Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

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Italian Renaissance Polymath
Vinci, Italy

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  • P
    Premier Painter, Engineer, and Architect for King Francis I
    1516 - 1519 (3 years 1 month)
    In October 1515, King Francis I of France recaptured Milan. On 19 December, Leonardo was present at the meeting of Francis I and Pope Leo X, which took place in Bologna. Leonardo was commissioned to make for Francis a mechanical lion that could walk forward then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé, now a public museum, near the king's residence at the royal Château d'Amboise. He spent the last three years of his life here, accompanied by his friend and apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi, and supported by a pension totaling 10,000 scudi. Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, on 2 May 1519 at the age of 67. The cause is generally stated to be recurrent stro
  • V
    Artist
    Vatican of Pope Leo X
    Sep 1513 - 1516 (2 years 5 months)
    From September 1513 to 1516, under Pope Leo X, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time. In October 1515, King Francis I of France recaptured Milan. On 19 December, Leonardo was present at the meeting of Francis I and Pope Leo X, which took place in Bologna. Leonardo was commissioned to make for Francis a mechanical lion that could walk forward then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons
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    Chief Military Engineer and Architect for Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI
    Jun 1502 - Sep 1503 (1 year 4 months)
    In Cesena in 1502, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and traveling throughout Italy with his patron. Leonardo created a map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a town plan of Imola in order to win his patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. Upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron, one of Chiana Valley, Tuscany, so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, in
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    Military Architect and Engineer for Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI
    Jan 1502 - Jun 1502 (6 months)
    In Cesena in 1502, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and traveling throughout Italy with his patron. Leonardo created a map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a town plan of Imola in order to win his patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. He had to think of ways of protecting the lands, he made sketches and maps, also suggesting ways to defend. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons
  • M
    Military Architect and Engineer
    1499 - 1500 (1 year 1 month)
    At the start of the Second Italian War in 1499, the invading French troops used the life-size clay model for the Gran Cavallo for target practice. With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice, where he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack. On his return 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" f
  • D
    Designer and Sculptor for Ludovico Sforza
    1485 - 1499 (14 years 1 month)
    Leonardo was employed on many different projects for Ludovico, including 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. Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not unusual for Leonardo. In 1492, the clay model of the horse was completed. It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello's Gattamelata in Padua and Verrocchio's Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, and became known as the "Gran Cavallo". Leonardo began making detailed plans for its casting; however, Michelangelo insulted Leonardo
  • I
    Independent Author
    1485 - 1519 (34 years 1 month)
    Leonardo's notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirlpools, war machines, flying machines, and architecture. These notebooks—originally loose papers of different types and sizes, distributed by friends after his death—have found their way into major collections such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bibliote
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    Painter
    Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception
    1483 - 1486 (3 years 1 month)
    Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin of the Rocks (sometimes the Madonna of the Rocks) is the name used for two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for several significant details. The version generally considered the prime version, that is the earlier of the two, hangs in The Louvre in Paris and the other in the National Gallery, London. The paintings are both nearly 2 metres (over 6 feet) high and are painted in oils. Both were originally painted on wooden panel, but the Louvre version has been transferred to canvas. Both paintings show the Madonna
  • I
    Independent Painter
    1478 - 1519 (41 years 1 month)
    Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years, his fame rested on his achievements as a painter. A handful of works that are either authenticated or attributed to him have been regarded as among the great masterpieces. These paintings are famous for a variety of qualities that have been much imitated by students and discussed at great length by connoisseurs and critics. By the 1490s Leonardo had already been described as a "Divine" painter. Leonardo first gained notoriety for his work on the Baptism of Christ, painted in conjunction with Verrocchio. Two other paintings appear to date from his time at Verrocchio's workshop, both of which are Annunciations. One
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    Member: Painter and Designer
    Guild of Saint Luke
    1472 - 1478 (6 years 1 month)
    The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was identified by John of Damascus as having painted the Virgin's portrait. The guild of Saint Luke not only represented painters, sculptors, and other visual artists, but also—especially in the seventeenth century—dealers, amateurs, and even art lovers (the so-called liefhebbers). In the medieval period, most members in most places were probably manuscript illuminators, where these were in the same guild as painters on wood and cloth—in many cities they were joined with the scribes or "scriveners". In tradi
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  • A
    Apprentice of Lorenzo di Credi
    1488
    Lorenzo di Credi (c. 1459 – January 12, 1537) first influenced Leonardo da Vinci and then was greatly influenced by him. He was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor. Born in Florence, he started to work in Andrea del Verrocchio's workshop. After the death of his master, he inherited the direction of the workshop. For Pistoia Cathedral he completed the painting of the Madonna Enthroned between John the Baptist and St. Donatus which had been partially painted by his master, Verrocchio, but was left unfinished when Verrocchio went to Venice. Amongst his other early works are an Annunciation in the Uffizi, a Madonna with Child in the Galleria Sabauda of Turin, and Adoration of the Child in the Querini Stampalia of Venice. Of a later p
  • A
    Apprentice of Andrea di Cione (Verrocchio)
    1466 - 1473 (7 years 1 month)
    In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio, whose bottega (workshop) was "one of the finest in Florence". He apprenticed as a garzone (studio boy) to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day (and would do so for 7 years). Other famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo would have been exposed to both theoretical training and a vast range of technical skills, including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and mo
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  • M
    Models of circulatory system
    1510
    He created models of the cerebral ventricles with the use of melted wax and constructed a glass aorta to observe the circulation of blood through the aortic valve by using water and grass seed to watch flow patterns. Vesalius published his work on anatomy and physiology in De humani corporis fabrica in 1543. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons.
  • D
    Drawing: Equestrian figure
    1506
    In 1506 Leonardo returned to Milan. Many of his most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco d'Oggiono. At this time he may have commenced a project for an equestrian figure of Charles II d'Amboise, the acting French governor of Milan. A wax model survives and, if genuine, is the only extant example of Leonardo's sculpture. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons.
  • S
    Mural: The Battle of Anghiari
    Salone dei Cinquecento, in the Palazzo Vecchio
    1504 - 1505 (1 year 1 month)
    The Battle of Anghiari (1505) is a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci, at times referred to as "The Lost Leonardo", which some commentators believe to be still hidden beneath one of the later frescoes in the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred) in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Its central scene depicted four men riding raging war horses engaged in a battle for possession of a standard, at the Battle of Anghiari in 1440. Many preparatory studies by Leonardo still exist. The composition of the central section is best known through a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens in the Louvre, Paris. This work, dating from 1603 and known as The Battle of the Standard, was based on an engraving of 1553 by Lorenzo Zacchia, which was taken from the
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    Painting: The Mona Lisa/La Gioconda
    1503 - 1506 (3 years 1 month)
    The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". The Mona Lisa is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at one hundred million dollars in 1962. The painting is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. It had been believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. Recent academic wor
  • Painting: The Virgin and Child with St Anne
    1503
    The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting St Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo. Leonardo's painting is at once both pleasing, calm yet confusing upon closer examination. The composition of the three figures is fairly tight, with the Virgin Mary clearly interacting actively with the infant Jesus. Upon closer examination of their positioning, it is apparent that Mary is sitting on St Anne's lap. It is unclear what meani
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    Map of Chiana Valley, Tuscany
    1502
    The map was made for Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. The Val di Chiana, Valdichiana, or Chiana Valley was an alluvial valley of central Italy, lying on the territories of the provinces of Arezzo and Siena in Tuscany and the provinces of Perugia and Terni in Umbria. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. Upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. Later in the year, Leonardo produced another map for his patron, one of Chiana Valley, Tuscany, so as to give his patron a better overlay of the land and greater strategic position. He created this map in conjunction with his other project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, in order to allow a
  • M
    Map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold (A town plan)
    1502
    In Cesena in 1502, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and traveling throughout Italy with his patron. Leonardo created a map of Cesare Borgia's stronghold, a town plan of Imola in order to win his patronage. Maps were extremely rare at the time and it would have seemed like a new concept. Upon seeing it, Cesare hired Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect. ---- Sources: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons
  • D
    Drawing: Portrait of Isabella d'Este
    1500
    It shows the Marquess of Mantua, Isabella d'Este (1474–1539), daughter of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and Eleanor of Naples. Although Titan depicts her as a young woman, she was around 62 at the time. Isabella was socially ambitious and aware of the effect a painting by renowned artists might have on her reputation and prestige - she also commissioned portraits by Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea Mantegna. Isabella was portrayed a number times in her youth. She was betrothed to Francesco Gonzaga in 1480 when she was 6; they married when she was 16. She was painted by Cosme Tura as a child and on a number of occasions around the time of her wedding, a period during which she was honored by the striking of a commemorative medal. She was
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    Drawing: The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist
    1499 - 1500 (1 year 1 month)
    The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, sometimes called The Burlington House Cartoon, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing is in charcoal and black and white chalk, on eight sheets of paper glued together. Because of its large size and format, the drawing is presumed to be a cartoon for a painting. No painting by Leonardo exists that is based directly on this cartoon. The drawing depicts the Virgin Mary seated on the knees of her mother St Anne and holding the Child Jesus while St. John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, stands to the right. It currently hangs in the National Gallery in London. It was either executed in around 1499–1500, at the end of the artist's first Milanese period, or around 1506–8, when h
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    Painting: The Madonna of the Yarnwinder (The lansdowne madonna)
    1499
    The Madonna of the Yarnwinder is a subject depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in at least one, and perhaps two paintings began in 1499 or later. Leonardo was recorded as being at work on one such picture in Florence in 1501 for Florimond Robertet, a secretary to King Louis XII of France. This may have been delivered to the French court in 1507, though scholars are divided on this point. The subject is known today from several versions of which two, called the Buccleuch Madonna and the Lansdowne Madonna, are thought to be partly by Leonardo’s hand. The underdrawings of both paintings show similar experimental changes made to the composition (or pentimenti), suggesting that both evolved concurrently in Leonardo’s workshop. The composition shows t
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    Painting: The Madonna of the Yarnwinder (The Buccleuch Madonna)
    1499
    The Madonna of the Yarnwinder is a subject depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in at least one, and perhaps two paintings began in 1499 or later. Leonardo was recorded as being at work on one such picture in Florence in 1501 for Florimond Robertet, a secretary to King Louis XII of France. This may have been delivered to the French court in 1507, though scholars are divided on this point. The subject is known today from several versions of which two, called the Buccleuch Madonna and the Lansdowne Madonna, is thought to be partly by Leonardo’s hand. The underdrawings of both paintings show similar experimental changes made to the composition (or pentimenti), suggesting that both evolved concurrently in Leonardo’s workshop. The composition shows th
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    Painting: Sala delle Asse
    Castello Sforzesco
    1498
    The Sala delle Asse is the location for a wall and ceiling painting in tempera on plaster, of decorated "intertwining plants with fruits and monochromes of roots and rocks", by Leonardo da Vinci, dating from about 1498 and located in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. rocks. This was made for Ludovico Sforza. During the painting of his Last Supper, Leonardo was presented with a room in the Sforza Castle for his own use by the then Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. Some documents describe the work of Leonardo in the Sforza Castle; this includes an order of Ludovico Sforza and a letter of 1498 by the Chancellor Gualtiero Bescapè addressed to the Duke, where it said that in September of that year, the artist had finished decorating the Sala dell
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    Painting: The Last Supper
    Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie
    1495 - 1498 (3 years 1 month)
    Leonardo's most famous painting of the 1490s is The Last Supper, commissioned for the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. The work is presumed to have been commenced around 1495–1496 and was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The painting represents the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, as it is told in the Gospel of John, 13:21. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him. The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him. All twelve
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    Painting: La belle Ferronnière
    1490 - 1496 (6 years 1 month)
    La belle ferronnière is a portrait of a lady, usually attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre. It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger (a ferronnier), was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. The tale is a romantic legend of revenge in which the aggrieved husband intentionally infects himself with syphilis, which he passes to the king through infecting his wife. Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, has also been known by this name. This was once believed to be a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani—one of the mistresses of Lodovico 'il
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    Painting: Portrait of a Musician
    1490
    Portrait of a Musician is an oil on wood painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci by some scholars. It was probably painted in 1490. The man in the painting was at one time thought to be Franchino Gaffurio, who was the maestro di cappella of the Milanese Cathedral. Although some belief it to be a portrait of Gaffurio, others think the man is anonymous. The piece of paper he holds is at least one part of a musical score; it has notes written on it. The painting was greatly restored and repainted, and Leonardo probably left the portrait unfinished but close to completion. The man is positioned in a three-quarter position and he is holding a partition sheet. The musician stares at something outside the spectator's field of vision. Compared t
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    Drawing: Vitruvian Man
    1490
    The Vitruvian Man is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. It is kept in the Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe of the Gallerie dell'Accademia, in Venice, Italy, under reference 228. Like most works on paper, it is displayed to the public only occasionally. The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his tre
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    Painting: Madonna Litta
    1490
    The Madonna Litta is a late 15th-century painting, traditionally attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. It depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child, a devotional subject known as the Madonna lactans. The figures are set in a dark interior with two arched openings, as in Leonardo's earlier Madonna of the Carnation, and a mountainous landscape in aerial perspective can be seen beyond. In his left hand, Christ holds a goldfinch, which is symbolic of his future Passion. Scholarly opinion is divided on the work's attribution, with some believing it to be the work of a pupil of Leonardo such as Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio or Marco d'Oggiono; the Hermitage Museum, however, considers the painting
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    Painting: Lady with an Ermine
    1489 - 1490 (1 year 1 month)
    Lady with an Ermine is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci from around 1489–1490. The subject of the portrait is Cecilia Gallerani, painted at a time when she was the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Leonardo was in the service of the duke. The painting is one of only four portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, and La belle ferronnière. The painting was purchased in 2016 from the Czartoryski Foundation by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for the National Museum in Kraków and has been on display in the museum's main building since 2017. The small portrait generally called The Lady with the Ermine was painted in oils on wooden panel. At the tim
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    Designs for a Milan Cathedral dome
    Milan Cathedral
    1488
    Leonardo was employed on many different projects for Ludovico, including 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. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. Virginia faculty. March 2014
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    Painting: Virgin of the rocks
    Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception
    1483 - 1486 (3 years 1 month)
    The Virgin of the Rocks (sometimes the Madonna of the Rocks) is the name used for two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for several significant details. The version generally considered the prime version, that is the earlier of the two, hangs in The Louvre in Paris and the other in the National Gallery, London. The paintings are both nearly 2 metres (over 6 feet) high and are painted in oils. Both were originally painted on wooden panel, but the Louvre version has been transferred to canvas. Both paintings show the Madonna and Child Jesus with the infant John the Baptist and an angel, in a rocky setting which gives the paintings their usual name. The significant compositiona
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    Sculpture: Gran Cavallo
    1482
    Leonardo's Horse (also known as Gran Cavallo) is a sculpture that was commissioned of Leonardo da Vinci in 1482 by Duke of Milan Ludovico il Moro, but not completed. It was intended to be the largest equestrian statue in the world, a monument to the duke's father Francesco. Leonardo did extensive preparatory work for it but produced only a clay model, which was destroyed by French soldiers when they invaded Milan in 1499, interrupting the project. About five centuries later, Leonardo's surviving design materials were used as the basis for sculptures intended to bring the project to fruition. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo%27s_horse Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons
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    Painting: The Adoration of the Magi
    San Donato a Scopeto
    1481
    The Adoration of the Magi is an early painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was given the commission by the Augustinian monks of San Donato a Scopeto in Florence, but departed for Milan the following year, leaving the painting unfinished. It has been in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence since 1670. The Virgin Mary and Child are depicted in the foreground and form a triangular shape with the Magi kneeling in adoration. Behind them is a semicircle of accompanying figures, including what may be a self-portrait of the young Leonardo (on the far right). In the background on the left is the ruin of a pagan building, on which workmen can be seen, apparently repairing it. On the right are men on horseback fighting, and a sketch of a rocky landscape
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    Painting: St. Jerome in the Wilderness
    Vatican
    1480
    St Jerome in the Wilderness is an unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci, now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The painting depicts Saint Jerome during his retreat to the Syrian desert, where he lived the life of a hermit. St Jerome kneels in a rocky landscape, gazing toward a crucifix which can be discerned faintly sketched in at the extreme right of the painting. In Jerome's right hand he holds a rock with which he is traditionally shown beating his chest in penance. At his feet is the lion which became a loyal companion after he extracted a thorn from its paw. The lion, the stone, and a cardinal's hat are the traditional attributes of the saint. On the left-hand side of the panel, the background is a distant landscape of a lake surrounde
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    Painting: Benois Madonna
    Oct 1478
    Madonna and Child with Flowers, otherwise known as The Benois Madonna, could be one of two Madonnas Leonardo da Vinci had commented on having started in October 1478. The other one could be Madonna of the Carnation from Munich. It is likely that the Benois Madonna was the first work painted by Leonardo independently from his master Verrocchio. There are two of Leonardo's preliminary sketches for this piece in the British Museum. Studies of these sketches and the painting itself suggest that Leonardo was concentrating on the idea of sight. At that time it was thought that human eyes exhibited rays to cause vision with a central beam being the most important. The child is thought to be guiding his mother's hands into his central vision. The
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    Painting: Madonna of the Carnation
    1478 - 1480 (2 years 1 month)
    The Madonna of the Carnation, a.k.a. Madonna with Vase or Madonna with Child is a Renaissance oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci created around 1478-1480. It is permanently displayed at the Alte Pinakothek gallery in Munich, Germany. The central and centered motif is the young Virgin Mary seated with Baby Jesus on her lap. Depicted in precious clothes and jewelry, with her left hand Mary holds a carnation (interpreted as a healing symbol). The faces are put into light while all other objects are darker, e.g. the carnation is covered by a shadow. The child is looking up, the mother is looking down — there is no eye contact. The setting of the portrait is a room with two windows on each side of the figures. Originally this painting was thoug
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    Painting: Ginevra de' Benci
    1474 - 1478 (4 years 1 month)
    Ginevra de' Benci is a portrait painting by Leonardo da Vinci of the 15th-century Florentine aristocrat Ginevra de' Benci (born 1458). The oil-on-wood portrait was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., United States, in 1967. The sum of US$5 million—a record price at the time—came from the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund and was paid to the Princely House of Liechtenstein. It is the only painting by Leonardo on public view in the Americas. It is known that Leonardo painted a portrait of Ginevra de' Benci in 1474, painted in Florence possibly to commemorate her marriage that year to Luigi di Bernardo Niccolini at the age of 16. The painting's imagery and the text on the reverse of the panel support the identification of this
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    Drawing: Arno Valley
    Aug 1473
    Leonardo's earliest dated drawing is a Landscape of the Arno Valley, 1473, which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons
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    Painting: Baptism of Christ
    Church of S. Salvi
    1472 - 1475 (3 years 1 month)
    The Baptism of Christ is a painting finished around 1475 in the studio of the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea del Verrocchio and generally ascribed to him and his pupil Leonardo da Vinci. Some art historians discern the hands of other members of Verrocchio's workshop in the painting as well. The picture depicts the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as recorded in the Biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The angel to the left is recorded as having been painted by the youthful Leonardo, a fact which has excited so much special comment and mythology, that the importance and value of the picture as a whole and within the œuvre of Verrocchio is often overlooked. Modern critics also attribute much of the landscape in the background a
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    Painting: Annunciation
    1472 - 1475 (3 years 1 month)
    Annunciation is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Verrocchio, dating from circa 1472–1475. It is housed in the Uffizi gallery of Florence, Italy. The subject matter is drawn from Luke 1.26-39 and depicts the angel Gabriel, sent by God to announce to a virgin, Mary, that she would miraculously conceive and give birth to a son, to be named Jesus, and to be called "the Son of God" whose reign would never end. The subject was very popular for artworks and had been depicted many times in the art of Florence, including several examples by the Early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico. The details of its commission and its early history remain obscure. In 1867, following Gustav Waagen methods, Baron Lip
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    Considered one of the greatest painters of all time
    Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the "Mona Lisa" is the most famous and most parodied portrait and "The Last Supper" the most reproduced religious painting of all time. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived. The continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters, critics and historians is reflected in many other written tributes. Baldassare Castiglione, author of Il Cortegiano ("The Courtier"), wrote in 1528: "... Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled ..." while the biographer known as "Anonimo Gaddiano" wrote, c.1540: "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf ...". Th
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    Considered as the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man"
    "Renaissance man"—often applied to the gifted people of that age who sought to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, and physical. The term entered the lexicon in the twentieth century, and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance. "Renaissance man" was first recorded in written English in the early 20th century. It is now used to refer to great thinkers living before, during, or after the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without prec
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    Considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived
    Leonardo, was an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, a type of armored fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder and the machine for testing t
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    Credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter, and tank
    Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight for much of his life, producing many studies, including Codex on the Flight of Birds (c.1505), as well as plans for several flying machines such as a flapping ornithopter and a machine with a helical rotor. The British television station Channel Four commissioned a 2003 documentary, Leonardo's Dream Machines, in which various designs by Leonardo, such as a parachute and a giant crossbow, were interpreted, constructed and tested. Some of those designs proved successful, whilst others fared less well when practically tested. Helicopter: It was not until the early 1480s when Leonardo da Vinci created a design for a machine that could be described as an "aerial screw", that any recorded adva
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    Codex Urbinas
    1530
    Codex Urbinas also known as A Treatise on Painting is a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's writings entered in his notebooks under the general heading "On Painting". The manuscripts were gathered together by Francesco Melzi sometime before 1542 and first printed in French and Italian as Trattato della pittura by Raffaelo du Fresne in 1651. The main aim of the treatise was to argue that painting was a science. Leonardo's keen observation of expression and character is evidenced in his comparison of laughing and weeping, about which he notes that the only difference between the two emotions in terms of the "motion of the [facial] features" is "the ruffling of the brows, which is added in weeping, but more elevated and extended in laughing."
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    Codex Leicester
    1506 - 1510 (4 years 1 month)
    The Codex Leicester (also briefly known as Codex Hammer) is a collection of famous scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The Codex is named after Thomas Coke, later created Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1719. Of Leonardo's 30 scientific journals, the Codex may be the most famous of all. The manuscript holds the record for the sale price of any book, when it was sold to Bill Gates at Christie's auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for US$30,802,500. Equivalent to US$50,367,540.19 in July 2017. The Codex provides an insight into the inquiring mind of the definitive Renaissance artist, scientist, and thinker as well as an exceptional illustration of the link between art and science and the creativity of the scientific pr
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    Codex on the Flight of Birds
    1505
    Codex on the Flight of Birds is a relatively short codex of circa 1505. It comprises 18 folios and measures 21 × 15 centimeters. Now held at the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy, the codex begins with an examination of the flight behavior of birds and proposes mechanisms for flight by machines. Leonardo constructed a number of these machines and attempted to launch them from a hill near Florence. However, his efforts failed. In the codex, Leonardo notes for the first time that the center of gravity of a flying bird does not coincide with its center of pressure. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_on_the_Flight_of_Birds Image attribution: Luc Viator - Wikimedia Commons.
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    Codex Ashburnham
    1492
    The Codex Ashburnham is a collection of sheets with notes, sketches, and drawings by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The name Codex Ashburnham received the manuscript by the Earl of Ashburnham, who acquired it in the middle of the 19th century. The work consists of two volumes ( Codex Ashburnham I and II ) with a total of 44 sheets. Ashburnham I consists of 34 sheets in the format of about 15 cm × 22 cm, Ashburnham II of ten leaves in the format of 16 cm × 23 cm. The manuscripts are dated approximately from 1487 to 1490 and contain contributions to architecture, art and painting. Ashburnham II is devoted exclusively to painting. ---- Sources: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Ashburnham Image attributio
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    Codex Madrid
    1490 - 1504 (14 years 1 month)
    The Madrid Codices I–II (I – Ms. 8937 i II – Ms. 8936), are two manuscripts by Leonardo da Vinci which were discovered in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid in 1965 by Dr. Jules Piccus, Language Professor at the University of Massachusetts. The Madrid Codices I was finished during 1490 and 1499, and II from 1503 to 1505. The two codices were brought to Spain by Pompeo Leoni, a sculptor in the court of Philip II. After various changes of ownership, they were transferred to the monastic library of El Escorial and finally to the Biblioteca Real, where they remained unknown for 252 years. The two volumes, containing 197 pages, are bound in red leather. Topics discussed include mechanics, statics, geometry, and construction of fortifi
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    Paris Manuscripts
    1488 - 1505 (17 years 1 month)
    Paris Manuscripts were more than 2500 pages. 2 volumes labeled from "A" to "M", here listed in chronological order. B (1488–90; 84 folios): Notebook including designs for flying machines (including the “helicopter”), a submarine, centrally-planned churches and war machines. C (1490?1; 28 folios. One section missing.) Treatise on light and shade; also discusses the flow of water and percussion. A (c.?1492): Fragment of a larger MS which included the Codex Ashburnham II. Subjects covered include painting, perspective, water, and mechanics. H (1493–4; 142 folios): Three pocket notebooks bound together. Discusses Euclidean geometry and the design of drawing materials. M (the late 1490s–1500; 48 folios): A pocket notebook on geometry, ballisti
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    Codex Forster
    1487 - 1505 (18 years 1 month)
    The Codex Forster is a bound collection of sheets with notes, sketches, and drawings. The name Codex Forster was given the manuscript by the English writer and biographer John Forster (1812-1876), who left the work in 1876 to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Code consists of five manuscripts in three volumes (Forster I to III ) with a total of 354 sheets. It is dated approximately to the period 1493 to 1505. Leonardo wrote the text in the mirroring that was characteristic for him and provided him with numerous drawings and sketches. Five-pocket notebooks bound into three volumes, here listed in chronological order. I.2 (Milan, c.?1487–90): Discusses hydraulic engineering, the moving and raising of water and perpetual motion. III (Milan
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    Codex Trivulzianus
    1487 - 1490 (3 years 1 month)
    The Codex Trivulzianus is a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci that originally contained 62 sheets, but today only 55 remain. It documents Leonardo's attempts to improve his modest literary education, through long lists of learned words copied from authoritative lexical and grammatical sources. The manuscript also contains studies of military and religious architecture. The Codex Trivulzianus is kept at Sforza Castle in Milan, Italy, but is not normally available to the public. In the main museum, a room also contains frescos painted by Leonardo. ---- Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Trivulzianus Image attribution: Wikimedia Commons
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    Codex Arundel
    1480 - 1518 (38 years 1 month)
    Codex Arundel, (British Library, Arundel, 263) is a bound collection of pages of notes written by Leonardo da Vinci and dating mostly from between 1480 and 1518. The codex contains a number of treatises on a variety of subjects, including mechanics and geometry. The name of the codex came from the Earl of Arundel, who acquired it in Spain in the 1630s. It forms part of the British Library Arundel Manuscripts. The manuscript contains 283 paper leaves of various size, most of them approximately 22 cm x 16 cm. Only a few of the leaves are blank. Two folios, 100 and 101, were incorrectly numbered twice. The codex is a collection of Leonardo's manuscripts originating from every period in his working life, a span of 40 years from 1478 to 1518.
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    Codex Windsor
    1478 - 1518 (40 years 1 month)
    The Codex Windsor is a collection of drawings with artistic designs and studies on the anatomy. The name Codex Windsor received the manuscript through its repository, the Royal Collection in Windsor Castle. In the Royal Collection, the work has been in existence since the 17th century. The collection now consists of 606 individually cataloged sheets of different formats. They are dated approximately from 1478 to 1518. The texts and commentaries were written by Leonardo in the characteristic mirroring. The leaves contain contributions to art and painting, human, animal, plant and landscape studies, mechanics, weapon technology and anatomy. The 153 leaves with drawings on the anatomy were previously summarized in three volumes: Anatomical H
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    Codex Atlanticus
    1478 - 1519 (41 years 1 month)
    The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a twelve-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest such set; its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original da Vinci notebook pages, which was that used for atlases. It comprises 1,119 leaves dating from 1478 to 1519, the contents covering a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry to musical instruments and from mathematics to botany. This codex was gathered by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, son of Leone Leoni, in the late 16th century, who dismembered some of Leonardo's notebooks in its formation. It is currently preserved at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. The folios in the Codex Atlanticus deal with various subjects ranging