101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci Read online

  101 THINGS

  YOU DIDN'T

  KNOW ABOUT

  Da Vinci

  The Secrets of the World's Most Eccentric

  and Innovative Genius Revealed!

  SHANA PRIWER

  &

  CYNTHIA PHILLIPS, PH.D.

  Adams Media

  Avon, Massachusetts

  To our children, Zoecyn, Elijah, and Benjamin

  Copyright © 2005, F+W Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  Published by Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company

  57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322

  www.adamsmedia.com.

  ISBN: 1-59337-346-5

  Printed in Canada.

  J I H G F E D C B

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  Part 1: IN THE BEGINNING…

  1. Where it all began: Vinci, Italy

  2. The mamas and the papas, and everyone in between

  3. “Current events” in fifteenth-century Italy

  4. The life you're born into

  5. Siblings of a genius

  6. It's all relative

  7. Youthful adventures

  8. Get to work! Leonardo's early training

  9. What did they do before there were bookstores?

  10. Apprenticeship, or learning from your elders

  11. Turning dust into gold: Early painting experience

  12. Getting off to a good start

  13. The Company of Painters: Membership has its privileges

  14. Striking out on his own

  15. The rebirth of Italy

  16. Renaissance religion

  17. Don't forget the golden oldies

  18. Show me the money!

  19. The importance of being sponsored

  20. The Lorenzo the Magnificent

  21. Playing up to the duke

  22. Look out, it's Cesare Borgia!

  23. The best of the Louis

  24. Don't mess with the pope

  25. François I, King of France and friend of Leonardo

  26. Da Vinci University

  Part 2: THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST

  27. Early sculpture: A celebration in three dimensions

  28. Form, function, and the whole nine yards

  29. A horse is a horse, of course, of course

  30. Draw up a chair!

  31. The scene behind the scene

  32. Finish that painting! Leonardo and the fine art of completion

  33. Building the scene-scape

  34. An architecture of the imagination

  35. It's all in the details

  36. Monks and lawyers and artists, oh my!

  37. The life and times of The Last Supper

  38. There's something about Lisa

  39. Oldies but goodies

  40. Building the Renaissance

  41. The Milan dome

  42. Order in the Church!

  43. San Giovanni Church: Closer to heaven

  44. Build it and they will come: Designs for other public structures

  45. Military architecture, the design of defense

  46. He built this city

  Part 3: WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

  47. Observe and understand

  48. Love that body!

  49. From the inside out: Studies of human systems

  50. Fawning over flora

  51. The perfect man

  52. Getting physical with science

  53. It's all in the circle game

  54. Before planes, trains, and automobiles

  55. War games

  56. Building a better … cannon?

  57. Leonardo's robot

  58. Chutes (we already covered ladders)

  59. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a flying machine!

  60. Leonardo's whirlybird

  61. The world before Xerox

  62. Under the boardwalk, down by the sea

  63. Containing the forces of nature

  64. Harnessing the power of water

  65. The ocean liners of the future

  66. Around and around we go

  67. Gone with the Schwinn

  68. A coach fit for a king

  Part 4: WRITING, DRAWING, AND MUSIC

  69. The Leonardo diaries

  70. Every binder needs a few dividers

  71. And the lucky winner is …

  72. Decoding the codices

  73. Say cheese!

  74. It's like looking in a mirror

  75. Write to the point

  76. Bringing down the house

  Part 5: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, AND WHAT ELSE

  77. Michelangelo: The Renaissance's “other great artist”

  78. The young master Raphael

  79. Botticelli on a half-shell

  80. Titian: His own personal giant

  81. Machiavelli: The literary prince of the Renaissance

  82. Talking about a religious revolution

  83. Center of the universe

  84. Leonardo on the analyst's couch

  Part 6: THE WRITING ON THE WALL

  85. Vegetable soup for a gentle soul

  86. Highly personal accusations

  87. Amigos, compadres … lovers?

  88. Let's talk about sex

  89. Warning: Genius at work

  90. Minor errors of a major genius

  91. Why be normal?

  92. Crazy like a fox

  93. More than meets the eye

  94. “R-e-s-p-e-c-t”

  95. Sincerest form of flattery

  96. A horse of a different color

  97. In the beginning, there was religion

  98. It's all in the name!

  99. In sickness and in health

  100. Leonardo da Vinci: The Renaissance man

  101. The real deal on The Da Vinci Code

  WORKS CITED

  Introduction

  Everyone's heard of Leonardo da Vinci—he painted the Mona Lisa, he was the first Renaissance man, and didn't he write in some kind of code? But there's much more to Leonardo than that! Did you know that he was one of the first people to make detailed anatomical drawings? Or that he designed one of the first robots? Leonardo da Vinci was not only an amazing artist, he was also a talented scientist, inventor, and musician. Was there anything he wasn't good at? Indeed, Leonardo rarely failed at anything—except he did have a problem finishing what he started!

  Leonardo came from less than extraordinary beginnings. He was born in 1452, to a young unmarried couple in the Tuscany region of Italy. Both his parents married other peopl
e and eventually had seventeen more children, but none of Leonardo's half siblings went on to become particularly famous. Clearly, Leonardo was special.

  By the time he was sixteen, Leonardo's artistic talents were becoming obvious, and his father apprenticed him to a leading artist in Florence. When Leonardo painted a small angel in one of his boss's paintings, he did such a good job that his master supposedly took one look and swore he'd give up painting forever! Leonardo certainly knew how to make an impression.

  Throughout his long career, Leonardo worked for everyone from kings and dukes to warlords. He wasn't just a painter, either—he traveled as a military engineer with the infamous Cesare Borgia, using his genius to create machines of war. During more peaceful times, Leonardo was fond of making mathematical discoveries, investigating the secrets of the human body, and inventing parachutes. In his spare time, he even came up with plans to divert an entire river!

  In spite of these endeavors, Leonardo is mostly famous today for his paintings, though only a handful of his finished works survive. Leonardo started countless projects, but finished only a few. Even the paintings he did manage to finish suffered from his constant innovation. In fact, most of Leonardo's inventions weren't ever built—he would come up with an amazing design, work on it for a while, and then when he was satisfied that it might work (or was just plain bored), he'd move on to something else. Luckily for us, Leonardo wrote about these unfinished projects in his detailed notebooks.

  Even during the Renaissance, it was clear that Leonardo was a genius. But when we look at his accomplishments today, the breadth of his talents is even more remarkable. Not only did he paint one of the most amazing and talked-about paintings of all time, the Mona Lisa, he came up with designs for a helicopter, a mechanical loom, a car, a bicycle, and a multi-barreled gun!

  Leonardo really is the definition of a Renaissance man: He was not just good at what he did, he was a groundbreaking innovator. Many of his designs would have revolutionized society if they'd been built during his time. Of course, that was one of Leonardo's biggest problems—he was ahead of his time. Although it would have been impossible to build many of his inventions with the limited resources available during the Renaissance, when models have been built in modern times, they've worked perfectly. Imagine what he could have accomplished with modern technology!

  Fasten your seatbelts, sit back, relax, and enjoy this tour through the phenomenal accomplishments of one of the most amazing people ever to live!

  Part 1

  IN THE BEGINNING

  One of the Renaissance's favorite sons had a less-than-spectacular start in life. Born the illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant girl in a small town near Florence, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci soon rose to fame as no one else could (or did). His family, his surroundings in the Tuscan countryside, and the time of his birth all influenced Leonardo's formative years—the early years of the burgeoning Italian Renaissance.

  Because of his illegitimate birth, Leonardo didn't have to follow in his father's footsteps. He was able to spend much of his childhood studying exactly what he wanted, rather than what he was told to; he spent years looking at and drawing the world around him. Later, Leonardo's apprenticeship in Andrea Verrocchio's workshop had an enormous impact on his artistic and scientific works. Once he “graduated” to doing his own projects, he incorporated many of the Renaissance's rapidly evolving themes. At the time Leonardo entered Verrocchio's workshop, Florence was the hub of a bustling new world of intellectual expression, trade, banking, and other innovations. As Europe burst out of the stagnant Middle Ages into a flowering period full of promise, Leonardo da Vinci was at the center.

  1

  Where it all began: Vinci, Italy

  Every good story has an eventful beginning, and this one begins with the birth of a child named Leonardo in Italy, on April 15, 1452. In those days, it was customary for Renaissance Italians to take the name of their birth city as part of their full identification. And so Leonardo, by virtue of being born in Vinci, was known as Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo from Vinci).

  Vinci is located about fifty kilometers to the west of Florence, deep in the Luscany region. Vinci is also near Pisa (home of the famed Leaning Tower), as well as Siena and Lucca. Long before the Renaissance, Vinci was home to the Etruscans and contained many ancient castles, including the Castello Guidi (built for the Conti Guidi during the Middle Ages). The town's rolling green countryside must have been a source of inspiration for Leonardo's budding artistic talent. Surrounded by such beauty, who wouldn't be moved to draw it?

  However, not everyone thinks Leonardo actually came from Vinci. One theory holds Leonardo was actually born in Anchiano, a town located about three kilometers from Vinci. Why? For one thing, Da Vinci's family supposedly lived there. Anchiano also boasts a farmhouse that many people think is where Leonardo first entered this world, fittingly nicknamed the Casa Natale di Leonardo (which literally means “the birth house of Leonardo”). Today, the farmhouse is home to a permanent exhibit of Leonardo's drawings and other works. Restored in the mid-1980s, the house is decorated with many of Leonardo's landscape paintings—so if nothing else, it's a great place to see Leonardo's work!

  Even if Leonardo was actually born in Anchiano, he clearly spent much of his childhood in Vinci. Vinci today is the home of the Leonardo Museum, which occupies part of the Castello dei Conti Guidi. The castle was converted into a museum in 1953 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's birth. The main exhibit includes some of Leonardo's machine designs and models, including cranes, winches, clocks, and helicopters.

  Sketches, notes, sculptures, and other descriptions of how the machines might have worked accompany them.

  In addition to this museum, there are other points of interest in Vinci. It's home to the Santa Croce Church, which boasts Leonardo's rumored baptismal font. A new museum is also being planned; this facility will be devoted to Leonardo's paintings, as a complement to the existing museum, which focuses on his inventions.

  Modern-day Vinci continues to hold yearly festivals that celebrate Leonardo and his artistic legacy. Today, the town is home to about 14,000 people.

  2

  The mamas and the papas, and everyone in between

  As explained in this book's introduction, Leonardo's parents were not married. Aside from that, who were these people who gave birth to one of the greatest artistic minds of all time? His mother, Caterina, was a sixteen-year-old peasant girl; his father, twenty-five-year-old Ser Piero di Antonio, was a notary. A wedding was forbidden between the two young lovers because of their class difference, and Ser Piero was quickly married off to a more appropriate mate, Albiera. Caterina also married a few months after Leonardo's birth.

  Like Leonardo himself, his mother led a life of mystery. She may have been a slave of Middle Eastern ancestry. Slave ownership was common in Luscany at that time, and slaves who had converted to Christianity from Eastern, pagan, or Jewish religions often took the name Caterina. It's even possible that Caterina was Ser Piero's slave!

  While Ser Piero's father was a farmer, Ser Piero's family included lots of notaries. At that time, the position of notary was similar to a lawyer, and Ser Piero had a relatively privileged position in society. Because he was illegitimate, though, Leonardo shared none of his father's privilege. Even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't have followed in his father's footsteps. Luckily, this turned out to be the best thing that could have happened! Leonardo was free to pursue life as an artist.

  Although we don't know much about Leonardo's early days, we do know his father wasn't rich enough to afford a wet nurse. Consequently, Leonardo probably lived with his mother during his first few years so that she could nurse him. Then, somewhere between the age of three and five, Leonardo went to live with his father and step-mother. Notes from Leonardo's grandfather Antonio show that five-year-old Leonardo was living with his father at his grandfather's house in 1457. But Leonardo spent little time with Ser Piero, who was often away on business in F
lorence.

  So who affected Leonardo as a child? It seems that his greatest influence was his uncle Francesco. (Leonardo and his uncle were so close that Francesco even remembered him in his will.) Ser Piero's brother Francesco was a farmer, and when Leonardo was with him, he would have gotten to spend quite a bit of time outside. While he probably had to help tend to the animals, he would have also had time to observe and sketch nature and landscapes.

  Both Caterina and Ser Piero had a number of other children, eventually leaving Leonardo with a whopping seventeen half brothers and sisters: twelve children from his father and five from his mother. Now that is one big extended family! The births of these other children were spread out over the years—Ser Piero's first legitimate son was born twenty-four years after Leonardo's birth, which explains why Leonardo was treated as a legitimate son of Ser Piero's household.

  Caterina remained in the Vinci area for most of her life, although she came to live with Leonardo in Milan in 1493. She resided there with her son, until her death in 1495.

  3

  “Current events” in fifteenth-century Italy

  Even before Leonardo's birth, pre-Renaissance Italy was gearing up for a dramatic shift from the Middle Ages. While most of the heavy hitters were yet to come, Italy was rapidly becoming a hot spot for invention and innovation. Many of the world's best-known artists rose to fame in the years before Leonardo, and their efforts made Leonardo's own success possible.

  Historically speaking, fourteenth-century Italy was a mishmash of city-states. Italy still had a long way to go before it would become a single, united country—this unification didn't occur until the mid-nineteenth century. Small political groups were constantly battling each other, leading to a fairly unstable atmosphere. Feudalism, a two-tiered system of lords and peasants, provided yet another reason for discontent. Do you think such hostility would have made it impossible for artists to break out with new styles? Not at all—artists were actually responsible for helping to reshape Western European society. Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Alberti, and later Leonardo were all artists who created a cultural connection between feudalism's two class extremes.