लियोनार्दो दा विंची Leonardo da Vinci

लियोनार्दो दा विंची Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born near Vinci in Tuscany on 15 April 1452. He trained in Verrocchio’s workshop in Florence and spent his best years in Milan under Ludovico Sforza. He served Cesare Borgia as a military engineer and the King of France as his honoured guest. He died at Amboise on 2 May 1519. His notebooks show him as anatomist, engineer and naturalist as much as painter.

Curated by Nikhil Sharma: the notary’s son from Vinci who painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He filled some 13,000 pages with notes on water, flight, light and the human body. He finished little and published nothing. Five centuries on he is still the model of a mind that refused to separate art from science.

Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk, about 1510. Widely but not universally accepted as Leonardo’s self-portrait. Royal Library of Turin. Photograph: Leonardo da Vinci, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
  • 67 Years lived: Born 15 April 1452 near Vinci. Died 2 May 1519 at Amboise
  • 13,000 Pages of notes and drawings: Mostly in mirror-image script. Never published in his lifetime
  • 25 Major works at most: Fewer than 25 attributed major works. Several left unfinished
  • $450.3m Salvator Mundi in 2017: An auction record for any painting. Its attribution is still disputed

The facts

Born
15 April 1452 in or near Vinci in Tuscany. Son of the notary Ser Piero and Caterina (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Died
2 May 1519 at Clos Lucé near Amboise in France. Aged 67 (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Training
Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. A master of the Guild of Saint Luke by 1472 (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Patrons
Ludovico Sforza, Cesare Borgia, Louis XII, Giuliano de’ Medici and Francis I (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Hand
Left-handed. Most of his notes run right to left in mirror-image script (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Notebooks
About 13,000 pages survive. The largest set is the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus in Milan (Wikipedia: Codex Atlanticus)
Anatomy
More than 240 detailed drawings and about 13,000 words towards a treatise (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Best-known works
Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and the Vitruvian Man drawing (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
Likeness
The red-chalk Portrait of a Man in Turin is widely though not universally taken as his self-portrait (Wikipedia: Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk)

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