally cross-references. The page also offers links to libraries, periodicals, and Leonardo research projects.

Brizio, Anna Maria. “ Rassegna degli studi Vinciani dal 1952 al 1968 .” L’Arte 1 (1968): 107–120.

Gives a very detailed overview of Leonardo scholarship between 1952 and 1968, with occasional commentaries on findings, current trends, and advances.

e-Leo: Archivio digitale di storia della tecnica e della scienza .

A work in progress, the e-Leo digital archive aims to make Leonardo’s manuscripts, writings, and drawings available on the Internet. Various search functions are possible, including keyword indices and a glossary of Leonardo’s terminology.

Guerrini, Mauro. “Bibliografia leonardiana.” Raccolta Vinciana 22 (1987): 389–573.

The bibliography continues in Raccolta Vinciana 23 (1989): 307–376; 24 (1992): 335–384; 25 (1993): 473–522; 26 (1995): 369–401; and 27 (1997): 471–569. The bibliographies, arranged chronologically and alphabetically by author, list the entire body of writings by and on Leonardo, and include a brief overview of the contents of individual monographs, as well as an index of names and periodicals.

Guerrini, Mauro. Biblioteca Leonardiana 1493–1989 . 3 vols. Milan: Editrice Bibliografica, 1990.

Structured in a similar fashion to the Raccolta Vinciana bibliographies, this monumental database in print covers the entire body of writings by and on Leonardo. This vast undertaking is divided into titles of manuscripts and works by Leonardo (Vol. 1); indices of authors, titles of publications, periodicals (including daily newspapers) and concordances (Vol. 2); and a detailed subject index and a list of further sources (Vol. 3).

Heydenreich, Ludwig Heinrich. “Leonardo-Bibliographie, 1939–1952.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 15 (1952): 195–200.

This short bibliography is organized into six subject areas. In addition to summaries of individual titles, it offers an assessment of the latest trends in research of the day.

Lorenzi, Alberto, Marani, Pietro C. Bibliografia Vinciana 1964–1979 . Florence: Giunti Barbéra, 1982.

Lists new publications from the period 1964–1979, organized alphabetically by author.

Verga, Ettore. Bibliografia vinciana . 2 vols. Bologna, Italy: Zanichelli, 1931.

Verga’s bibliography, presented in chronological order, offers extensive, and often very precise, summaries of the individual titles, and it includes an index of subjects and names. Reprinted in 1970.

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Leonardo da vinci (1452–1519).

A Bear Walking

• Leonardo da Vinci

The Head of a Woman in Profile Facing Left

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right

Allegory on the Fidelity of the Lizard (recto); Design for a Stage Setting (verso)

The Head of a Grotesque Man in Profile Facing Right

After Leonardo da Vinci

Head of a Man in Profile Facing to the Left

Compositional Sketches for the Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, with and without the Infant St. John the Baptist; Diagram of a Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)

Studies for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Frontal View, Male Nude Unsheathing a Sword, and the Movements of Water (Recto); Study for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Rear View (Verso)

Carmen Bambach Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him, a tool for recording his investigation of nature. Although completed works by Leonardo are few, he left a large body of drawings (almost 2,500) that record his ideas, most still gathered into notebooks. He was principally active in Florence (1472–ca. 1482, 1500–1508) and Milan (ca. 1482–99, 1508–13), but spent the last years of his life in Rome (1513–16) and France (1516/17–1519), where he died. His genius as an artist and inventor continues to inspire artists and scientists alike centuries after his death.

Drawings Outside of Italy, Leonardo’s work can be studied most readily in drawings. He recorded his constant flow of ideas for paintings on paper. In his Studies for the Nativity ( 17.142.1 ), he studied different poses and gestures of the mother and her infant , probably in preparation for the main panel in his famous altarpiece known as the Virgin of the Rocks (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Similarly, in a sheet of designs for a stage setting ( 17.142.2 ), prepared for a staging of a masque (or musical comedy) in Milan in 1496, he made notes on the actors’ positions on stage alongside his sketches, translating images and ideas from his imagination onto paper. Leonardo also drew what he observed from the world around him, including human anatomy , animal and plant life, the motion of water, and the flight of birds. He also investigated the mechanisms of machines used in his day, inventing many devices like a modern-day engineer. His drawing techniques range from rather rapid pen sketches, in The   Head of a Man in Profile Facing to The Left ( 10.45.1) , to carefully finished drawings in red and black chalks, as in The   Head of the Virgin ( 51.90 ). These works also demonstrate his fascination with physiognomy, and contrasts between youth and old age, beauty and ugliness.

The Last Supper (ca. 1492/94–1498) Leonardo’s Last Supper , on the end wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, is one of the most renowned paintings of the High Renaissance. Recently restored, The Last Supper had already begun to flake during the artist’s lifetime due to his failed attempt to paint on the walls in layers (not unlike the technique of tempera on panel), rather than in a true fresco technique . Even in its current state, it is a masterpiece of dramatic narrative and subtle pictorial illusionism.

Leonardo chose to capture the moment just after Christ tells his apostles that one of them will betray him, and at the institution of the Eucharist. The effect of his statement causes a visible response, in the form of a wave of emotion among the apostles. These reactions are quite specific to each apostle, expressing what Leonardo called the “motions of the mind.” Despite the dramatic reaction of the apostles, Leonardo imposes a sense of order on the scene. Christ’s head is at the center of the composition, framed by a halo-like architectural opening. His head is also the vanishing point toward which all lines of the perspectival projection of the architectural setting converge. The apostles are arranged around him in four groups of three united by their posture and gesture. Judas, who was traditionally placed on the opposite side of the table, is here set apart from the other apostles by his shadowed face.

Mona Lisa (ca. 1503–6 and later) Leonardo may also be credited with the most famous portrait of all time, that of Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and known as the Mona Lisa (Musée du Louvre, Paris). An aura of mystery surrounds this painting, which is veiled in a soft light, creating an atmosphere of enchantment. There are no hard lines or contours here (a technique of painting known as sfumato— fumo in Italian means “smoke”), only seamless transitions between light and dark. Perhaps the most striking feature of the painting is the sitter’s ambiguous half smile. She looks directly at the viewer, but her arms, torso, and head each twist subtly in a different direction, conveying an arrested sense of movement. Leonardo explores the possibilities of oil paint in the soft folds of the drapery, texture of skin, and contrasting light and dark (chiaroscuro). The deeply receding background, with its winding rivers and rock formations, is an example of Leonardo’s personal view of the natural world: one in which everything is liquid, in flux, and filled with movement and energy.

Bambach, Carmen. “Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Bambach, Carmen C., ed. Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman . Exhibition catalogue.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Additional Essays by Carmen Bambach

• Bambach, Carmen. “ Anatomy in the Renaissance .” (October 2002)
• Bambach, Carmen. “ Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function .” (October 2002)

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• Anatomy in the Renaissance
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• Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function
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Grey Matter Leonardo da Vinci: a genius driven to distraction

Marco catani.

1 NatBrainLab, Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, UK

2 NatBrainLab, Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, UK

Paolo Mazzarello

3 Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences and University Museum System, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

The paradox of Leonardo da Vinci

Five hundred years have passed since the death of Leonardo da Vinci, and much has been written about him. Leonardo the artist, the scientist, the architect, the inventor, whose genius has been perceived as the allure of an unfathomable riddle. But some of the words written about Leonardo after he died at Clos-Lucé in France on 2 May 1519, hint at a very different man to the one many of us presume to know. According to his first biographer Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo died lamenting ‘that he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done’ ( Vasari, 1996 ; Nicholl, 2004 ; Vecce, 2006 ).

The story of Da Vinci is one of a paradox—a great mind that has compassed the wonders of anatomy, natural philosophy and art, but also failed to complete so many projects ( Freud, 1922 ; Kemp, 2006 ). The excessive time dedicated to idea planning and the lack of perseverance seems to have been particularly detrimental to finalize tasks that at first had attracted his enthusiasm. Leonardo’s chronic struggle to distill his extraordinary creativity into concrete results and deliver on commitments was proverbial in his lifetime and present since early childhood:

‘in learning and in the rudiments of letters he would have made great proficiency, if he had not been so variable and unstable, for he set himself to learn many things, and then, after having begun them, abandoned them.’ ( Vasari, 1996 ).

His difficulties with focusing became even more evident later in adolescence, when he moved from the small village of Vinci to Florence in the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio. Verrocchio, a true Renaissance man, shared Leonardo’s wide breadth of interests and eclectic talent. But Leonardo lacked his master’s rapid power of execution and organizational skills. Leonardo’s first important commissioned works, some obtained through his father’s connections, were prepared at length but quickly abandoned. Other programmed works were never started. Leonardo's struggle to work independently as an artist might also explain his unduly prolonged stay in the Verrocchio workshop lasting until the age of 26 when he probably managed to set up his own independent studio in Florence. On 10 January 1478 he received his first recorded commission as an independent painter, a large altarpiece to hang in the Chapel of San Bernardo. For this prestigious commission he obtained a cash advance of 25 florins, but he never delivered the work ( Nicholl, 2004 ). Probably, given his unreliability in finishing the commissioned projects, he did not obtain much success as an independent painter and, unlike other artists of the Verrocchio workshop who were transferred to work in papal Rome, he was sent by Lorenzo de’ Medici to Milan as a musician ( Kemp, 2006 ). We do not know in what state of mind Leonardo left Florence but it is possible that he felt ‘a sense of failure and frustration—his paintings unfinished, his lifestyle controversial, his reputation a mix of brilliance and difficulty’ ( Nicholl, 2004 ). For comparison, by the same age, Raphael had already realized more than 80 paintings, including large frescos in the Vatican.

At the court of Ludovico il Moro, the future Duke of Milan, he astounded his patrons with the most ambitious ideas and projects, but failed to gain their trust in his ability to deliver on time. Even when Leonardo was finally commissioned with the important project of building a bronze statue of Ludovico’s father, the future Duke asked his allied Lorenzo il Magnifico if he could indicate a more apt Florentine artist for the project because he ‘doubted Leonardo’s capabilities to bring it to completion’ ( Vecce, 2006 ).

The novelist Matteo Bandello, a contemporary who observed Leonardo working on the Last Supper ( Fig. 1 ), clearly identified his fickleness of temperament and chaotic organizational skills:

Three of Leonardo’s masterpieces. Top : The Last supper was completed by Leonardo in 3 years but the use of an incorrect fresco technique led to the rapid deterioration of the work. Bottom left : Leonardo worked intermittently on Mona Lisa for nearly 16 years. Bottom right : The unfinished painting of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness .

‘I have also seen him, as the caprice or whim took him, set out at midday, […] from the Corte Vecchio, where he was at work on the clay model of the great horse, and go straight to the Grazie and there mount on the scaffolding and take up his brush and give one or two touches to one of the figures and suddenly give up and go away again’ ( Nicholl, 2004 ; Vecce, 2006 ).

Leonardo was capable of sustained contemplation or studying, but this was often at the expense of losing track of the overall progression of the project, a relentless procrastination. His unreliability was so well known that the Duke of Milan wished to have Leonardo sign a contract obliging him to finish a work ‘within the stipulated period’ ( Kemp, 2006 ). When the Duke capitulated in 1499 and parted ways with da Vinci after almost 20 years of service, Leonardo admitted in his diary that ‘none of his projects had been finished for him’ ( Vecce, 2006 ).

Perhaps the most disruptive side of his mind was a voracious curiosity, which both propelled his creativity and distracted him from keeping a steady path to completion. Conscious of his limits, Leonardo tried to work around them, often with unfortunate consequences. His reluctance to work on fresco painting, for example, which requires a quick execution before the plaster dries, led him to risky experiments in seeking out new oil pigments and varnish techniques that endangered the Last Supper and eventually destroyed the Battaglia of Anghiari in Florence. Such was Leonardo’s capriciousness that other artists were often called to work on paintings first commissioned to him.

Let down by his own inventiveness, Leonardo tried to team up with others who could assist him. In the winter of 1510–11 he worked with Marcantonio Della Torre, professor at the University of Pavia, to create a treatise on anatomy. Together they studied the human body and performed dissections that Leonardo beautifully depicted. This was the only period in his anatomical career during which Leonardo ‘was able to attain a balance between detail and coverage’. It was as ‘if the professional anatomist standing at his shoulder was able to save Leonardo from his habit of going ever further into the details of a physical scenario’ ( Clayton and Philo, 2012 ). But in a matter of months, Della Torre died of plague. Alone, Leonardo never managed to organize his large number of anatomical drawings into coherent material for publication. In his notebooks he dishearteningly annotated: ‘It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end’.

Leonardo used his wit to mask his shortcomings and talk his way out of the trouble or embarrassment caused by his behaviour. While working on the Last Supper , for example, he was subjected to the continuous nagging from the superintending prior of Santa Maria delle Grazie who ultimately asked the Duke of Milan for intervention. Summoned by the Duke, Leonardo quickly justified his delay with the difficulty of finding the models of the last two characters, Jesus and Judas. For Judas, he explained, he had searched in vain through the jails of Milan for the perfect looking scoundrel. None could be found and he conceded that in the end, if he could not find a better model for the cruel apostle who betrayed our Lord, he would have to use the face of the importunate and tactless prior. The Duke laughed the whole matter off and Leonardo returned working at his own leisure.

Others were less forgiving of his behaviour. Pope Leone X employed Leonardo in 1514 but frustration took hold of the Pope’s heart when he noticed Leonardo’s inability to attend to his duties. In desperation, Leone X exclaimed: ‘Alas! this man will never do anything, for he begins by thinking of the end of the work, before the beginning’ ( Vasari, 1996 ). Leonardo’s presence in the Vatican lasted less than 3 years. Unlike Michelangelo and Raphael, he left no trace of his passage in Rome. Aged 64 and with nowhere to go, Leonardo must have been relieved to receive an offer from the King of France. He took with him all his drawings and one unfinished painting, Mona Lisa ( Fig. 1 ), which he continued tweaking until death finally parted the master from his masterpiece.

Lack of discipline, artistic temperament or attention deficit disorder?

Leonardo da Vinci’s exceptional artistic skills were undisputed even by his detractors. However, it would be historically incorrect to accept the biographical account elaborated by the Romantic authors of Leonardo as a solitary genius who remained unappreciated by his contemporaries owing to his ideas being too advanced for his time. His most attentive biographers had always indicated that Leonardo tried hard to please customers that were inevitably left with the disappointment of being denied possession of a concrete expression of his talent. His contemporaries could never understand or forgive his lack of discipline, not his visionary mind. In his psychoanalytical essay on Leonardo, Freud viewed what he defined Leonardo’s ‘artistic sterility’ as an infantile sexual repression caused by ‘his illegitimate birth and the pampering of his mother’ ( Freud, 1922 ). But modern neuropsychiatry might have a different explanation.

Could Leonardo have had attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? ADHD is a highly heritable childhood behavioural disorder characterized by continuous procrastination, the inability to complete tasks, mind wandering and a restlessness of the body and mind ( Demontis et al. , 2018 ). In modern times, a diagnosis of ADHD prescinds from the level of intellectual ability and is increasingly more recognized among university students and adults with successful careers ( Palmini, 2008 ). Arguably, if positively channeled, some characteristics of ADHD can bear an advantage: mind wandering can fuel creativity and originality; restlessness can move to seeking novelty and action for change.

We suggest that historical documentation supports Leonardo’s difficulties with procrastination and time management as characteristic of ADHD, a condition that might explain aspects of his temperament and the strange form of his dissipative genius. Leonardo’s difficulties were pervasive since childhood, which is a fundamental characteristic of the condition. There is also unquestionable evidence that Leonardo was constantly on the go, keeping himself occupied with doing something but often jumping from task to task. Like many of those suffering with ADHD, he slept very little and worked continuously night and day by alternating rapid cycles of short naps and waking.

In modern neuroscience, problems with executive functions are thought to underlie procrastination and impaired concentration. Neuroimaging studies of children and adolescents with ADHD indicate differences in regions of the frontal lobe and basal ganglia responsible for executive functions and impulse control. About two-thirds of children with ADHD continue to have behavioural difficulties in adulthood, which can be ameliorated with therapy ( Palmini, 2008 ). There is enough indirect evidence to argue that Leonardo’s brain and cognitive functions were organized differently compared to the majority of the population. He was left-handed and aged 65 he suffered a severe left hemisphere stroke, which left his language abilities intact. These clinical observations strongly indicate a reverse right-hemisphere dominance for language in Leonardo’s brain, which is found in <5% of the general population. Furthermore, his notebooks show mirror writing and spelling errors that have been considered suggestive of dyslexia. Atypical hemispheric dominance, left-handedness and dyslexia are more prevalent in children with neurodevelopmental conditions, including ADHD.

And what is the possible link between left-handedness, dyslexia, ADHD and artistic abilities? Some epidemiological studies indicate that left-handed students are more likely to major in music and visual arts, while dyslexics often have superior performances in tasks for visuospatial discrimination and visual memory ( Swanson, 1984 ). Furthermore, not only is dyslexia more prevalent among art students than students in other areas, but art students with dyslexia have superior mental imagery and 3D mental visualization of objects than art students without dyslexia ( Winner and Casey, 1993 ). Abilities in 3D mental rotation are an important ability in those with pareidolia, an ability to recognize figures in the surrounding environment, a method that Leonardo used to boost his visual inspiration—he would contemplate for hours the changing shape of the clouds. In the initial stages of the creative process, people with ADHD may be facilitated by mind wandering and impulsivity. However, the same traits can hinder progression once the novelty of the project wanes and the interest shifts to something else. Most adults with ADHD are negatively affected by their symptoms, even if endowed with great talent.

A recent large meta-analysis shows that ADHD has a strong hereditary basis ( Demontis et al. , 2018 ). The finding of the same genetic association in those who in the general population show ADHD traits and risk-taking behaviour without a diagnosis suggests ADHD sits at the extreme end of a continuum of symptoms. Within this continuum the line between those with and without a clinical diagnosis is often marked according to the impact of symptoms on the quality of life and mental wellbeing of those affected. The lack of objective biological indicators of ADHD often makes drawing that line very difficult as its negative impact depends also on a number of personal, family, professional and social circumstances, which often have a protective or a detrimental effect. There is evidence that Leonardo was often short of money and paid much less than other artists of his calibre. His behaviour negatively affected his career and relationships to the point that it is difficult to find among his contemporaries someone who had not commented on his unreliability. He was often employed in modest roles, such as the party organizer, and many of his architectural and engineering ideas were disregarded for being too unrealistic and impractical.

Undeniably Leonardo accomplished more than any other human being could possibly dream of in a lifespan, but one wonders what would have been the impact of his work on history if he had managed to apply himself more consistently to his art and effectively disseminate his intuitions and discoveries.

Besides the beauty of his art and the mesmerizing power of his observations, in the 500th anniversary of his death, Leonardo da Vinci should also be remembered for his resilience. The difficulties linked to his extraordinary wandering mind caused him deep regrets but did not prevent him from learning and exploring the wonders of human life and nature.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Ruth Richardson, Matt Dawson and Ferdinando Borsa for their helpful suggestions.

M.C. is supported by the Wellcome Trust Investigator Award No. 103759/Z/14/Z. This paper represents independent research partly funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

Competing interests

The authors report no competing interests.

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Early period: Florence

First milanese period (1482–99).

• Second Florentine period (1500–08)
• Second Milanese period (1508–13)
• Last years (1513–19)
• Last Supper
• Art and science: the notebooks
• The Mona Lisa and other works
• Later painting and drawing
• Architecture
• Science of painting
• Anatomical studies and drawings
• Mechanics and cosmology
• Leonardo as artist-scientist

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Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and engineer who is best known for his paintings, notably the Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) and the Last Supper (1495–98). His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon. Leonardo is sometimes credited as the inventor of the tank, helicopter, parachute, and flying machine, among other vehicles and devices, but later scholarship has disputed such claims. Nonetheless, Leonardo’s notebooks reveal a sharp intellect, and his contributions to art, including methods of representing space, three-dimensional objects, and the human figure, cannot be overstated.

Leonardo da Vinci’s total output in painting is really rather small; there are less than 20 surviving paintings that can be definitely attributed to him, and several of them are unfinished. Two of his most important works—the Battle of Anghiari and the Leda , neither of them completed—have survived only in copies.

Leonardo da Vinci was described as having a gracious but reserved personality and an elegant bearing. He was known to be fastidious in personal care, keeping a beard neat and trim in later age, and to dress in colorful clothing in styles that dismissed current customs. The 16th-century writer Giorgio Vasari indicated that Leonardo cared little for money but was very generous toward his friends and assistants. He had an exceedingly inquisitive mind and made strenuous efforts to become erudite in languages, natural science, mathematics, philosophy, and history, among other subjects. The writings in his notebooks suggest that he may have been a vegetarian, and there is also some speculation that he may have been gay.

Leonardo da Vinci’s parents were unmarried at the time of his birth near a small village named Vinci in Tuscany . His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landlord, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant woman who shortly thereafter married an artisan. Leonardo grew up on his father’s family’s estate, where he was treated as a “legitimate” son and received the usual elementary education of the day: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Leonardo never married, but he had many close relationships with other artists and intellectuals as well as with his assistants.

When Leonardo was about 15, his father, who enjoyed a high reputation in the Florentine community, apprenticed him to artist Andrea del Verrocchio . In Verrocchio’s renowned workshop Leonardo received multifaceted training that included painting and sculpture as well as the technical-mechanical arts. He also worked in the next-door workshop of artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo , a sculptor, painter, engraver, and goldsmith, who frequently worked with his brother, Piero . In 1472 Leonardo was accepted into the painters’ guild of Florence , but he remained in his teacher’s workshop for five more years, after which time he worked independently in Florence until 1481.

Leonardo da Vinci (born April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy]—died May 2, 1519, Cloux [now Clos-Lucé], France) was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance . His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time.

The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism , has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behaviour. An artist by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was man’s highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge, and saper vedere (“knowing how to see”) became the great theme of his studies. He applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. He used his superb intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish.

Life and works

Leonardo’s parents were unmarried at the time of his birth. His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landlord, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant woman who shortly thereafter married an artisan. Leonardo grew up on his father’s family’s estate, where he was treated as a “legitimate” son and received the usual elementary education of that day: reading, writing , and arithmetic. Leonardo did not seriously study Latin , the key language of traditional learning, until much later, when he acquired a working knowledge of it on his own. He also did not apply himself to higher mathematics —advanced geometry and arithmetic—until he was 30 years old, when he began to study it with diligent tenacity.

Leonardo’s artistic inclinations must have appeared early. When he was about 15, his father, who enjoyed a high reputation in the Florence community , apprenticed him to artist Andrea del Verrocchio . In Verrocchio’s renowned workshop Leonardo received a multifaceted training that included painting and sculpture as well as the technical-mechanical arts. He also worked in the next-door workshop of artist Antonio Pollaiuolo . In 1472 Leonardo was accepted into the painters’ guild of Florence, but he remained in his teacher’s workshop for five more years, after which time he worked independently in Florence until 1481. There are a great many superb extant pen and pencil drawings from this period, including many technical sketches—for example, pumps, military weapons, mechanical apparatus—that offer evidence of Leonardo’s interest in and knowledge of technical matters even at the outset of his career.

In 1482 Leonardo moved to Milan to work in the service of the city’s duke—a surprising step when one realizes that the 30-year-old artist had just received his first substantial commissions from his native city of Florence: the unfinished panel painting Adoration of the Magi for the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto and an altar painting for the St. Bernard Chapel in the Palazzo della Signoria, which was never begun. That he gave up both projects seems to indicate that he had deeper reasons for leaving Florence. It may have been that the rather sophisticated spirit of Neoplatonism prevailing in the Florence of the Medici went against the grain of Leonardo’s experience-oriented mind and that the more strict, academic atmosphere of Milan attracted him. Moreover, he was no doubt enticed by Duke Ludovico Sforza ’s brilliant court and the meaningful projects awaiting him there.

Leonardo spent 17 years in Milan, until Ludovico’s fall from power in 1499. He was listed in the register of the royal household as pictor et ingeniarius ducalis (“painter and engineer of the duke”). Leonardo’s gracious but reserved personality and elegant bearing were well-received in court circles. Highly esteemed, he was constantly kept busy as a painter and sculptor and as a designer of court festivals. He was also frequently consulted as a technical adviser in the fields of architecture , fortifications, and military matters, and he served as a hydraulic and mechanical engineer. As he would throughout his life, Leonardo set boundless goals for himself; if one traces the outlines of his work for this period, or for his life as a whole, one is tempted to call it a grandiose “unfinished symphony.”

As a painter, Leonardo completed six works in the 17 years in Milan. (According to contemporary sources, Leonardo was commissioned to create three more pictures, but these works have since disappeared or were never done.) From about 1483 to 1486, he worked on the altar painting The Virgin of the Rocks , a project that led to 10 years of litigation between the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception , which commissioned it, and Leonardo; for uncertain purposes, this legal dispute led Leonardo to create another version of the work in about 1508. During this first Milanese period he also made one of his most famous works, the monumental wall painting Last Supper (1495–98) in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie (for more analysis of this work, see below Last Supper ). Also of note is the decorative ceiling painting (1498) he made for the Sala delle Asse in the Milan Castello Sforzesco .

During this period Leonardo worked on a grandiose sculptural project that seems to have been the real reason he was invited to Milan: a monumental equestrian statue in bronze to be erected in honour of Francesco Sforza , the founder of the Sforza dynasty . Leonardo devoted 12 years—with interruptions—to this task. In 1493 the clay model of the horse was put on public display on the occasion of the marriage of Emperor Maximilian to Bianca Maria Sforza, and preparations were made to cast the colossal figure, which was to be 16 feet (5 metres) high. But, because of the imminent danger of war, the metal, ready to be poured, was used to make cannons instead, causing the project to come to a halt. Ludovico’s fall in 1499 sealed the fate of this abortive undertaking, which was perhaps the grandest concept of a monument in the 15th century. The ensuing war left the clay model a heap of ruins.

As a master artist, Leonardo maintained an extensive workshop in Milan, employing apprentices and students. Among Leonardo’s pupils at this time were Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Ambrogio de Predis, Bernardino de’ Conti, Francesco Napoletano, Andrea Solari , Marco d’Oggiono, and Salai. The role of most of these associates is unclear, leading to the question of Leonardo’s so-called apocryphal works, on which the master collaborated with his assistants. Scholars have been unable to agree in their attributions of these works.

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Leonardo Da Vinci's study and portrayal of the Human Figure in Renaissance Art

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Giorgi Kevle

Gregory Yates

If Leonardo was really trying to "Square the Circle", then like all others he failed! The inaccuracy of the drawing of Leonardo's Vitruvian Man points us in the direction of thinking that this may not have been the intention... Yet the scale that he includes says that the Dimensions and Angles in the Diagram are somehow important. Elsewhere I show that Leonardo was a Cathar. Not a unique claim. I suspected it, long before it being "proven to me" by Jose Luis Espejo, in his book "El Viaje Secreto de Leonardo Da Vinci". What if Leonardo is aware of the impossiblity of Squaring the Circle, and uses it simply as Camouflage for his Cathar Beliefs... What if he even shows that Vitruvius himself was not using it for it's mathmatical content, but as a Platonic Expression of Belief? Vitruvius's Platonic Cave? - Leonardo's Platonic Cave? Read on, friend.

Illuminating Leonardo

Paola Salvi

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The Genius and Mysterious Leonardo Da Vinci Research Paper

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Introduction

Da vinci’s life, painting and the arts, leonardo’s contributions to science, works cited.

Leonardo Da Vinci is a genius! His imagination was amazing and the output he produced—from the arts, engineering, flight, architecture, and machines among others. After Aristotle, Da Vinci is considered as the “Renaissance Man” with a well-rounded personality and who can deal with multiple subjects and competencies simultaneously. He is a polymath, an inventor, a mathematician, an anatomist, a painter, an engineer, a scientist and even a writer (Priwer & Philips 25). The list of his achievements is very very long! Since his time, nobody else was able to duplicate his successes or at the very least, approximate the number of his expertise.

This essay looks at the life of Leonardo Da Vinci and will explore several areas of his expertise. In so doing, the lessons that can be drawn fro his life will be highlighted. Moreover, the main themes and issues in his life as a genius will be explored. Such an undertaking will greatly enhance the understanding of this author about the life of Da Vinci and his major contributions, not only to the Renaissance of Italy, but to all of humanity.

Da Vinci is a genius that helped shape the arts, science, and literature of the Western world. His genius is evident up to this time and the world still looks up to him as a genius and as a literary with important contributions to the world.

Da Vinci’s life seems like a television soap opera. He was the illegitimate son of Messer Piero to a peasant girl. He was born at Anchiano in the town of Vinci, which is within the the region of Florence. His full name was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. Little is known of the childhood of Da Vinci but he became the apprentice of the Italian painter Verrochio at an early age. Among his peers who became the apprentice of Verrochio were Boticelli, Perugino, and di Credi. Some of the works created by Verrochio may actually have been done by some of his students, including Leonardo. The painting: The Baptism of Christ is said to have been the work of the master and the apprentice Leonardo (Bortolon 35).

Through his training under Verrochio, Leonardo learned a number of trades and skills in chemistry, drafting, leather working, carpentry, as well as in drawing, sculpting and modeling among others. This period of apprenticeship is also important in the development of Da Vinci’s genius (Bortolon 40).

In his old, Da Vinci went to Rome at Belvedere at the Vatican. At this time, both Michaelangelo and Raphael were staying in Rome. He was granted a house by King Francois I of France after working for the peace talks between Vatican and France. This is where Da Vinci spent his last days until he died (Bortolon 114).

Of the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, perhaps the two most popular ones are the Last Supper and Mona Lisa. The Last Supper even became the motif of the novel written by Dan Brown. In addition to these two paintings, there are also a number of excellent paintings that he created. Some of them, however, are being disputed as there are some accounts that belie such claim.

The techniques that Da Vinci used in his paintings showed his careful studies in anatomy, lighting, and in the juxtaposition of elements in a painting. Based on the paintings that will be surveyed in this section, it can be seen that Da Vinci had the perfectionism of an artist and the care and concern he puts into his every work. He is an innovator at heart. He takes what is known and what is being practiced in the field of arts during his time and makes them his own. The expressions used by the humans in his paintings are remarkable and his techniques spearheaded the directions of modern Western Art.

Leonardo did not attend a university yet his keen observation and the way that he recorded his observations helped him gain insight in the workings of nature and of the human body. Most of the time, it was only his eyes that he had and his hand that clasped a pencil or a pen. Although the mainstream scientists and mathematicians ignored most of his scientific investigations, he wrote his observations in his journals on a daily basis. His journals contained his observations as well as the blueprints of some of his plans for future paintings and scientific endeavors. Surprisingly, he did not write in the usual script of his time. Rather, they were written backwards in mirror script (Richter 15).

This backward mirror script that Da Vinci used has been the subject of many speculations about him and his supposed connections with secret organizations. If his journals were investigated further, however, the reason behind this secrecy on the part of Da Vinci is his reluctance to share his ideas and his writings with other people who might steal these ideas away. In the first place, his journals were very rich and contained many information. If his journals fell into the hands of his contemporaries, they might be stolen and developed away from his tutelage (Richter 20).

Because it is difficult nowadays to truly understand the intention of Da Vinci for using this backward mirror script, apart from the conjecture that it was for the sake of secrecy and unwillingness to share with his contemporaries his findings, creative writers and even biographers have come up with theories in explaining this away. His apparent involvement with secret societies has been explored in literature but little evidence can be put forward to support this hypothesis.

In addition to this, little is known in his childhood and youth and so there are authors who tried to recreate these crucial stages in the life of Da Vinci in order to promote their own view of his life, although, their views are but thinly supported by facts and historical accounts. Although such views are enjoyable to read and raise curious possibilities, the lack of historically accurate accounts render such views as simply historical fictions built around the mysterious life of the legend that is Leonardo Da Vinci.

In an effort to improve his grasp of the human anatomy, he studied the proportion of the human body and along the process; he dissected a total of thirty corpses. This made him a physiologist as well as an artist. He is the first one to draw the fetus as it looks like in the womb. His descriptions of internal organs are superb and have been verified by modern medical science. Even at this period, he managed to complete the first robot design in history, although it was only rediscovered in the 1950s.

Da Vinci also dabbled with mechanics and designed a lot of mechanical projects such as a flying machine, a machine that can be used for grinding lenses, machines that make use of hydraulics, and even war machines. Whether these designs were to be implemented and built is now relegated into the realm of the unknowable.

Suffice it to say that Leonardo Da Vinci’s ideas and designs were very much in advance of his own time and the Western society during that period were not yet prepared to accept everything that Da Vinci had to offer. If he lived at this modern times, the reaches of his talents would have known no bounds.

Leonardo Da Vinci has had a great number of paintings, inventions, and books to his credit. These paintings, designs and contributions to science support the idea that he is indeed a genius. The mystery surrounding his early life has fostered speculations in a lot of authors and has captured the imagination of the reading public.

The way that he kept his journals secret through backward mirror scripts is remarkable. However, the true intentions that he may have had for doing this, apart from the interests of secrecy and intellectual pride, is now the area of speculators and fictionists.

Whether in the area of the arts, of the sciences and any other kinds of pursuit, Da Vinci has shown his talents and skills in almost every field of endeavors in the world. He also contributed extensively in the fields of science, invention, and mechanical design. Even if some mysteries may never be solved as to the personality of Leonardo Da Vinci, his contributions to humanity cannot be discounted. If additional information about his life will turn up, then this will surely clear up some of the confusions.

Bortolon, Liana. The Life and Times of Leonardo. London: Paul Hamlyn, 1967.

Hart, Frederich A. A History of Italian Renaissance Art. New York: Thomes and Hudson, 1970.

Marani, P. C. Leonardo Da Vinci: The Complete Paintings. New York: Henry Abrams, 2003.

Priwer, Shana & Cynthia Phillips. The Everything Da Vinci Book: Explore the Life and Times of the Ultimate Renaissance Man. New York: Adams Media, 2006.

Richter, Jean Paul. (1970). The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. New York: Dover, 1970.

Wasserman, Jack. Leonardo Da Vinci. New York: Abrams, 1975.

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Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian Renaissance artist, architect, engineer, and scientist. He is renowned for his ability to observe and capture nature, scientific phenomena, and human emotions in all media . Leonardo’s innovative masterpieces demonstrate a mastery of light, perspective, and overall effect. His most-loved works include the Mona Lisa portrait and The Last Supper mural.

Considered one of the greatest minds in history, Leonardo's approach to acquiring knowledge on everything from anatomy to mechanics involved understanding both the theory and practice of any given subject. In short, by combining the skills of the artisan with those of the scholar, Leonardo's vision demonstrated the benefits of a completely new approach to understanding the present world and just how to best create new and marvellous things for a future one.

Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 CE, the illegitimate son of a lawyer from the town of Vinci near Florence. A gifted child, especially in music and drawing, c. 1464 CE the young Leonardo was sent off to pursue a career as an artist and study as an apprentice in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435-1488 CE). Other notable future artists then at the workshop included Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510 CE) and Pietro Perugino (c. 1450-1523 CE). Here Leonardo would have learnt to master sketching and painting techniques, as well as the latest trends like the use of classicising ornamental detail in paintings. One of the young Leonardo's first contributions to Renaissance art may have been the kneeling angel in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ painting (c. 1470 CE, Uffizi, Florence). Completing his apprenticeship in 1472 CE, Leonardo became a paid assistant to Verrocchio and was registered as a master in the painter's guild of Florence.

Other skills Leonardo perfected early on in his career included chiaroscuro (the contrasting use of light and shade) and sfumato (the transition of lighter into darker colours). The former technique is especially evident in his c. 1503 CE coloured charcoal illustration Virgin and Child with St. Anne (National Gallery, London) and its c. 1505 painted version (Louvre, Paris ). The technique of sfumato is well-illustrated in Leonardo's c. 1483 CE oil on panel painting Virgin of the Rocks (Louvre). Leonardo was also an innovator, though. His c. 1472 CE The Annunciation (Uffizi) illustrates the artist followed some Renaissance trends, for example, the classical details of Mary's book rest, but also ignored others such as his obvious rejection of symmetry in the background trees.

Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, art historian and contemporary of Leonardo's, gives in his mini-biography the following summary of the artist's personality:

He had a character which was very amiable, impressive and generous, and he had the most beautiful appearance. He was a splendid critic and inventor of all things elegant and delightful, especially in theatrical displays. He sang to his own accompaniment on the lyre , and he was on excellent footing with all the princes of his time. (Woods, 269)

Notes & Sketches

Leonardo was far from being restricted to art and his interests were wide indeed, encompassing just about all the physical world. He studied architecture , engineering, geometry, perspective, mechanics, and hydraulics to satisfy himself just how things worked and why they appeared as they do to the human eye. The natural world was not neglected with studies in anatomy, botany, zoology, and geology. Leonardo kept notebooks throughout his life in which he recorded the results of his investigations and his ideas for new inventions. Machines the artist conjured up include cranes, paddlewheel boats, tanks, cannons, apparatus to breathe underwater, and even flying contraptions. The only element many of these designs lacked was an internal combustion engine, not to be invented, of course, until centuries later. The notes in these books are often interspersed with sketches, many being miniature masterpieces in themselves. Perhaps the most famous of all these sketches is the Vitruvian Man drawing (see below).

In addition, Leonardo wrote down his thoughts on painting and his observation of effects seen in nature he considered useful to the artist. As the man himself said, "a painter is not admirable unless he is universal", although he was appreciative that mastery of any subject takes time and noted that impatience was the mother of stupidity (Hale, 183). These notes and treatises were no doubt useful in Leonardo's role as a tutor to young artists in his own workshop. A curiosity of them is that many are written as mirror script , that is in the reverse direction of normal handwriting.

Besides stacks of notebooks, Leonardo built up an impressive personal library which, by 1503 CE, contained 116 books covering such subjects as medieval and Renaissance medicine , religion , and mathematics. The collection included such seminal works as Natural History by Pliny, Geography by Ptolemy I and On Warfare by Roberto Valturio. Leonardo was interested in languages, too, particularly Latin, which he attempted to teach himself in order to read medieval manuscripts in their original form; long lists of Latin words can be found in his notebooks.

Leonardo's versatility is further illustrated in his employment by Ludovico Sforza (1452-1508 CE), the Duke of Milan. Leonardo had moved to the city in 1482 CE and he acted as the principal Sforza military and naval engineer, on the one hand, and master painter and sculptor, on the other. Leonardo also produced ingenious automata for Ludovico's festivals and these included moving planets with their namesake gods inside. The master turned his hand to a massive bronze equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza (1401-1466 CE), founder of that dynasty, but the project never got beyond the terracotta model stage - by no means the only work Leonardo never finished. Sketches survive showing the general form and Leonardo attempting to work out just how to make and transport the massive pieces of bronze for final assembly.

Leonardo painted Ludovico Sforza's mistress Cecilia Gallerani in his The Lady with an Ermine c. 1490 CE (National Museum Krakow, Poland). His greatest work in the 17 years he spent in Milan, though, was The Last Supper mural (see below). It was in this period, specifically the 1490s CE, that Leonardo pioneered the new medium of red chalk drawings on treated paper. The many surviving examples of these drawings include a famous self-portrait which shows the artist aged and long-bearded. The sketch is now in the Biblioteca Reale of Turin.

Further Travels & France

Leonardo visited Venice in 1500 CE. Around this time he painted his erotic version of the Leda and the Swan story from Greek mythology which is now lost, although sketches survive. In 1502 CE Leonardo worked in Rome where he was commissioned by the statesman Cesare Borgia (1475-1507 CE) to sort out the city's canals. He also mapped the city and surrounding regions, as well as planning improvements to harbours. One of his most celebrated maps is that of Imola which, made in 1502 CE, shows every structure from above on a precise scale, the first such map to be made. By 1503 CE Leonardo was back in Florence to work on proposals for a battle scene mural in the city's Council Hall. Leonardo's now lost 'cartoon' for the work showed the 1449 CE Battle of Anghiari between the armies of Florence and Milan. The early years of the 16th century CE also saw Leonardo complete a painting he had probably been working on sporadically, the Mona Lisa portrait (see below).

In 1517 CE Leonardo moved on to France, where his skills were appreciated by Francis I of France (r. 1515-1547 CE), a great patron of Renaissance artists and architects. Leonardo, specifically invited by the French king, may have been involved in the initial design stage for Francis' Chateau de Chambord on the Loire River, built from 1519 to 1547 CE. The chateau's ingenious double spiral staircase is frequently credited to Leonardo even if firm evidence is lacking.

Leonardo's final work of art was his c. 1515 CE painting St. John the Baptist (Louvre), although he seems to have focussed more on scientific enquiry in the latter stages of his life. Leonardo died at his French home, Chateau Cloux (aka Clos Lucé), on 2 May 1519 CE and he was entombed within the Chapel of Saint Hubert just next to the Chateau d'Amboise.

Reputation & Legacy

The sheer diversity of work left by Leonardo has astounded historians and critics ever since his death . As the Renaissance historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1887 CE) famously stated, "the colossal outlines of Leonardo's nature can never be more than dimly and distantly conceived" (104). Leonardo's artistic works were influential on fellow Renaissance artists because of their mastery of composition and light, the contrapposto posture of his figures (i.e. the asymmetry between the upper and lower body), and the sheer invention and variety of their compositions.

However, it is also true to say that some elements of Leonardo's works were so subtle and skilled that few artists had any hope of imitating them. Then, just as today, much of his art was greatly admired but not wholly understood by everyone. Nevertheless, those who could see did see. The master's work for the Battle of Anghiari, several copies of which were made, was influential on such gifted artists as Raphael (1483-1520 CE) who greatly admired the writhing mass of humanity seemingly captured at a moment frozen in time. This is but one example of the master's influence, just one product of what the mathematician and artists' frequent collaborator Luca Pacioli (c. 1447-1517 CE) already called "the divine left hand" (Campbell, 387). Leonardo's fame even reached as far as Constantinople where the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512 CE) invited him, without success, to his court.

Leonardo's notebooks, not published until after 1570 CE, were influential both for their theories on painting and his diagrams on perspective but also on the pursuit of knowledge in general. Simply the way that Leonardo illustrated certain subjects (from an embryo to a cathedral), with his use of cross-section, perspective, scaled precision, and repeating the subject but from different viewpoints, would all influence draughtsmanship in architecture and the creation of diagrams in science ever after. Above all, Leonardo had shown that practice and theory could not and should not be separated. The great master demonstrated in his own person that a full knowledge of any subject required a combination of the skills of the artisan, the flair and imagination of the artist, and the meticulous research and reasoning of a scholar. Consequently, the approaches to a great many subjects, but especially art, architecture, engineering, and science, were fundamentally changed forever.

Masterpieces

The Mona Lisa ( La Gioconda in Italian) is an oil on wood panel portrait of an unidentified woman made by Leonardo between c. 1503 and 1506 CE. It measures 98 x 53 centimetres (38 x 21 inches), a relatively small size that often surprises modern viewers used to seeing this iconic image in larger reprints. The painting, rather than merely capturing the physical features of the sitter, attempts to capture the very mood and thoughts of the subject at a specific moment in time, what Leonardo called "the motions of the mind" (Campbell, 257). Other effects include the use of aerial perspective such as the recession of colour into the furthest background of a watery-looking landscape and the difference in gradation of colour from the top to the bottom of the painting.

The casual posture of the lady and the position of her hands forms, with the head as the top point, the classic triangle shape that many Renaissance artists were experimenting with in their paintings. Light and dark colours are used expertly to emphasise the oval face and soft hands of the lady while the contours of these combine convex and concave lines which create an illusion of supple movement. Finally, the three-quarter view of the lady creates another suggestion of movement as she seems to have just that moment turned to regard the viewer. That Leonardo is exclusively interested in presenting a view of a living-breathing individual in intimate contact with the viewer is further evidenced by the lack of any identifying title and the total lack of jewellery or other symbols of wealth which were typical of portraits up to that point. The work was immediately influential, inspiring artists like the young Raphael in his own portrait painting such as Maddalena Strozzi and Baldassare Castiglione . Leonardo must have been pleased with the Mona Lisa as he never parted with it during his lifetime and the picture is today one of the star attractions in the Louvre museum in Paris.

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The Last Supper

The Last Supper ( Il Cenacolo in Italian) is a depiction of the final meal of Jesus Christ and his apostles which Leonardo painted on the wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a residence of the Dominican order in Milan. This was a traditional subject to decorate monastic refectories, and the work was very likely commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, whose arms appear at the top of the mural. The work was completed c. 1498 CE. The triumph of the mural is the variation in emotional reactions displayed by each of the apostles as they hear that one of them will soon betray Jesus .

Like any great work of art, The Last Supper has been subjected to all manner of interpretations. Some, for example, have seen Mary Magdalene in the figure who is intended to be the youthful St. John the Evangelist, sitting to the left of Jesus. Despite the intense interest in the peripheral figures and their meaning, the star of the scene is, of course, Jesus, who, presented as a central triangular form, is further brought to the viewer's attention by the precise perspective of the background which leads the eye irresistibly to the picture's very centre. The triangular motif is further repeated by the marked division in colour of Jesus's clothing and Leonardo organising the apostles into four distinct groups, each forming an approximate triangle with their collective bodies. Finally, amongst all the action and bustle of the gesticulating apostles, Jesus, with both hands on the table, is a vision of immobility, a calm and knowing centre in a storm of outrage and incomprehension.

The work was immediately and hugely influential thanks to an engraving of it made by Marcantonio Raimondi (1480-1534 CE) which was distributed far and wide to interested artists. Unfortunately, things went wrong within a decade after completion when the paintwork began to crumble away. This was because Leonardo had experimented with using oil paints and tempera on plaster in an undocumented technique instead of the familiar and much longer-lasting true fresco method. This dubious experimentation has challenged restorers of The Last Supper ever since. The mural also suffered in more recent times. First, a doorway was inexplicably made in the wall which intrudes into the bottom of the mural. Then, during the Second World War , the building was fire-bombed. Fortunately, the mural had been protected by a wall of sandbags and survived the bombing but it was exposed to the weather until adequate building repairs were made. A comprehensive restoration programme was conducted in the early 21st century CE, and it can be visited by the public, although numbers are limited and pre-booking is obligatory.

Vitruvian Man

Although not a finished work of art (or ever intended to be), Leonardo's pen and ink on paper sketch known as the Vitruvian Man has become so famous that it is one of the images most associated with his name. Measuring 34 x 25 centimetres (13.5 x 10 inches), it was drawn c. 1492 CE and is now in the Academia Gallery in Venice. The name of the work derives from Vitruvius (c. 90 - c. 20 BCE), the Roman architect who famously wrote De Architectura ( On Architecture ), an influential treatise which combines the history of ancient architecture and engineering with the author's personal experience and advice on the subject.

Vitruvius' work was popular during the Renaissance when artists were re-examining the classical world for ideas and inspiration. In one particular passage, Vitruvius recommends that correct architectural proportions should be derived from a study of the proportions of the human body. The passage describes a human body within a circle and a square. Several Renaissance artists and architects, attracted by the idea that there was some mysterious and perhaps even divine relationship between mathematics, the human body, and beauty, attempted to draw what Vitruvius had only described in words. Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is one such attempt. The man's naval is the centre of the circle and his fingertips and feet touch its circumference. A second male figure, superimposed on the other, is set within a square. The sketch is perhaps a metaphor for humanity's position at the centre of an ordered universe, and as such it has become a defining symbol of the Renaissance and the ongoing enquiry into the exact relation between religion, science, and art.

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Bibliography

• Anderson, Christy. Renaissance Architecture. Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Sagwan Press, 2015.
• Campbell, Gordon. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance. Oxford University Press, 2019.
• Hale, J.R. (ed). The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance by J. R. Hale. Thames & Hudson, 2020.
• Paoletti, John T. & Radke, Gary M. Art in Renaissance Italy. Pearson, 2011.
• Rundle, David. The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. Hodder Arnold, 2000.
• Welch, Evelyn. Art in Renaissance Italy. Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Woods, Kim W. Making Renaissance Art. Yale University Press, 2007.
• Wyatt, Michael. The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

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Cartwright, Mark. " Leonardo da Vinci ." World History Encyclopedia . Last modified September 07, 2020. https://www.worldhistory.org/Leonardo_da_Vinci/.

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Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor, and painter. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. His notebooks contain diagrams, drawings, personal notes and observations, providing a unique insight into how he saw the world. Five of these incredible objects are in our collection.

Leonardo seems to have begun recording his thoughts in notebooks from the mid-1480s when he worked as a military and naval engineer for the Duke of Milan. None of Leonardo's predecessors, contemporaries or successors used paper quite like he did — a single sheet contains an unpredictable pattern of ideas and inventions — the workings of both a designer and a scientist.

The notebooks contain careful sketches and diagrams annotated with notes in 16th-century Italian mirror writing, which reads in reverse and from right to left. The mirror writing has caused much speculation. Was Leonardo trying to ensure that only he could decipher his notes? Or was it simply because he was left-handed and may have found it easier to write from right to left? Writing masters at the time would have made demonstrations of mirror writing, and his letter-shapes are in fact quite ordinary: he used the kind of script that his father, a legal notary, would have used. It is possible to decipher Leonardo's curious mirror writing, once the eye has become accustomed to the style.

Leonardo probably worked on loose sheets of paper (bought at one of Milan's many stationers' shops), which he carried about with him to record his observations. His papers were at some stage folded into booklets and later bound, possibly under the ownership of the Spanish sculptor Pompeo Leoni (1533 – 1608). The five notebooks in the V&A's collection are bound into three codices (a bound book made up of several pages) called the Forster Codices, after John Forster who bequeathed them to the Museum in 1876. The codices are not bound in any logical order and only one, Codex Forster I.1, carries any indication of when it was made.

You can explore all three of our Forster Codices in amazing detail by following the links under each codex section

Codex Forster I [containing Codex Forster I.1 & I.2]

Codex Forster I.1 (up to folio 40, Florence, 1505) A note in Leonardo's own hand gives this notebook a title, Libro titolato de strasformatione , and dates it to July 1505. This shows that it was begun when he was in Florence, just after he had undertaken to produce his famous Battle of Anghiar i mural in the Palazzo della Signoria, the centre of the city's government. The notes consider the measurement of solid bodies and the problems of relating changes in shape to those of volume, a branch of mathematics known today as topology.

Codex Forster I.2 (from folio 41, Milan, about 1487 – 90) The earliest of the V&A's notebooks, it was compiled around 1487 – 90 when Leonardo was a servant of the Sforza duke in Milan. The writing on a few sheets of this notebook extends beyond the inner margins, suggesting that Leonardo wrote them before the sheets were folded into the booklet as it survives today. It contains notes and diagrams for devices relating to hydraulic engineering and on the moving and raising of water. Leonardo was renowned for designing elaborate devices for entertaining guests at courts and in noble houses, particularly water clocks and fountains. One design, for the French governor of Milan, was elaborately automated, with a mechanical man as a bell-ringer.

You can explore the complete Codex Forster I, and in amazing detail, in our page viewer by following the link below.

Codex Forster II [containing Codex Forster II.1 & II.2]

Codex Forster II.1 (up to folio 63, Milan, about 1495) This notebook was compiled around 1495. It contains notes on the theory of proportions and mentions the work of Leonardo's colleague in Milan, a famous mathematician named Luca Paccioli (died about 1514). It also contains a good deal of miscellaneous material: bells and a striking mechanism, a portrait of the General of the Franciscan Order, Francesco Nanni-Samson, and a passage discussing the postures of a group at a table, possibly relating to Leonardo’s work on the Last Supper fresco in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, begun in about 1495.

Codex Forster II.2 (from folio 64, Milan, 1495 – 97) Made up between about 1495 and 1497, Codex Forster II.2 has extensive notes on the theory of weights, traction, stresses and balances. It also contains an examination of a crossbow (a terrifying weapon outlawed on several occasions by the Pope), and a remark ridiculing those who thought perpetual motion was possible.

Some of the ideas recorded on the page below investigate perpetual motion — the concept of a hypothetical machine which, once activated, would run forever, like a wheel which never stops turning. Leonardo made several thorough studies of perpetual motion, though eventually rejected the theory.

You can explore the complete Codex Forster II, and in amazing detail, in our page viewer by following the link below.

Codex Forster III

Codex Forster III (Milan, about 1490 – 93) This is the most miscellaneous of the notebooks. Interspersed with notes on geometry, weights and hydraulics are sketches of a horse's legs (perhaps connected with Leonardo's work on an equestrian statue for the founder of the Sforza dynasty), drawings of hats and clothes that may have been ideas for costumes at balls, and an account of the anatomy of the human head. Leonardo made frequent dissection drawings of both humans and animals, contributing to anatomical and physiological discovery.

You can explore the complete Codex Forster III, and in amazing detail, in our page viewer by following the link below.

These five notebooks, bound into three volumes, are in the collection of the National Art Library

One is currently on display in the Medieval & Renaissance galleries, Room 64

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Primary Sources: Art & Artists: Leonardo Da Vinci

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Online Sources: Leonardo Da Vinci

• Leonardo da Vinci and His Treatise on Painting more... less... "... is a digital archive dedicated to the Treatise on Painting, the pivotal text for disseminating Leonardo's art theory in Renaissance and Baroque Europe."
• Books by Leonardo, da Vinci at Project Gutenberg

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