Summary
Chapter 1: Leonardo da Vinci was admired as an artist,
thinker and inventor in his own time, 500 years ago, and
he is still of great importance today. He was born in 1452
in Vinci, Italy, but moved to Florence as a young boy and
began learning how to be an artist under the guidance of a
painter and sculptor called Verrocchio. When he began to
work for himself, he took on a number of young boys as
pupils or assistants. The two most important were known
as Salai and Francesco. Leonardo was reported to be a
handsome, polite man and he was unusual for his time.
He was left-handed and curiously most of his writing
ran from right to left or backwards. Although Leonardo
considered himself to be a Florentine, he moved around
a great deal. He worked in Milan for a very powerful
man called Ludovico Sforza, where he not only painted
but also staged theatrical events, surveyed land and gave
advice on engineering problems. Next he went to Mantua
to paint for Isabella d’Este and then on to Venice before
returning to Florence. At this time his mind was filled
with geometry and some time later he started work as a
military engineer and architect. He later spent another
long period in Milan and finally a time in France, where
he died in 1519.
Chapter 2: In Leonardo’s time, art and science were
closely related and Leonardo was particularly interested in
understanding the rules of nature. He studied the effect of
light on the way we see things and this is reflected in his
paintings and drawings. He also wrote about the sun, the
moon and the stars and had a great interest in animals.
He sometimes talked of the world as a living body and
made notes and did drawings of different aspects of the
landscape. He was fascinated by all kinds of water and he
studied it in order to be able to paint it, but also to learn
how to control it. People were also the subject of many
of Leonardo’s paintings and he observed them carefully
so that he could paint them as they really were. He also
contributed to the growing field of anatomy by studying
how a body moves or cutting up bodies to see what
happens under the skin. For Leonardo, nature was both
beautiful and clever and a source of inspiration for his art.
Chapter 3: Leonardo painted both independently
and for other people throughout his life, but he often
failed to finish his paintings. He was innovative in his
techniques, and painted both on wooden boards and on
walls, creating what is known as a fresco. Portraits were
very popular at this time and Leonardo was famous for
painting very life-like images of people. One of Leonardo’s
earliest portraits is of Ginevra de’ Benci, the daughter of
a very rich Florentine, who was much admired for her
beauty and intelligence. Another portrait, The Lady with
an Ermine, shows Cecilia Gallerani, who was the lover
of Sforza, the most powerful man in Milan. Leonardo’s
Mona Lisa is probably the most famous painting in the
world today and it is surrounded by mystery. We are not
sure who the woman is or whether she was real. Many
people have wondered about the enigmatic smile she has
on her face. Leonardo also began a number of religious
paintings. One of these, The Virgin of the Rocks, he painted
twice and today one version can be seen in Paris and the
other in London. Another, The Last Supper shows Christ
eating with his pupils the night before his death. It was
repaired between 1977 and 1999 at a cost of $9 million.
Chapter 4: Many rich and powerful people supported
Leonardo’s studies and work. In Milan, Leonardo worked
on several theatrical events such as those held to celebrate
the marriage between the daughter of the king of Naples
and the governor of Milan and between Sforza and
Beatrice d’Este. He was also asked to make a huge bronze
sculpture of Sforza’s father with his horse. He did many
drawings and spent years making the model from clay
but unfortunately, it was destroyed by the French when
they took control of Milan in 1499. Leonardo went on to
work for Isabella d’Este at the court in Mantua. Although
Leonardo made two portrait drawings of Isabella, she
never managed to get the finished portrait or any other
painting from him despite insisting. Leonardo then began
work for the French in Milan and became known as
Louis XII’s ‘painter and official engineer.’ Next Leonardo moved to Rome to work for the Pope’s brother, Giuliano
de’ Medici and finally he moved to France to the court of
King Françoise I, where he was given lots of money and
work to do, and a house at Clos Lucé.
Chapter 5: Leonardo wrote to Sforza in 1483 listing his
talents and putting his skills as architect and engineer of
military equipment above those of artist. This was not
unusual at the time and Leonardo took on many projects
in these areas. He worked on two churches, one in Milan
and one in Pavia, and he was interested in making cities
safer and more beautiful places for people to live in. He
was involved in the design of comfortable, beautiful stables
for horses and great houses and gardens for rich men. He
studied the movement of water in order to control it and
make rivers and canals more useful for farming, transport
and military defence. In 1502, he also surveyed disputed
land for Borgia, leader of the Pope’s army, which was at
the time at war with Florence and later went on to advise
the Florentines in their fight against the Pisans.
Chapter 6: Leonardo also liked making games and
machines for people’s pleasure. Taking inspiration from
his study of birds, he thought of different designs that
would allow a person to fly. It wasn’t until hundreds of
years after his death that anybody matched those ideas.
He was also well before his time in his design of boats to
move through water and equipment that would allow a
person to stay under the water. He loved word, picture
and number games too and invented machines to amuse
people at court. He was always jumping from one subject
to another and it was maybe because of this that he often
failed to finish a project. Despite this, Leonardo was often
paid great sums of money or given expensive gifts by
the people he worked for, a reflection of the admiration
they felt for him. Leonardo is often referred to today as a
‘Renaissance man’, a person who brought together diverse
ideas in a clever, useful and beautiful way
