Leonardo da Vinci rotorcraft 1475. Leonardo da Vinci - biography, interesting facts

In Northern Italy there is a wonderful city of Florence. There are many beautiful stone bridges across the river on the banks of which it stands. Pay attention to the Ponte Vecchio bridge, near which there are numerous shops with windows overlooking the river. If you look into any of them, you will see almost the same thing as the brilliant Leonardo da Vinci.

He was 16 years old when he came to Florence with the goal of becoming the best artist in the whole world. In principle, he achieved his goal. But not only in the field of painting: the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci still haunt historians and researchers, since they were far ahead of their time, no matter how incredible it may sound.

The World of Leonardo's Age

Florence, which was surrounded by nature of wondrous beauty, must surely have become a real discovery for the young genius. His path lay from the town of Vinci, which is located just one day from the city. Even today this village looks exactly the same as it did 500 years ago. Leonardo was so amazed by the local beauty that he spent hours admiring the leisurely flow of the river and observing the habits of the numerous birds that nest in these places to this day.

If you have ever visited the exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, which is regularly held in Florence, then you yourself will easily notice the abundance of “bird” motifs in many of his works.

In general, he was distinguished by a love for our smaller brothers, rare for that time: contemporaries say that one of his favorite pastimes was to buy several cages with birds at the market, and then release them all into the wild. It must be said that the influence of nature, its forms and proportions can be traced in all subsequent works of the master, so that his youthful hobby turned out to be extremely useful in his mature years.

The beginning of Leonardo's life

He was born on April 15, 1452. Just 40 years later, Columbus would discover America, but even this event is unlikely to overshadow the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, which contemporaries considered some to be a miracle and some to be the tricks of the Evil One. From a young age, he had a pronounced inclination towards science, but the small village could not quench his indomitable thirst for knowledge for long. In 1469, his father sent his talented son to apprentice with the sculptor Andrea Verrochio.

In general, the short biography of Leonardo da Vinci, which is given in most textbooks, did not preserve any other data about the initial period of his life.

He was very famous, and his works were very popular even at the court of the rulers of Florence. At that time, the Renaissance reigned, when the position of the Church weakened, and scientists, sculptors and artists could do what they loved without the risk of being roasted at the inquisitorial fire.

The standard of living has increased, many people have moved to cities. Florence, already a large and beautiful city, was literally filled with talented artists and merchants. Sculptors, painters and blacksmiths worked in Verrochio's workshop, producing magnificent works of art that captured the imagination of contemporaries and still delight us today.

The artist's craft, already difficult, required remarkable knowledge of mechanics and physics.

While working as an apprentice, Leonardo quickly became familiar with numerous systems for carrying and transporting heavy loads, which greatly helped him in his future career. Almost all of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions carry easily recognizable features that anyone can notice when examining reproductions of paintings that depicted the workshops of that time.

Early works of Leonardo

At just 20 years old, the young genius became a full member of the Florence Guild of Artists, which in those days was the same as if someone at the same age took the main post in the Large Hadron Collider project. In a word, the boy was not just talented, but simply brilliant. It was he who complemented the work of his teacher Verrocchio, “The Baptism of Christ.” The angel on the left side of the canvas, as well as significant pieces of the landscape, belong to his brush.

It should be noted that there was nothing unusual in the practice of using students to paint paintings: many paintings of the Renaissance, which “de jure” belonged to the brushes of the great masters of that period, were actually painted by their students (Rembrandt, in particular, in his time was engaged in precisely this).

In the above-mentioned painting, Leonardo first demonstrated to the world his originality and fresh vision of problems. Thus, he first began to use oil paints, thanks to which he quickly managed to create his own style in painting and surpassed his teacher. Some believe that the student’s success aroused Verrochio’s envy, but contemporaries say that the old teacher was sincerely glad to transfer part of his affairs into reliable hands. Around the same time, Leonardo gradually began to work on his own projects and paintings.

In those years, the works of artists were divided into only two categories: religious motifs and landscapes. But this was clearly not enough for the young talent. One of Leonardo's first works was a simple pencil sketch called "The Arno Valley". Despite its apparent simplicity, this is a real masterpiece: the observer literally sees and feels in it the movement of leaves, the flow of water and the rustle of the wind. In short, Leonardo not only departed from the generally accepted canons of depiction, but also created his own style, which no one has been able to replicate to this day.

But over time, the genius’s paintings became more and more complex and perfect. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​applying the thinnest layers of oil paint one on top of the other, which gave the paintings a kind of “smokiness” and indescribable charm. In principle, the master himself called this technique “enveloping in haze.” He learned to convey colors so naturally that many of his paintings are simply photographic in accuracy.

In general, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci still shock both experienced art critics and chemists. Some of the compositions of his paints are still being deciphered to this day.

Ambition in the field of invention

14 years passed, which were completely devoted to Florence. The active Leonard became bored. But he always said that all the time he spent in Florence allowed him to become a truly great artist and inventor. Be that as it may, Leonardo soon has the opportunity to apply his efforts to another project.

It all started with the fact that neighboring Milan was threatened by enemies, and Leonardo da Vinci (whose era was not characterized by calm) got the idea to create his own project to effectively protect the city from a possible attack. At that time, the ruler of Milan was Francesco Sforza. Da Vinci wrote a letter to him in which he praised his ability to make cannons, catapults, warships, and other military equipment.

The ambitious Leonardo wanted to do something more than painting. But he soon discovered that his employer was more interested in turning Milan into a city as beautiful as Florence. And the genius again had to return to the path of sculptor and the craft of an artist. Fortunately, because otherwise we would have lost numerous of his works, which today are the property of all mankind.

What were the main inventions of Leonardo da Vinci? The list is far from complete, but here they are:

• Tank project.
• Drawings of airplanes, helicopters, balloons.
• Leonardo da Vinci invented the alarm clock (he was always on the short side with mechanics).
• First mentions, schematic sketches of steam locomotives.
• Several dozen unique techniques in painting and sculpture that still cannot be repeated.
• Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors. According to legend, he came up with the idea of ​​connecting two small knives using screws. Why he decided to conduct such an experiment, history is silent. However, the invention turned out to be very useful.
• Incredibly accurate and detailed anatomical atlases, based on the model and likeness of which all modern analogues are created.
• Advanced sewerage and storm drainage schemes.

It is possible to continue listing the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, the list of which we have given in a thousandfold truncated form. He truly was a genius.

Immortal creations of Leonardo

These, in particular, include a number of his creations, which we will discuss below. So, let's list the especially outstanding ones.

Bronze horse

The first “party task” of Leonardo da Vinci, whose discoveries still amaze the world, was the creation of a monument that would depict Father Sforzi sitting astride a horse. An ambitious inventor and sculptor planned to make it so that the whole world would admire its genius. He spent 11 years working on developments, as a result of which a “model” of a clay horse was born, the height of which was almost nine meters. The bronze copy came out much more modest.

"Last Supper"

One of the most mysterious and famous creations of Leonardo to this day is the painting “The Last Supper”. During the Second World War, a bomb hit the monastery on whose walls it was painted, but did not explode. But it was this projectile that broke off pieces of plaster on the walls, as a result of which researchers for the first time in several centuries saw Leonardo’s creation, which by that time needed high-quality restoration.

In general, paintings by Leonardo da Vinci are still discovered from time to time in various parts of Italy. Perhaps great discoveries of his new paintings are still awaiting us.

"Mona Lisa"

In 1500, the artist returned from Milan to Florence, where three years later he created the truly brilliant painting “Mona Lisa”. The mystery of the painting is in some incredible technique: the smile of the girl depicted in the painting looks incredibly realistic. No matter how many times artists try to repeat this technique, they still don’t succeed.

Engineering

In 1506, Leonardo da Vinci (discoveries in various scientific fields intensified during this period) moved to Milan again. At that time, the city was under French control, so the inventor went to the commander of the French army, Charles d'Amboise. For the next seven years, he practically did not paint, but spent a lot of time studying mechanics, anatomy and mathematics in depth. Thus, it was his inquisitive mind that created the project for draining the Pontine swamp. Tellingly, his plan turned out to be the most realistic and least expensive, so the drainage was carried out precisely according to his recommendations.

Entertainment of the courtiers

In Milan, Leonardo's time was almost entirely occupied by a wide variety of projects. He continued to paint, took on a variety of projects, but often did not complete them. In addition, he often wrote songs and plays, which he often showed to the rulers of Milan. He was also responsible for creating scenery and costumes at the time when carnivals were planned.

Leonardo da Vinci was such a multifaceted person. What else has this restless designer invented?

Military designer

He was passionate about creating all kinds of military vehicles: tanks and shells with improved ballistics, new bombs for mortars. In addition, he was designing fortresses that could survive long-term sieges. Of course, he could implement no more than a tenth of his bold projects, since most of them were significantly ahead of their time, and therefore the technology for their construction simply did not yet exist. For example, the first tanks were built only 450 years after he drew drawings of such machines.

However, with equal success Leonardo was also interested in completely peaceful projects. Thus, the sewerage project in Milan belongs to him. He designed the sewage system in such a way that sewage could not cause subsequent epidemics among the townspeople.

Great anatomist

Leonardo da Vinci made his greatest contribution to anatomy, since he was responsible for hundreds of studies of the human body, carried out in amazing detail and with high quality. However, for artists of that time, the study of anatomy was a completely natural phenomenon, but only Leonardo became interested not only in appearance, but also in the mechanics of the human body.

Even though the Church was sharply against this method of obtaining new knowledge, he carried out dozens of resections and studied hundreds of organs of people belonging to different classes, different genders, ages and physiological conditions.

His descriptions of anatomical experiments showed that in his research he sometimes went further than some anatomists of the 19th century. But the most remarkable thing is that he made magnificent sketches of his experiments. He was the first to make an absolutely accurate drawing of an opened human body with an embryo inside.

The umbilical cord was captured by him down to the smallest detail. Leonardo was one of the first to make cross-sectional sketches of the human body, giving names to each individual part. It should be noted that this method continues to be used today.

The researcher paid special attention to the human eye, and therefore, long before his contemporaries, he described the fundamental laws of optics. Thus, he was the first to make a brilliant assumption about the refraction of light in the lens of the eye of animals and humans. Leonardo wrote in his diary that the eye lens is a kind of lens that is attached to the brain by attaching through the orbital nerve.

Flying in dreams and in reality

As we wrote at the very beginning of the article, he was very interested in birds. It is not surprising that many of his works are devoted to finding methods of flight, thanks to which a person could take to the skies. It was he who owned the designs of the first helicopters (helicopters), airplanes and balloons.

As you may have noticed, Leonardo da Vinci’s whole life is closely connected with the sky: he loved birds, loved to create designs for all kinds of aeronautical mechanisms.

The last years of a genius

When the creator turned sixty, he suddenly discovered that he simply did not have enough money. This is strange, since almost all talented sculptors and artists of that time had many wealthy sponsors. Why didn't Leonardo have them?

The fact is that he had the reputation of being a gifted, but very absent-minded genius. Even if Leonardo da Vinci (whose history knows many similar episodes) took on some project, no one could guarantee that he would complete it and not abandon it halfway. Perhaps this is why he created no more than a dozen paintings in his entire life.

At approximately the age of 60, da Vinci painted a self-portrait (in the article). He makes it with a simple red crayon. The portrait shows a very aged man, with sad eyes, wrinkled skin and a long white beard. Was Leonardo lonely in his last years, was he disappointed that not all of his projects were considered feasible by his contemporaries? Alas, we will probably never know this.

This brilliant scientist died at the age of 67. This happened on May 2, 1519. He spent the last two years of his life at the court of the French monarch, as he truly appreciated science and everything that Leonardo did for its development. Thus ends the short biography of Leonardo da Vinci.

Mirror writing and diaries

After his death, they were able to find more than five thousand pages of notes and a wide variety of diaries. What immediately caught my eye was the mirror writing with which Leonardo carefully encrypted his notes. Who might need to read them? From whom did the old scientist defend himself with such energy?

Let us not forget that even during the Renaissance, the Church was still an extremely powerful organization. Almost everything that Leonardo wrote could easily be interpreted as “devilishness.” However, the scientist had surprisingly good relationships with many high-ranking members of the clergy, and therefore some scholars suggest that Leonardo simply had his own quirks, writing down his notes in this way.

This theory is supported by the fact that deciphering a “mirror” letter is not particularly difficult. It is unlikely that the churchmen, if they really set themselves such a goal, would not be able to read it.

Thus, the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci left a deep mark on culture and art, science and technology, and in all other spheres of life of modern society.

During the Renaissance there were many brilliant sculptors, artists, musicians, and inventors. Leonardo da Vinci stands out against their background. He created musical instruments, he owned many engineering inventions, painted paintings, sculptures and much more.

His external characteristics are also amazing: tall height, angelic appearance and extraordinary strength. Let's get acquainted with the genius Leonardo da Vinci; a short biography will tell about his main achievements.

Biography facts

He was born near Florence in the small town of Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a famous and wealthy notary. His mother is an ordinary peasant woman. Since the father had no other children, at the age of 4 he took little Leonardo to live with him. The boy demonstrated his extraordinary intelligence and friendly character from a very early age, and he quickly became a favorite in the family.

To understand how the genius of Leonardo da Vinci developed, a brief biography can be presented as follows:

1. At the age of 14 he entered Verrocchio's workshop, where he studied drawing and sculpture.
2. In 1480 he moved to Milan, where he founded the Academy of Arts.
3. In 1499, he left Milan and began moving from city to city, where he built defensive structures. During this same period, his famous rivalry with Michelangelo began.
4. Since 1513 he has been working in Rome. Under Francis I, he becomes a court sage.

Leonardo died in 1519. As he believed, nothing he started was ever completed.

Creative path

The work of Leonardo da Vinci, whose brief biography was outlined above, can be divided into three stages.

1. Early period. Many works of the great painter were unfinished, such as the “Adoration of the Magi” for the monastery of San Donato. During this period, the paintings “Benois Madonna” and “Annunciation” were painted. Despite his young age, the painter already demonstrated high skill in his paintings.
2. Leonardo's mature period of creativity took place in Milan, where he planned to make a career as an engineer. The most popular work written at this time was The Last Supper, and at the same time he began work on the Mona Lisa.
3. In the late period of creativity, the painting “John the Baptist” and a series of drawings “The Flood” were created.

Painting always complemented science for Leonardo da Vinci, as he sought to capture reality.

Inventions

A short biography cannot fully convey Leonardo da Vinci's contribution to science. However, we can note the most famous and valuable discoveries of the scientist.

1. He made his greatest contribution to mechanics, as can be seen from his many drawings. Leonardo da Vinci studied the fall of a body, the centers of gravity of pyramids and much more.
2. He invented a car made of wood, which was driven by two springs. The car mechanism was equipped with a brake.
3. He came up with a spacesuit, fins and a submarine, as well as a way to dive to depth without using a spacesuit with a special gas mixture.
4. The study of dragonfly flight has led to the creation of several variants of wings for humans. The experiments were unsuccessful. However, then the scientist came up with a parachute.
5. He was involved in developments in the military industry. One of his proposals was chariots with cannons. He came up with a prototype of an armadillo and a tank.
6. Leonardo da Vinci made many developments in construction. Arch bridges, drainage machines and cranes are all his inventions.

There is no man like Leonardo da Vinci in history. That is why many consider him an alien from other worlds.

Five secrets of da Vinci

Today, many scientists are still puzzling over the legacy left by the great man of the past era. Although it’s not worth calling Leonardo da Vinci that way, he predicted a lot, and foresaw even more, creating his unique masterpieces and amazing with his breadth of knowledge and thought. We offer you five secrets of the great Master that help lift the veil of secrecy over his works.

Encryption

The master encrypted a lot in order not to present ideas openly, but to wait a little until humanity “ripened and grew up” to them. Equally good with both hands, da Vinci wrote with his left hand, in the smallest font, and even from right to left, and often in mirror image. Riddles, metaphors, puzzles - this is what is found on every line, in every work. Never signing his works, the Master left his marks, visible only to an attentive researcher. For example, after many centuries, scientists discovered that by looking closely at his paintings, you can find a symbol of a bird taking off. Or the famous “Benois Madonna,” found among traveling actors who carried the canvas as a home icon.

Sfumato

The idea of ​​dispersion also belongs to the great mystifier. Take a closer look at the canvases, all the objects do not reveal clear edges, just like in life: the smooth flow of one image into another, blurriness, dispersion - everything breathes, lives, awakening fantasies and thoughts. By the way, the Master often advised practicing such vision, peering into water stains, mud deposits or piles of ash. Often he deliberately fumigated his work areas with smoke in order to see in the clubs what was hidden beyond the reasonable eye.

Look at the famous painting - the smile of the “Mona Lisa” from different angles, sometimes tender, sometimes slightly arrogant and even predatory. The knowledge gained through the study of many sciences gave the Master the opportunity to invent perfect mechanisms that are becoming available only now. For example, this is the effect of wave propagation, the penetrating power of light, oscillatory motion... and many things still need to be analyzed not even by us, but by our descendants.

Analogies

Analogies are the main thing in all the works of the Master. The advantage over accuracy, when a third follows from two conclusions of the mind, is the inevitability of any analogy. And Da Vinci still has no equal in his whimsicality and drawing absolutely mind-blowing parallels. One way or another, all of his works have some ideas that are not consistent with each other: the famous “golden ratio” illustration is one of them. With limbs spread and apart, a person fits into a circle, with his arms closed into a square, and with his arms slightly raised into a cross. It was this kind of “mill” that gave the Florentine magician the idea of ​​​​creating churches, where the altar was placed exactly in the middle, and the worshipers stood in a circle. By the way, engineers liked this same idea - this is how the ball bearing was born.

Contrapposto

The definition denotes the opposition of opposites and the creation of a certain type of movement. An example is the sculpture of a huge horse in Corte Vecchio. There, the animal’s legs are positioned precisely in the contrapposto style, forming a visual understanding of the movement.

Incompleteness

This is perhaps one of the Master’s favorite “tricks”. None of his works are finite. To complete is to kill, and da Vinci loved every one of his creations. Slow and meticulous, the hoaxer of all times could take a couple of brush strokes and go to the valleys of Lombardy to improve the landscapes there, switch to creating the next masterpiece device, or something else. Many works turned out to be spoiled by time, fire or water, but each of the creations, at least meaning something, was and is “unfinished”. By the way, it is interesting that even after the damage, Leonardo da Vinci never corrected his paintings. Having created his own paint, the artist even deliberately left a “window of incompleteness,” believing that life itself would make the necessary adjustments.

What was art before Leonardo da Vinci? Born among the rich, it fully reflected their interests, their worldview, their views on man and the world. The works of art were based on religious ideas and themes: affirmation of those views on the world that the church taught, depiction of scenes from sacred history, instilling in people a sense of reverence, admiration for the “divine” and consciousness of their own insignificance. The dominant theme also determined the form. Naturally, the image of the “saints” was very far from the images of real living people, therefore, schemes, artificiality, and staticity dominated in art. The people in these paintings were a kind of caricature of living people, the landscape is fantastic, the colors are pale and inexpressive. True, even before Leonardo, his predecessors, including his teacher Andrea Verrocchio, were no longer satisfied with the template and tried to create new images. They had already begun the search for new methods of depiction, began to study the laws of perspective, and thought a lot about the problems of achieving expressiveness in the image.

However, these searches for something new did not yield great results, primarily because these artists did not have a sufficiently clear idea of ​​the essence and tasks of art and knowledge of the laws of painting. That is why they fell again into schematism, then into naturalism, which is equally dangerous for genuine art, copying individual phenomena of reality. The significance of the revolution made by Leonardo da Vinci in art and in particular in painting is determined primarily by the fact that he was the first to clearly, clearly and definitely establish the essence and tasks of art. Art should be deeply life-like and realistic. It must come from a deep, careful study of reality and nature. It must be deeply truthful, must depict reality as it is, without any artificiality or falsehood. Reality, nature is beautiful in itself and does not need any embellishment. The artist must carefully study nature, but not to blindly imitate it, not to simply copy it, but in order to create works, having understood the laws of nature, the laws of reality; strictly comply with these laws. To create new values, values ​​of the real world - this is the purpose of art. This explains Leonardo's desire to connect art and science. Instead of simple, casual observation, he considered it necessary to systematically, persistently study the subject. It is known that Leonardo never parted with the album and wrote drawings and sketches in it.

They say that he loved to walk through the streets, squares, markets, noting everything interesting - people’s poses, faces, their expressions. Leonardo's second requirement for painting is the requirement for the truthfulness of the image, its vitality. The artist must strive for the most accurate representation of reality in all its richness. At the center of the world stands a living, thinking, feeling person. It is he who must be depicted in all the richness of his feelings, experiences and actions. For this purpose, it was Leonardo who studied human anatomy and physiology; for this purpose, as they say, he gathered peasants he knew in his workshop and, treating them, told them funny stories in order to see how people laugh, how the same event causes people have different impressions. If before Leonardo there was no real man in painting, now he has become dominant in the art of the Renaissance. Hundreds of Leonardo's drawings provide a gigantic gallery of types of people, their faces, and parts of their bodies. Man in all the diversity of his feelings and actions is the task of artistic depiction. And this is the power and charm of Leonardo’s painting. Forced by the conditions of the time to paint pictures mainly on religious subjects, because his customers were the church, feudal lords and rich merchants, Leonardo powerfully subordinates these traditional subjects to his genius and creates works of universal significance. The Madonnas painted by Leonardo are, first of all, an image of one of the deeply human feelings - the feeling of motherhood, the boundless love of a mother for her baby, admiration and admiration for him. All his Madonnas are young, blooming women full of life, all the babies in his paintings are healthy, full-cheeked, playful boys, in whom there is not an ounce of “holiness.”

His apostles in The Last Supper are living people of different ages, social status, and different characters; in appearance they are Milanese artisans, peasants, and intellectuals. Striving for truth, the artist must be able to generalize what he finds individual and must create the typical. Therefore, even when painting portraits of certain historically known people, such as Mona Lisa Gioconda, the wife of a bankrupt aristocrat, Florentine merchant Francesco del Gioconda, Leonardo gives them, along with individual portrait features, a typical feature common to many people. That is why the portraits he painted survived the people depicted in them for many centuries. Leonardo was the first who not only carefully and carefully studied the laws of painting, but also formulated them. He deeply, like no one before him, studied the laws of perspective, the placement of light and shadow. He needed all this to achieve the highest expressiveness of the picture, in order to, as he said, “become equal to nature.” For the first time, it was in the works of Leonardo that the painting as such lost its static character and became a window into the world. When you look at his painting, the feeling of what was painted, enclosed in a frame, is lost and it seems that you are looking through an open window, revealing to the viewer something new, something they have never seen. Demanding the expressiveness of the painting, Leonardo resolutely opposed the formal play of colors, against the enthusiasm for form at the expense of content, against what so clearly characterizes decadent art.

For Leonardo, form is only the shell of the idea that the artist must convey to the viewer. Leonardo pays a lot of attention to the problems of the composition of the picture, the problems of placement of figures, and individual details. Hence his favorite composition of placing figures in a triangle - the simplest geometric harmonic figure - a composition that allows the viewer to embrace the whole picture as a whole. Expressiveness, truthfulness, accessibility - these are the laws of real, truly folk art formulated by Leonardo da Vinci, laws that he himself embodied in his brilliant works. Already in his first major painting, “Madonna with a Flower,” Leonardo showed in practice what the principles of art he professed meant. What is striking about this picture is, first of all, its composition, the surprisingly harmonious distribution of all the elements of the picture that make up a single whole. The image of a young mother with a cheerful child in her arms is deeply realistic. The directly felt deep blue of the Italian sky through the window slot is incredibly skillfully conveyed. Already in this picture, Leonardo demonstrated the principle of his art - realism, the depiction of a person in the deepest accordance with his true nature, the depiction of not an abstract scheme, which was what medieval ascetic art taught and did, namely a living, feeling person.

These principles are even more clearly expressed in Leonardo’s second major painting, “The Adoration of the Magi” from 1481, in which what is significant is not the religious plot, but the masterful depiction of people, each of whom has his own, individual face, his own pose, expresses his own feeling and mood. Life truth is the law of Leonardo’s painting. The fullest possible disclosure of a person’s inner life is its goal. In “The Last Supper” the composition is brought to perfection: despite the large number of figures - 13, their placement is strictly calculated so that they all as a whole represent a kind of unity, full of great internal content. The picture is very dynamic: some terrible news communicated by Jesus struck his disciples, each of them reacts to it in their own way, hence the huge variety of expressions of inner feelings on the faces of the apostles. Compositional perfection is complemented by an unusually masterful use of colors, harmony of light and shadows. The expressiveness of the painting reaches its perfection thanks to the extraordinary variety of not only facial expressions, but the position of each of the twenty-six hands drawn in the picture.

This recording by Leonardo himself tells us about the careful preliminary work that he carried out before painting the picture. Everything in it is thought out to the smallest detail: poses, facial expressions; even details such as an overturned bowl or knife; all this in its sum forms a single whole. The richness of colors in this painting is combined with a subtle use of chiaroscuro, which emphasizes the significance of the event depicted in the painting. The subtlety of perspective, the transmission of air and color make this painting a masterpiece of world art. Leonardo successfully solved many problems facing artists at that time and opened the way for the further development of art. By the power of his genius, Leonardo overcame the medieval traditions that weighed heavily on art, broke them and discarded them; he was able to push the narrow boundaries that limited the creative power of the artist by the then ruling clique of churchmen, and show, instead of the hackneyed gospel stencil scene, a huge, purely human drama, show living people with their passions, feelings, experiences. And in this picture the great, life-affirming optimism of the artist and thinker Leonardo again manifested itself.

Over the years of his wanderings, Leonardo painted many more paintings that received well-deserved world fame and recognition. In "La Gioconda" a deeply vital and typical image is given. It is this deep vitality, the unusually relief rendering of facial features, individual details, and costume, combined with a masterfully painted landscape, that gives this picture special expressiveness. Everything about her—from the mysterious half-smile playing on her face to her calmly folded hands—speaks of great inner content, of the great spiritual life of this woman. Leonardo's desire to convey the inner world in the external manifestations of mental movements is especially fully expressed here. An interesting painting by Leonardo is “The Battle of Anghiari”, depicting the battle of cavalry and infantry. As in his other paintings, Leonardo sought here to show a variety of faces, figures and poses. Dozens of people depicted by the artist create a complete impression of the picture precisely because they are all subordinated to a single idea underlying it. It was a desire to show the rise of all man’s strength in battle, the tension of all his feelings, brought together to achieve victory.

Leonardo da Vinci. 04/15/1452, Vinci – 05/02/1519, Clue

The unprecedented attention now paid by historians and fiction writers to the personality of Leonardo da Vinci is evidence of a turning point in relation to the culture of the Renaissance, a revaluation of the spiritual content of the “greatest progressive revolution” that underlies modern European civilization. They see Leonardo as a kind of quintessence of the emerging era, emphasizing and highlighting in his work either the connection with the worldview of the previous time, or the radical demarcation from it. Mysticism and rationalism coexist in the assessment of his personality in an incomprehensible balance, and even the huge written heritage of the master, which has come down to our time, is not able to shake him. Leonardo da Vinci is among the greatest scientists, although very few of his projects were realized. He is also one of the greatest artists, despite the fact that he created very few paintings (and not all of them have survived) and even fewer sculptures (not at all preserved). What makes Leonardo great is not the number of ideas he implemented, but the change in the method of both scientific and artistic activity. Figuratively speaking, he sought to “understand the organism of each object separately and the organism of the entire universe” (A. Benoit).

Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait, ca. 1510-1515

Leonardo's childhood and adolescence are very little documented. His father, Piero da Vinci, was a hereditary notary; Already in the year of his son’s birth, he practiced in Florence and soon took a prominent position there. All that is known about the mother is that her name was Caterina, she came from a peasant family and, soon after the birth of Leonardo, she was married to a wealthy farmer, a certain Accatabridge di Piero del Vaccia. Leonardo was taken into his father's house and raised by his childless stepmother Albiera Amadori. What and how he was taught, what his first experiences in drawing were, is unknown. What is indisputable is that the formation of the boy’s personality was greatly, if not decisively, influenced by his uncle Francesco, with whom Leonardo da Vinci maintained the warmest relationship throughout his life. Since Leonardo was an illegitimate son, he could not inherit his father's profession. Vasari reports that Pierrot was friends with Andrea Verrocchio and one day showed him his son’s drawings, after which Andrea took Leonardo to his workshop. Piero and his family moved to Florence in 1466, therefore, Leonardo da Vinci ended up in the workshop (bottega) of Verrocchio at the age of fourteen.

The largest works carried out by Verrocchio during the period of Leonardo’s studies with him were the statue “David” (Florence, Bargello), commissioned by the family Medici(it is believed that the young Leonardo da Vinci posed for her), and the completion of the dome of the Florence Cathedral with a golden ball with a cross (the city’s order was received on September 10, 1468 and completed in May 1472). In Andrea's workshop, the best in Florence, Leonardo da Vinci had the opportunity to study all types of fine arts, architecture, the theory of perspective, and partly familiarize himself with the natural and human sciences. His development as a painter was apparently influenced not so much by Verrocchio himself as by Botticelli and Botticelli, who studied with him in the same years. Perugino.

In 1469 Piero da Vinci received the position of notary of the Florentine Republic, and then of a number of the largest monasteries and families. By this time he was widowed. Having finally moved to Florence, Piero remarried and took Leonardo into his home. Leonardo continued his studies with Verrocchio and also studied science on his own. Already during these years he met Paolo Toscanelli (mathematician, doctor, astronomer and geographer) and Leon Battista Alberti. In 1472 he joined the guild of painters and, as evidenced by the entry in the guild book, paid a fee for the organization of the feast of St. Luke. That same year he returned to Andrea's workshop, since his father was widowed for the second time and married for the third time. In 1480 Leonardo da Vinci had his own workshop. The first painting by Leonardo, known today, is the image of an angel in the painting “The Baptism of Christ” (Florence, Uffizi). Until recently, the painting was considered (based on a report Vasari) by Verrocchio, who supposedly, having seen how much his student surpassed him in skill, abandoned painting.

Baptism of Christ. A painting by Verrocchio, painted by him and his students. The right one of the two angels is the work of Leonardo da Vinci. 1472-1475

However, an analysis carried out by Uffizi staff showed that the work was carried out collectively by three or even four artists in accordance with the traditions of medieval workshops. Obviously, Botticelli played the main role among them. The origin of the figure of the left angel by Leonardo is beyond doubt. He also painted part of the landscape - behind the angel at the edge of the composition.

The lack of documentary evidence, signatures and dates on the paintings makes their attribution very difficult. Two “Annunciations” date back to the early 1470s, which, judging by their horizontal format, are altar predella. Those of them that are kept in the Uffizi collection are included in a number of the few early works of Leonardo da Vinci. His dry execution and the types of faces of Mary and the angel are reminiscent of the works of Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo's comrade in Verrocchio's workshop.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "The Annunciation", 1472-1475. Uffizi Gallery

The Annunciation from the Louvre, rendered in a more generalized manner, is currently attributed to the works of Lorenzo.

Leonardo da Vinci. Annunciation, 1478-1482. Louvre Museum

The first dated work by Leonardo da Vinci is a pen drawing representing a landscape with a river valley and rocks, possibly a view along the road from Vinci to Pistoia (Florence, Uffizi). In the upper left corner of the sheet there is an inscription: “On the day of St. Mary of the Snows, August 5, 1473.” This inscription - the first known example of Leonardo da Vinci's handwriting - was made with the left hand, from right to left, as if in a mirror image.

Leonardo da Vinci. Landscape with a river valley and rocks, executed on the day of St. Mary of the Snows, August 5, 1473

Numerous drawings of a technical nature also date back to the 1470s - images of military vehicles, hydraulic structures, spinning machines and for finishing cloth. Perhaps it was Leonardo da Vinci’s technical projects that he carried out for Lorenzo de’ Medici, to whom, as stated in the master’s biography (written by an unknown author, apparently shortly after Leonardo’s death), he was close for some time.

Leonardo da Vinci received his first large order for a painting thanks to his father’s petition. December 24, 1477 Piero Pollaiolo was commissioned to paint a new altarpiece (instead of the work by Bernardo Daddi) for the Chapel of St. Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio. But a week later, a decree of the Signoria appeared (dated January 1, 1478), according to which the work was transferred “in cancellation of any other order made up to now in any way, in any way and to anyone, Leonardo , son of Ser [notary] Piero da Vinci, painter.” Apparently, Leonardo needed money, and already on March 16, 1478 he turned to the Florentine government with a request for an advance. He was paid 25 gold florins. The work, however, moved so slowly that it was not completed by the time Leonardo da Vinci left for Milan (1482) and was transferred to another master the following year. The plot of this work is unknown. The second order that Leonardo Ser Piero provided was the execution of an altar image for the church of the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto. On March 18, 1481, he entered into an agreement with his son, precisely specifying the deadline for completing the work (in twenty-four, at most thirty months) and indicating that Leonardo would not receive an advance, and if he did not meet the deadline, then everything that would be done by him would be will become the property of the monastery. However, history repeated itself, and in July 1481 the artist turned to the monks with a request for an advance, received it, and then twice more (in August and September) took money as collateral for the future work. The large composition “Adoration of the Magi” (Florence, Uffizi) remained unfinished, but even in this form it is one of “those works on which the entire further development of European painting is based” (M. A. Gukovsky). Numerous drawings for it are kept in the collections of the Uffizi, Louvre and the British Museum. In 1496, the order for the altar was transferred to Filippino Lippi, and he painted a painting on the same subject (Florence, Uffizi).

Leonardo da Vinci. Adoration of the Magi, 1481-1482

“St. Jerome" (Rome, Pinacoteca Vatican), which is an underpainting in which the figure of the penitent saint is worked out with exceptional anatomical precision, and some minor details, for example the lion in the foreground, are only outlined.

A special place among the master’s early works is occupied by two completed works - “Portrait of Ginevra d’Amerigo Benci” (Washington, National Gallery) and “Madonna with a Flower” (St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum). The seriousness and peculiar hermeticism of Ginevra’s image, which speak of her complex spiritual life, mark the first manifestations of a psychological portrait in European art. The painting has not been completely preserved: its lower part with the image of hands has been cut off. Apparently, the position of the figure was reminiscent of the Mona Lisa.

Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of Ginevra de Benci, 1474-1478

The dating of the “Madonna of the Flower, or Madonna of Benois” (1478-1480) is accepted on the basis of a note on one of the sheets from the Cabinet of Drawings in the Uffizi: “...bre 1478 inchomincial le due Vergini Marie.” The composition of this painting is recognizable in the drawing with pen and bistrome, stored in the British Museum (No. 1860. 6. 16. 100v.). Executed in a new oil painting technique for Italy, the painting is distinguished by the transparent lightness of the shadows and the richness of color shades with an overall restrained color scheme. The transmission of the air environment begins to play an extremely important role in creating a holistic impression, connecting characters with their surroundings. Melting chiaroscuro, sfumato, makes the boundaries of objects subtly unsteady, expressing the material unity of the visible world.

Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna with a Flower (Benois Madonna). OK. 1478

Another early work of Leonardo da Vinci is considered to be “Madonna of the Carnation” (Munich, Alte Pinakothek). Perhaps this work preceded the appearance of the Benois Madonna.

Vasari reports that in his youth Leonardo da Vinci made from clay “several heads of laughing women,” from which plaster casts were still made in his time, as well as several children’s heads. He also mentions how Leonardo depicted a monster on a wooden shield, “very disgusting and terrible, which poisoned with its breath and ignited the air.” The description of the process of its creation reveals the system of work of Leonardo da Vinci - a method in which the basis of creativity is the observation of nature, but not with the goal of copying it, but in order to create something new based on it. Leonardo did the same thing later, when painting “The Head of Medusa” (not preserved). Executed in oil on canvas, it remained unfinished in the middle of the 16th century. was in the collection of Duke Cosimo de' Medici.

In the so-called “Codex Atlantica” (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana), the largest collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s records on various fields of knowledge, on page 204 there is a draft letter from the artist to the ruler of Milan, Lodovico Sforza ( Lodovico Moro). Leonardo offers his services as a military engineer, hydraulic engineer, and sculptor. In the latter case, we are talking about the creation of a grandiose equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, the father of Lodovico. Since Moro visited Florence in April 1478, there is an assumption that even then he met Leonardo da Vinci and negotiated about working on “The Horse.” In 1482, with the permission of Lorenzo Medici, the master left for Milan. A list of things that he took with him has been preserved - among them many drawings and two paintings are mentioned: “The Finished Madonna. The other is almost in profile.” Obviously, they meant “Madonna Litta” (St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum). It is believed that the master finished it already in Milan around 1490. An excellent preparatory drawing for it - an image of a woman's head - is kept in the collection of the Louvre (No. 2376). Active interest in this work on the part of researchers arose after its acquisition by the Imperial Hermitage (1865) from the collection of Duke Antonio Litta in Milan. The authorship of Leonardo da Vinci has been repeatedly denied, but now, after research and exhibition of the painting in Rome and Venice (2003-2004), it has become generally accepted.

Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna Litta. OK. 1491-91

There are several more portraits, executed with the elegance characteristic of Leonardo, but compositionally they are solved more simply and do not have the spiritual mobility that makes the image of Cecilia fascinating. These are the “Portrait of a Lady” in profile (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana), “Portrait of a Musician” (1485, ibid.) - perhaps Franchino Gaffurio, regent of the Milan Cathedral and composer - and the so-called “Bella Feroniera” (portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli?) from the collection of the Louvre.

Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of a Musician, 1485-1490

On behalf of Lodovico Moro, Leonardo da Vinci performed for Emperor Maximilian the painting “The Nativity,” about which an anonymous biographer writes that it was “revered by connoisseurs as a masterpiece of one-of-a-kind and amazing art.” Her fate is unknown.

Leonardo da Vinci. Bella Ferroniera (Beautiful Ferroniera). OK. 1490

Leonardo's largest painting created in Milan was the famous "Last Supper", painted on the end wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Leonardo da Vinci began the actual execution of the composition in 1496. This was preceded by a long period of deliberation. The collections of Windsor and the Venetian Academy contain numerous drawings, sketches, sketches related to this work, among which the heads of the apostles especially stand out for their expressiveness. It is not known exactly when the master completed the work. It is generally believed that this happened in the winter of 1497, but a note sent by Moro to his secretary Marchesino Stange and referring to this year says: “Demand that Leonardo finish his work in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie.” Luca Pacioli reports that Leonardo completed the painting in 1498. As soon as the painting saw the light, a pilgrimage of painters began, who more or less successfully copied it. “There are paintings, frescoes, graphic, mosaic versions, as well as carpets that repeat the composition of Leonardo da Vinci” (T. K. Kustodieva). The earliest of them are kept in the collections of the Louvre (Marco d'Odzhono?) and the Hermitage (No. 2036).

Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper, 1498

The composition of “The Last Supper” in its “airy volume” seems to be a continuation of the refectory hall. The master was able to achieve such an effect due to his excellent knowledge of perspective. The Gospel scene appears here “close to the viewer, humanly understandable and at the same time not losing either its high solemnity or its deep drama” (M. A. Gukovsky). The glory of the great work, however, could not protect “The Last Supper” either from the destruction of time or from the barbaric attitude of people. Due to the dampness of the walls, the paints began to fade during Leonardo da Vinci’s lifetime, and in 1560 Lomazzo reported in his “Treatise on Painting,” albeit somewhat exaggerating, that the painting was “completely destroyed.” In 1652, the monks enlarged the door of the refectory and destroyed the image of the feet of Christ and the apostles next to Him. Artists also contributed their share of destruction. So, in 1726, a certain Belotti, “who claimed to have the secret of bringing colors to life” (G. Sayle), rewrote the entire picture. In 1796, when Napoleon's troops entered Milan, a stable was built in the refectory, and the soldiers amused themselves by throwing fragments of bricks at the heads of the apostles. In the 19th century “The Last Supper” was reconstructed several more times, and during the Second World War, during the bombing of Milan by British aircraft, the side wall of the refectory collapsed. Restoration work, which began after the war and consisted of strengthening and partially clearing the paintings, was completed in 1954. More than twenty years later (1978), restorers began a grandiose effort to remove later layers, which was completed only in 1999. Several centuries later, you can again see the bright and clean paints of a genuine master's painting.

Obviously, immediately after arriving in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci turned to the design of the monument to Francesco Sforza. Numerous sketches indicate changes in the master’s plan, who initially wanted to present the horse rearing (in all equestrian monuments that existed at that time, the horse was shown calmly walking). Such a composition, given the huge size of the sculpture (about 6 m high; according to other sources - about 8 m), created almost insurmountable difficulties during casting. The solution to the problem was delayed, and Moro instructed the Florentine ambassador in Milan to order another sculptor from Florence, which he reported Lorenzo Medici in a letter dated July 22, 1489. Leonardo had to work closely on “The Horse.” However, in the summer of 1490, work on the monument was interrupted by the trip of Leonardo and Francesco di Giorgio Martini to Pavia to advise on the construction of the cathedral. In early September, preparations began for Lodovico’s wedding, and then the master carried out numerous assignments for the new ruler, Beatrice. At the beginning of 1493, Lodovico ordered Leonardo to speed up the work in order to show the statue during the next wedding celebrations: Emperor Maximilian was marrying Moreau's niece, Bianca Maria. The clay model of the statue - “The Great Colossus” - was completed on time, by November 1493. The master abandoned the original idea and showed the horse walking calmly. Only a few sketches give an idea of ​​this final version of the monument. It was technically impossible to cast the entire sculpture at once, so the master began experimental work. In addition, about eighty tons of bronze were required, which was collected only by 1497. All of it was used for cannons: Milan was expecting an invasion by the troops of the French king Louis XII. In 1498, when the political position of the duchy temporarily improved, Lodovico commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint the hall in the Castello Sforzesco - the Sala delle Acce, and on April 26, 1499 he signed a deed of gift for a vineyard in the vicinity of Milan. This was the last favor shown by the Duke to the artist. On August 10, 1499, French troops entered the territory of the Duchy of Milan, on August 31, Lodovico fled from the city, and on September 3, Milan surrendered. The Gascon marksmen of Louis XII destroyed a clay statue while competing in crossbow shooting. Apparently, even after this, the monument made a strong impression, since two years later, Duke of Ferrara Ercole I d'Este negotiated its acquisition. The further fate of the monument is unknown.

Leonardo da Vinci remained in the occupied city for some time, and then, together with Luca Pacioli, went to Mantua to the court of Isabella Gonzaga. For political reasons (Isabella was the sister of Beatrice, Moreau’s wife, who had died by that time - in 1497), the margravess did not want to provide patronage to the artist. However, she wanted Leonardo da Vinci to paint her portrait. Without stopping in Mantua, Leonardo and Pacioli went to Venice. In March 1500, the musical instrument maker Lorenzo Gusnasco da Pavia wrote to Isabella in a letter: “Here in Venice is Leonardo Vinci, who showed me an outline portrait of Your Lordship, which is as well executed according to nature as possible.” Obviously, we were talking about a drawing currently kept in the Louvre. The master never completed a picturesque portrait. In April 1500 Leonardo and Pacioli were already in Florence. During this short – just over two years – quiet period of Leonardo da Vinci’s life, he was mainly engaged in technical research (in particular, the design of an aircraft) and, at the request of the Florentine government, took part in an examination to identify the reasons for the subsidence of the Church of San Salvatore on the hill of San Miniato. According to Vasari, at that time Filippino Lippi received an order for an altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata. Leonardo “declared that he would be willing to do such work,” and Filippino kindly gave him the order. The idea for the painting “St. Anne” apparently came to Leonardo da Vinci while still in Milan. There are numerous drawings of this composition, as well as a magnificent cardboard (London, National Gallery), but it did not form the basis of the final decision. Exhibited by the master after Easter in 1501 for public viewing, the cardboard did not survive, but, judging by the documents that have survived to this day, it was its composition that was repeated by the master in the well-known painting from the Louvre. Thus, on April 3, 1501, the Vicar General of the Carmelites Pietro da Nuvolario, who was in correspondence with Isabella Gonzaga, informed her, describing in detail the composition of the cardboard, that, in his opinion, the image of St. Anna embodies the Church, which does not want “His sufferings to be turned away from Christ.” It is unclear when exactly the altar painting was completed. Perhaps the master finished it in Italy, where it was acquired by Francis I, as Paolo Giovio reports, without specifying when or from whom. In any case, the customers did not receive it and in 1503 they again turned to Filippino, but he did not satisfy their wishes.

At the end of July 1502 Leonardo da Vinci entered the service of Cesare Borgia, son Pope AlexanderVI, who by this time, trying to create his own possessions, had captured almost all of Central Italy. As chief military engineer, Leonardo traveled around Umbria, Tuscany, Romagna, drawing up plans for fortresses and consulting local engineers on improving the defense system, and created maps for military needs. However, already in March 1503 he was again in Florence.

By the beginning of the first decade of the 16th century. refers to the creation of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous work - the portrait of Mona Lisa - “La Gioconda” (Paris, Louvre), a painting that has no equal in the number of interpretations and controversies it provoked. The portrait of the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo combines the amazing concreteness of reality with such spiritual ambiguity and generality of the universal that it outgrows the boundaries of the genre and ceases to be a portrait in the proper sense of the word. “This is not a mysterious woman, this is a mysterious being” (Leonardo. M. Batkin). The very first description of the painting given by Vasari is contradictory, who assures that Leonardo da Vinci worked on it for four years and did not finish it, but immediately writes admiringly that the portrait “reproduces all the smallest details that the subtlety of painting can convey.”

Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), c. 1503-1505

Another painting created by Leonardo da Vinci during these years, “Madonna with a Spindle,” is described in detail by Pietro da Nuvolario in a letter to Isabella Gonzaga dated April 4, 1503. The vicar reports that the artist painted it for the secretary of Louis XII. The fate of the painting is unknown. A good copy of the 16th century gives an idea of ​​it. (collection of the Duke of Buccleuch in Scotland).

During the same period, Leonardo returned to his anatomy studies, which he began in Milan in the building of the Grand Hospital. In Florence, doctors and university students, with special permission from the government, worked on the premises of Santa Croce. The treatise on anatomy that the master was going to compile was not carried out.

In the fall of 1503, through the permanent gonfalonier Pietro Soderini, Leonardo da Vinci received an order for a large painting - painting one of the walls of the new hall - the Council Hall, added in 1496 to the Palazzo della Signoria. On October 24, the artist was given the keys to the so-called Papal Hall of the Monastery of Santa Maria Novella, where he began work on the cardboard. By decree of the Signoria he received 53 gold florins in advance and permission to receive small sums “from time to time.” The completion date for the work was February 1505. The theme of the future work was the Battle of Anghiari (June 29, 1440) between the Florentines and Milanese. In August 1504, Michelangelo received an order for the second painting for the Council Hall - “The Battle of Cascina”. Both craftsmen completed the work on time, and the cardboards were displayed to the public in the Council Chamber. They made a tremendous impression; artists immediately began to copy them, but it was impossible to determine the winner in this unique competition. Both cardboards have not survived. The central part of Leonardo da Vinci's composition was the scene of the battle for the banner. Only about it can one currently get some idea thanks to a drawing by Raphael (Oxford, Christ Church Library), executed by him in 1505-1506, as well as from a copy of Rubens (Paris, Louvre). However, it is unknown where exactly Rubens, who lived in Italy in 1600-1608, made his copy from. An anonymous biographer of Leonardo da Vinci reports that after the death of the master, most of the cardboard “Battle of Anghiari” could be seen in the hospital of Santa Maria Novella, and “the group of horsemen remaining in the palazzo” also belonged to it. In 1558 Benvenuto Cellini in his “Biography” he writes that the cardboards hung in the Papal Hall and “while they were intact, they were a school for the whole world.” From this we can conclude that in the 1550s Leonardo's cardboard, at least as a whole, no longer existed.

Leonardo da Vinci. Battle of Anghiari, 1503-1505 (detail)

Contrary to custom, Leonardo completed the painting on the wall of the Council Chamber quickly. As the anonymous author reports, he worked on a new soil of his own invention and used the heat of a brazier to dry it as quickly as possible. However, the wall dried unevenly, its upper part did not hold the paint, and the painting turned out to be hopelessly damaged. Soderini demanded completion of the work or return of the money. The situation was temporarily resolved by leaving for Milan, at the invitation of his viceroy, Charles d'Amboise, Marquis de Chaumont. The artist entered into an agreement with the Signoria, according to which he undertook to return in three months, and in case of violation of the obligation, to pay a penalty of 150 gold florins. June 1 1506 Leonardo da Vinci went to Milan. In a letter dated August 18, Charles d'Amboise asks the Florentine government to keep the artist at his disposal for some time. In the response letter (dated August 28), consent was given, but with the condition of repaying the debt. Since the money was not sent, Soderini again appealed to the governor on October 9, demanding compliance with the agreement. Finally, on January 12, 1507, the Florentine ambassador to the French court informed the members of the Signoria that Louis XII wanted to leave Leonardo in Milan until his arrival. Two days later, the king personally signed a letter with the same content. In April 1507, Leonardo received his vineyard back and at the beginning of May he was able to pay 150 florins. The king arrived in Milan on May 24: Leonardo da Vinci took an active part in organizing processions and performances for this occasion. Thanks to the intervention of Louis, on August 24, the long-term process over the “Madonna of the Rocks” ended. The painting remained at the master’s disposal, but he, together with Ambrogio de Predis (Evangelista had died by this time), had to paint another one on the same subject within two years (London, National Gallery).

From September 1507 to September 1508 Leonardo da Vinci was in Florence: it was necessary to conduct litigation over an inheritance. The elderly Ser Piero, Leonardo's father, died back in 1504 at the age of ninety, leaving ten sons and two daughters.

Saint Anne with the Madonna and Child Christ. Painting by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1510

In Milan, Leonardo da Vinci completed “Saint Anne” and painted several more paintings, the most famous of which is “John the Baptist” (Paris, Louvre). Currently, the “Bacchus” stored there is also recognized as the work of Leonardo.

Leonardo da Vinci. John the Baptist, 1513-1516

Leda was also in the French royal collection. The last time this painting was mentioned in the inventory of Fontainebleau was in 1694. According to legend, it was destroyed at the request of Madame de Maintenon, the last favorite of Louis XIV. An idea of ​​its composition is given by several drawings by the master and several repetitions that differ in detail (the best is attributed to Cesare da Sesto and is kept in the Uffizi).

Leda. Work tentatively attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, 1508-1515

In addition to paintings, Leonardo da Vinci was engaged in Milan in designing a monument to Marshal Trivulzio, who was in French service. A small bronze model in the collection of the Budapest Museum is believed to be associated with this project. If this is so, then Leonardo da Vinci again returned to the idea of ​​​​a dynamic composition with a galloping horse.

In 1511 troops Pope JuliaII in alliance with the Venetian Republic and Spain, they expelled the French. During 1511-1512 Leonardo lived for a long time with his friend, the nobleman Girolamo Melzi, on his estate in Vaprio. Girolamo's son, Francesco, became a student and passionate admirer of the aging master. In 1513, Leo X de' Medici was elected to the papal throne, with whose brother, Giuliano, who was interested in alchemy, Leonardo da Vinci was friendly. On September 14, 1513 Leonardo left for Rome. Giuliano assigned him a salary and allocated premises for work. In Rome, the master drew up projects for the refurbishment of the papal mint and the drainage of the Pontic swamps. Vasari noted that for the papal datarius (chief of the chancellery) Baldassare Turini of Pescia, Leonardo da Vinci completed two paintings - “Madonna” and an image of “a child of amazing beauty and grace” (not traced).

On December 31, 1514, Louis XII died, and Francis I, who succeeded him, recaptured Milan in September 1515. It is believed that Leonardo met with the king in Bologna, where the pope negotiated with him. But, perhaps, the artist saw him earlier - in Pavia, at the celebrations in honor of his entry into the city, and then he made the famous mechanical lion, from whose opening chest lilies poured out. In this case, in Bologna, Leonardo da Vinci was in the retinue of Francis, and not Leo X. Having received an offer to go to the king’s service, the master left for France in the fall of 1516 with Francesco Melzi. The last years of Leonardo da Vinci's life were spent in the small castle of Cloux, not far from Amboise. He was given a pension of 700 ecus. In the spring of 1517, in Amboise, where the king loved to be, they celebrated the baptism of the Dauphin, and then the wedding of the Duke of Urbino Lorenzo de' Medici and the daughter of the Duke of Bourbon. The celebrations were designed by Leonardo. In addition, he was involved in the design of canals and locks to improve the area, and created architectural projects, in particular a project for the reconstruction of the Romorantin castle. Perhaps the ideas of Leonardo da Vinci served as the basis for the construction of Chambord (begun in 1519). On October 18, 1516, Leonardo was visited by the secretary of Cardinal Louis of Aragon. According to him, due to the paralysis of his right hand, the artist “can no longer write with his usual tenderness... but he can still make drawings and teach others.” On April 23, 1519, the artist drew up a will, according to which manuscripts, drawings and paintings became the property of Melzi. The master died on May 2, 1519, according to legend - in the arms of the King of France. Melzi transported Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts to Italy and kept them on his estate in Vaprio until the end of his days. The now widely known “Treatise on Painting,” which had a huge influence on European art, was compiled by Melzi based on the teacher’s notes. About seven thousand sheets of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts have survived. Their largest collections are in the collection of the Institute of France in Paris; in Milan - in the Ambrosian Library (Codex Atlanticus) and in the Castello Sforzesco (Codex Trivulzio); in Turin (Bird Flight Code); Windsor and Madrid. Their publication began in the 19th century. and still one of the best critical editions of Leonardo's manuscripts are two volumes of texts with commentaries published by Richter in 1883 (Richter J.P. The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci. London, 1883. Vol. 1-2). Supplemented and commented by K. Pedretti, they were published a second time in Los Angeles in 1977.

Literature:Leonardo da Vinci. A book about painting. M., 1934; Leonardo da Vinci. Selected works. L., 1935; Leonardo da Vinci. Anatomy. Ideas and drawings. M., 1965; Vasari 2001. T. 3; Seail G. Leonardo da Vinci as an artist and scientist. St. Petersburg, 1898; Volynsky A. Life of Leonardo da Vinci. St. Petersburg, 1900 (republished: St. Petersburg, 1997); Benoit A. N. History of painting of all times and peoples. St. Petersburg, 1912; Wrangel N."Benois Madonna" by Leonardo da Vinci. St. Petersburg, 1914; Lipgart E.K. Leonardo and his school. L., 1928; Dzhivelegov A.K. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1935 (republished: M., 1969); Lazarev V.N. Leonardo da Vinci. L., 1936; Ainalov D. V. Sketches about Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1939; Gukovsky M. A. Mechanics of Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1947; Lazarev V.N. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1952; Alpatov M. V. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1952; Gabrichevsky A. G. Leonardo the Architect // Soviet Architecture. M., 1952. Issue. 3; Zhdanov D. A. Leonardo da Vinci - anatomist. L., 1955; Gukovsky M. A. Leonardo da Vinci: Creative biography. M.; L., 1958; Gukovsky M. A. Madonna Litta: Painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Hermitage. L.; M., 1959; Guber A. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1960; Zubov V. P. Leonardo da Vinci. 1452-1519. M., 1961; Gukovsky M. A. Columbine. L., 1963; Rutenburg V. I. Titans of the Renaissance. L., 1976; Vipper 1977. T. 2; Nardini B. Life of Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1978; Kustodieva T.K."Benois Madonna" by Leonardo da Vinci. L., 1979; Rzepinska M. What do we know about the “Lady with an Ermine” from the Czartoryski Museum. Krakow, 1980; Gastev A. A. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1982; Codex Leonardo from the private collection of Armand Hammer: Ext. L., 1984; Pedretti K. Leonardo. M., 1986; Smirnova I. A. Monumental painting of the Italian Renaissance. M., 1987; Batkin L. M. Leonardo da Vinci and the features of Renaissance creative thinking. M., 1990; Santi B. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1995; Wallace R. World of Leonardo, 1452-1519. M., 1997; Kustodieva 1998; Chunky M. Leonardo da Vinci. M., 1998; Sonina T.V.“Madonna Benois” by Leonardo da Vinci // Italian collection. St. Petersburg, 1999. Issue. 3; Sonina T.V.“Madonna of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci: Semantics of the image // Decree. op. St. Petersburg, 2003. Issue. 7; Leonardo da Vinci and the culture of the Renaissance: Sat. Art. M., 2004; Herzfeld M. About one sheet of Leonardo's sketches. Contribution to the characterization of the master’s image // Italian collection. St. Petersburg, 2006. Issue. 9; Clark K. Leonardo da Vinci: Creative biography. St. Petersburg, 2009.

Richter J.P. (ed.) The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci: In 2 vols. London, 1883 (rev.: 1970); Beltrami L.(ed.) Il codice di Leonardo da Vinci della Biblioteca del Principe Trivulzio in Milano. Milano, 1891; Sabachnikoff T., Piumati G., Ravaisson-Mollien C. (eds.) I manoscritti di Leonardo da Vinci: Codice sul volo degli uccelli e varie altre materie. Paris, 1893; Piumati G. (ed.) Il Codice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano: 35 voi. Milano, 1894-1904; Fonahn D.C.L., Hopstock H. (eds.) Quaderni d'anatomia: 6 voi. Kristiania, 1911-1916; II Codice Forster I, etc. // Reale Commissione Vinciana: 5 voi. Roma, 1930-1936; I manoscritti e i disegni di Leonardo da Vinci: II Codice A. / / Reale Commissione Vinciana, Rome, 1938; MacCurdy E. (ed.) The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci: 2 vols. London, 1938; I manoscritti e i disegni di Leonardo da Vinci: II Codice B. // Reale Commissione Vinciana. Rome, 1941; Brizio A. M. (ed.) Scritti scelti di Leonardo da Vinci. Torino, 1952; Courbeau A., De Toni N.(ed.) The Manuscripts in the Bibliotheque de l'Institut de France, Paris. Firenze, 1972; Reti L. (ed.) The Madrid Codices: 5 vols. New York, 1974.

Pacioli L. De divina proportione. Venezia, 1509; Alberimi E Memoriale di molte statue e picture che sono nella inclyta cipta di Florentia. Firenze, 1510; Giovio P. Elogia virorum illustrum (MS.; e. 1527) // Gli elogi degli uomini illustri / Ed. R. Meregazzi. Rome, 1972; II Codice Magliabechiano (MS.; e. 1540) / Ed. C. Frey. Berlin, 1892. Amoretti C. Memorie storiche su la vita, gli studi e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci. Milano, 1804; Pater W. Leonardo da Vinci (1869) // Studies in this History of this Renaissance. London, 1873; HerzfeldM. Leonardo da Vinci. Der Denker, Forscher und Poet. Jena, 1906; Solmi E. Le fonti dei manoscritti di Leonardo da Vinci. Torino, 1908; Malaguzzi Valeri E La corte di Ludovico il Moro. Milano, 1915. Voi. II: Bramante e Leonardo; Beltrami L. Documenti e memorie riguardanti la vita e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci. Milano, 1919; Calvi G. I manoscritti di Leonardo da Vinci del punto di visto cronologico, storico e biografico. Bologna, 1925; Heydenreich L. Leonardo da Vinci: 2 vols. Basel, 1954; Pomilio M., Della Chiesa A. O. L "Opera pittorica completa di Leonardo. Milano, 1967; Gould C. Leonardo: The Artist and Non-artist. London, 1975; Wasserman J. Leonardo da Vinci. New York, 1975; Chastel A. The Genius of Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo da Vinci and their Art of the Artist. New York, 1981; Kemp M. Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man. London, 1981; MaraniP. Leonardo: Cat. compi. Firenze, 1989; Turner A.R. Inventing Leonardo. New York, 1993; Lo sguardo degli angeli: Verrocchio, Leonardo e il Battesimo di Cristo / A cura di A. Natali. Firenze, 1998; Kustodieva T, PaolucciA., Pedretti C., Strinati C. Leonardo. La Madonna Litta dall "Ermitage di San Pietroburgo. Roma, 2003; Kemp M. Leonardo da Vinci. Experience, Experiment and Design. London, 2006.

Childhood

The house where Leonardo lived as a child.

Verrocchio's workshop

Defeated teacher

Verrocchio's painting "The Baptism of Christ". The angel on the left (lower left corner) is the creation of Leonardo.

In the 15th century, ideas about the revival of ancient ideals were in the air. At the Florence Academy, the best minds in Italy created the theory of new art. Creative youth spent time in lively discussions. Leonardo remained aloof from his busy social life and rarely left his studio. He had no time for theoretical disputes: he improved his skills. One day Verrocchio received an order for the painting “The Baptism of Christ” and commissioned Leonardo to paint one of the two angels. This was a common practice in art workshops of that time: the teacher created a picture together with student assistants. The most talented and diligent were entrusted with the execution of an entire fragment. Two Angels, painted by Leonardo and Verrocchio, clearly demonstrated the superiority of the student over the teacher. As Vasari writes, the amazed Verrocchio abandoned his brush and never returned to painting.

Professional activity, 1476-1513

At the age of 24, Leonardo and three other young men were put on trial on false, anonymous charges of sodomy. They were acquitted. Very little is known about his life after this event, but he probably had his own workshop in Florence in 1476-1481.

In 1482, Leonardo, being, according to Vasari, a very talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de' Medici sent him as a peacemaker to Lodovico Moro, and sent the lyre with him as a gift.

Personal life

Leonardo had many friends and students. As for love relationships, there is no reliable information on this matter, since Leonardo carefully hid this side of his life. He was not married; there is no reliable information about his affairs with women. According to some versions, Leonardo had a relationship with Cecilia Gallerani, a favorite of Lodovico Moro, with whom he painted his famous painting “Lady with an Ermine”. A number of authors, following the words of Vasari, suggest intimate relationships with young men, including students (Salai), others believe that, despite the painter’s homosexuality, relationships with students were not intimate.

End of life

Leonardo was present at the meeting of King Francis I with Pope Leo X in Bologna on December 19, 1515. Francis commissioned a master to construct a mechanical lion capable of walking, from whose chest a bouquet of lilies would appear. Perhaps this lion greeted the king in Lyon or was used during negotiations with the pope.

In 1516, Leonardo accepted the invitation of the French king and settled in his castle of Clos-Lucé, where Francis I spent his childhood, not far from the royal castle of Amboise. In his official capacity as the first royal artist, engineer and architect, Leonardo received an annual annuity of one thousand ecus. Never before in Italy did Leonardo have the title of engineer. Leonardo was not the first Italian master who, by the grace of the French king, received “freedom to dream, think and create” - before him, Andrea Solario and Fra Giovanni Giocondo shared a similar honor.

In France, Leonardo almost did not draw, but was masterfully involved in organizing court festivities, planning a new palace in Romorantan with a planned change in the river bed, designing a canal between the Loire and the Saone, and the main two-way spiral staircase in the Chateau de Chambord. Two years before his death, the master’s right hand became numb, and he could hardly move without assistance. 67-year-old Leonardo spent the third year of his life in Amboise in bed. On April 23, 1519, he left a will, and on May 2, he died surrounded by his students and his masterpieces in Clos-Luce. According to Vasari, da Vinci died in the arms of King Francis I, his close friend. This unreliable, but widespread legend in France is reflected in the paintings of Ingres, Angelika Kaufman and many other painters. Leonardo da Vinci was buried at Amboise Castle. The inscription was engraved on the tombstone: “Within the walls of this monastery lie the ashes of Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest artist, engineer and architect of the French kingdom.”

The main heir was Leonardo's student and friend Francesco Melzi, who over the next 50 years remained the main manager of the master's inheritance, which included, in addition to paintings, tools, a library and at least 50 thousand original documents on various topics, of which only a third has survived to this day. Another student of Salai and a servant each received half of Leonardo's vineyards.

Key dates

• - birth of Leonardo Ser Piero da Vinci in the village of Anchiano near Vinci
• - Leonardo da Vinci enters Verrocchio's studio as an apprentice artist (Florence)
• - Member of the Florence Guild of Artists
• - - work on: “The Baptism of Christ”, “The Annunciation”, “Madonna with a Vase”
• Second half of the 70s. “Madonna with a Flower” (“Benois Madonna”) was created
• - Saltarelli scandal
• - Leonardo opens his own workshop
• - according to documents, this year Leonardo already had his own workshop
• - the monastery of San Donato a Sisto commissions Leonardo to create a large altarpiece “Adoration of the Magi” (not completed); work has begun on the painting “Saint Jerome”
• - invited to the court of Lodovico Sforza in Milan. Work has begun on the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza.
• - “Portrait of a Musician” was created
• - development of a flying machine - ornithopter, based on bird flight
• - anatomical drawings of skulls
• - painting “Portrait of a Musician”. A clay model of the monument to Francesco Sforza was made.
• - Vitruvian Man - famous drawing, sometimes called canonical proportions
• - - “Madonna in the Grotto” is finished
• - - work on the fresco "Last Supper" in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan
• - Milan is captured by the French troops of Louis XII, Leonardo leaves Milan, the model of the Sforza monument is badly damaged
• - enters the service of Cesare Borgia as an architect and military engineer
• - cardboard for the fresco “Battle of Andjaria (at Anghiari)” and the painting “Mona Lisa”
• - return to Milan and service with King Louis XII of France (who at that time controlled northern Italy, see Italian Wars)
• - - work in Milan on the equestrian monument to Marshal Trivulzio
• - painting in St. Anne's Cathedral
• - “Self-portrait”
• - moving to Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X
• - - work on the painting “John the Baptist”
• - moving to France as a court artist, engineer, architect and mechanic
• - dies of illness

Achievements

Art

Our contemporaries know Leonardo primarily as an artist. In addition, it is possible that da Vinci could also be a sculptor: researchers from the University of Perugia - Giancarlo Gentilini and Carlo Sisi - claim that the terracotta head they found in 1990 is the only sculptural work of Leonardo da Vinci that has come down to us. However, da Vinci himself, at different periods of his life, considered himself primarily an engineer or scientist. He did not devote much time to fine art and worked rather slowly. Therefore, Leonardo’s artistic heritage is not large in quantity, and a number of his works have been lost or severely damaged. However, his contribution to world artistic culture is extremely important even against the background of the cohort of geniuses that the Italian Renaissance produced. Thanks to his works, the art of painting moved to a qualitatively new stage of its development. The Renaissance artists who preceded Leonardo decisively rejected many of the conventions of medieval art. This was a movement towards realism and much had already been achieved in the study of perspective, anatomy, and greater freedom in compositional solutions. But in terms of painting, working with paint, the artists were still quite conventional and constrained. The line in the picture clearly outlined the object, and the image had the appearance of a painted drawing. The most conventional was the landscape, which played a secondary role. Leonardo realized and embodied a new painting technique. His line has the right to be blurry, because that’s how we see it. He realized the phenomenon of light scattering in the air and the appearance of sfumato - a haze between the viewer and the depicted object, which softens color contrasts and lines. As a result, realism in painting moved to a qualitatively new level.

Science and Engineering

His only invention that received recognition during his lifetime was a wheel lock for a pistol (started with a key). At the beginning, the wheeled pistol was not very widespread, but by the middle of the 16th century it had gained popularity among the nobles, especially among the cavalry, which was even reflected in the design of the armor, namely: Maximilian armor for the sake of firing pistols began to be made with gloves instead of mittens. The wheel lock for a pistol, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, was so perfect that it continued to be found in the 19th century.

Leonardo da Vinci was interested in the problems of flight. In Milan, he made many drawings and studied the flight mechanism of birds of various breeds and bats. In addition to observations, he also conducted experiments, but they were all unsuccessful. Leonardo really wanted to build a flying machine. He said: “He who knows everything can do everything. If only you could find out, you’ll have wings!” At first, Leonardo developed the problem of flight using wings driven by human muscle power: the idea of ​​​​the simplest apparatus of Daedalus and Icarus. But then he came up with the idea of ​​​​building such an apparatus to which a person should not be attached, but should maintain complete freedom in order to control it; The apparatus must set itself in motion by its own force. This is essentially the idea of ​​an airplane. Leonardo da Vinci worked on a vertical take-off and landing apparatus. Leonardo planned to place a system of retractable staircases on the vertical “ornitottero”. Nature served as an example for him: “look at the stone swift, which sat on the ground and cannot take off because of its short legs; and when he is in flight, pull out the ladder, as shown in the second image from above... this is how you take off from the plane; these stairs serve as legs...” Regarding landing, he wrote: “These hooks (concave wedges), which are attached to the base of the ladders, serve the same purposes as the tips of the toes of the person who jumps on them, and his whole body is not shaken by it, as if he I was jumping on my heels." Leonardo da Vinci proposed the first design of a telescope with two lenses (now known as the Kepler telescope). In the manuscript of the “Atlantic Codex”, sheet 190a, there is an entry: “Make glasses (ochiali) for the eyes to see the big moon” (Leonardo da Vinci. “LIL Codice Atlantico...”, I Tavole, S.A. 190a),

Anatomy and medicine

During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his works. While dissecting the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small details. According to clinical anatomy professor Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways superior to the famous Gray's Anatomy.

Inventions

List of inventions, both real and attributed to him:

• Lightweight portable bridges for the army
• Double lens telescope

Thinker

...Those sciences are empty and full of errors that are not generated by experience, the father of all certainty, and do not culminate in visual experience...

No human research can be called true science unless it has gone through mathematical proof. And if you say that sciences that begin and end in thought have truth, then I cannot agree with you on this, ... because such purely mental reasoning does not involve experience, without which there is no certainty.

Literature

The enormous literary heritage of Leonardo da Vinci has survived to this day in a chaotic form, in manuscripts written with his left hand. Although Leonardo da Vinci did not print a single line from them, in his notes he constantly addressed an imaginary reader and throughout the last years of his life he did not abandon the thought of publishing his works.

After the death of Leonardo da Vinci, his friend and student Francesco Melzi selected from them passages related to painting, from which the “Treatise on Painting” (Trattato della pittura, 1st ed.) was subsequently compiled. The handwritten legacy of Leonardo da Vinci was published in its entirety only in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition to its enormous scientific and historical significance, it also has artistic value due to its concise, energetic style and unusually clear language. Living in the heyday of humanism, when the Italian language was considered secondary compared to Latin, Leonardo da Vinci delighted his contemporaries with the beauty and expressiveness of his speech (according to legend, he was a good improviser), but did not consider himself a writer and wrote as he spoke; his prose is therefore an example of the colloquial language of the 15th century intelligentsia, and this saved it in general from the artificiality and eloquence inherent in the prose of humanists, although in some passages of the didactic writings of Leonardo da Vinci we find echoes of the pathos of the humanistic style.

Even in the least “poetic” fragments by design, Leonardo da Vinci’s style is distinguished by its vivid imagery; Thus, his “Treatise on Painting” is equipped with magnificent descriptions (for example, the famous description of the flood), amazing with the skill of verbal transmission of pictorial and plastic images. Along with descriptions in which one can feel the manner of an artist-painter, Leonardo da Vinci gives in his manuscripts many examples of narrative prose: fables, facets (humorous stories), aphorisms, allegories, prophecies. In his fables and facets, Leonardo stands on the level of the prose writers of the 14th century with their simple-minded practical morality; and some of its facets are indistinguishable from Sacchetti's novellas.

Allegories and prophecies are more fantastic in nature: in the former, Leonardo da Vinci uses the techniques of medieval encyclopedias and bestiaries; the latter are in the nature of humorous riddles, distinguished by brightness and accuracy of phraseology and imbued with caustic, almost Voltairean irony, directed at the famous preacher Girolamo Savonarola. Finally, in the aphorisms of Leonardo da Vinci his philosophy of nature, his thoughts about the inner essence of things, are expressed in epigrammatic form. Fiction had a purely utilitarian, auxiliary meaning for him.

Leonardo's Diaries

To date, about 7,000 pages of Leonardo’s diaries have survived, located in various collections. At first, the priceless notes belonged to the master's favorite student, Francesco Melzi, but when he died, the manuscripts disappeared. Individual fragments began to “emerge” at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. At first they did not meet with enough interest. Numerous owners did not even suspect what kind of treasure fell into their hands. But when scientists established the authorship, it turned out that the barn books, art history essays, anatomical sketches, strange drawings, and research on geology, architecture, hydraulics, geometry, military fortifications, philosophy, optics, and drawing techniques were the work of one person. All entries in Leonardo's diaries are made in a mirror image.

Students

From Leonardo's workshop came such students ("Leonardeschi") as:

• Ambrogio de Predis
• Giampetrino

The renowned master summarized his many years of experience in educating young painters in a number of practical recommendations. The student must first master perspective, examine the shapes of objects, then copy the master’s drawings, draw from life, study the works of different painters, and only after that begin his own creation. “Learn diligence before speed,” advises Leonardo. The master recommends developing memory and especially imagination, encouraging one to peer into the unclear contours of the flame and find new, amazing forms in them. Leonardo encourages the painter to explore nature, so as not to become like a mirror that reflects objects without having knowledge about them. The teacher created “recipes” for images of faces, figures, clothes, animals, trees, sky, rain. In addition to the aesthetic principles of the great master, his notes contain wise worldly advice to young artists.

After Leonardo

In 1485, after a terrible plague epidemic in Milan, Leonardo proposed to the authorities a project for an ideal city with certain parameters, layout and sewer system. The Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, rejected the project. Centuries passed, and the authorities of London recognized Leonardo's plan as the perfect basis for the further development of the city. In modern Norway there is an active bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Tests of parachutes and hang gliders made according to the master’s sketches confirmed that only the imperfection of materials did not allow him to take to the skies. At the Roman airport named after Leonardo da Vinci, there is a gigantic statue of the scientist with a model of a helicopter in his hands, stretching into the sky. “He who is directed towards a star, do not turn around,” wrote Leonardo.

• Leonardo, apparently, did not leave a single self-portrait that could be unambiguously attributed to him. Scientists have doubted that the famous self-portrait of Leonardo's sanguine (traditionally dated to -1515), depicting him in old age, is such. It is believed that perhaps this is just a study of the head of the apostle for the Last Supper. Doubts that this is a self-portrait of the artist have been expressed since the 19th century, the latest to be expressed recently by one of the leading experts on Leonardo, Professor Pietro Marani.

• He played the lyre masterfully. When Leonardo's case was heard in the Milan court, he appeared there precisely as a musician, and not as an artist or inventor.

• Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue. In the book “On Painting” he wrote: “The blueness of the sky is due to the thickness of illuminated air particles, which is located between the Earth and the blackness above.”

• Leonardo was ambidextrous - he was equally good with his right and left hands. They even say that he could write different texts with different hands at the same time. However, he wrote most of his works with his left hand from right to left.

• Leonardo wrote in his famous diaries from right to left in mirror image. Many people think that in this way he wanted to make his research secret. Perhaps this is true. According to another version, mirror handwriting was his individual feature (there is even evidence that it was easier for him to write this way than in a normal way); There is even a concept of “Leonardo’s handwriting.”

• Leonardo's hobbies even included cooking and the art of serving. In Milan, for 13 years he was the manager of court feasts. He invented several culinary devices to make the work of cooks easier. Leonardo's original dish - thinly sliced ​​stewed meat with vegetables laid on top - was very popular at court feasts.

• In Terry Pratchett's books, there is a character named Leonard, whose prototype was Leonardo da Vinci. Pratchett's Leonard writes from right to left, invents various machines, practices alchemy, paints pictures (the most famous is the portrait of Mona Ogg)

• A considerable number of Leonardo's manuscripts were first published by the curator of the Ambrosian Library, Carlo Amoretti.

Bibliography

Essays

• Natural science essays and works on aesthetics. ().

About him

• Leonardo da Vinci. Selected natural science works. M. 1955.
• Monuments of world aesthetic thought, vol. I, M. 1962.
• I. Les manuscrits de Leonard de Vinci, de la Bibliothèque de l’Institut, 1881-1891.
• Leonardo da Vinci: Traité de la peinture, 1910.
• Il Codice di Leonardo da Vinci, nella Biblioteca del principe Trivulzio, Milano, 1891.
• Il Codice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci, nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano, 1894-1904.
• Volynsky A.L., Leonardo da Vinci, St. Petersburg, 1900; 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1909.
• General history of art. T.3, M. “Art”, 1962.
• Gukovsky M. A. Mechanics of Leonardo da Vinci. - M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1947. - 815 p.
• Zubov V.P. Leonardo da Vinci. M.: Publishing house. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962.
• Pater V. Renaissance, M., 1912.
• Seil G. Leonardo da Vinci as an artist and scientist. Experience in psychological biography, St. Petersburg, 1898.
• Sumtsov N. F. Leonardo da Vinci, 2nd ed., Kharkov, 1900.
• Florentine readings: Leonardo da Vinci (collection of articles by E. Solmi, B. Croce, I. del Lungo, J. Paladina, etc.), M., 1914.
• Geymüller H. Les manuscrits de Leonardo de Vinci, extr. de la "Gazette des Beaux-Arts", 1894.
• Grothe H., Leonardo da Vinci als Ingenieur und Philosopher, 1880.
• Herzfeld M., Das Traktat von der Malerei. Jena, 1909.
• Leonardo da Vinci, der Denker, Forscher und Poet, Auswahl, Uebersetzung und Einleitung, Jena, 1906.
• Müntz E., Leonardo da Vinci, 1899.
• Péladan, Leonardo da Vinci. Textes choisis, 1907.
• Richter J. P., The literary works of L. da Vinci, London, 1883.
• Ravaisson-Mollien Ch., Les écrits de Leonardo de Vinci, 1881.

Genius in the series

Among all the films about Leonardo, “The Life of Leonardo da Vinci” (1971), directed by Renato Castellani, is perhaps the best example in which a compromise is found between entertaining and educational. The film opens with the death of Leonardo in the arms of Francis I. And then the narrator (a technique used by the director to give historical explanations without disturbing the overall outline of the film) interrupts the sequence of the story in order to tell us that this is nothing more than a fictionalized version of the "Biographies" » Vasari. Thus, already with the prologue of the film, Castellani touches on the problem of the mystical mystery of personality, incredibly rich and multifaceted (“What, in the end, do we know about the life of such a famous person? Very little!”) The critical moments of Castellani’s biographical film were the scenes when Leonardo does a sketch of a man hanged for his participation in the Pazzi plot in 1478, leaving his friend Lorenzo di Credi shocked, and another episode where Leonardo dissects a corpse in the Santa Maria Nuovi hospital to find out the “cause of an easy death” - both episodes are presented as a metaphor for the insatiable thirst for knowledge of an artist who does not know any moral obstacles even in the face of death. The first years of his life in Milan were marked by projects for Navigli and incredibly enthusiastic work on never-written treatises on anatomy, but there were also few works of art, among them the amazing “Lady with an Ermine”, depicted so convincingly. In that Leonardo, who organized magnificent celebrations and empty glorifications of Il Moro, we see the fate of the artist (it seems that this is what Renato Castellani is hinting at) - both yesterday and today - to be forced to drive out hack work or do what is required of a helpful courtier in order to have the opportunity to do what the artist himself wants.

Gallery

see also

Notes

1. Giorgio Vasari. Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine painter and sculptor
2. A. Makhov. Caravaggio. - M.: Young Guard. (ZhZL). 2009. p. 126-127 ISBN 978-5-235-03196-8
3. Leonardo da Vinci. Masterpieces of graphics / J. Pudik. - M.: Eksmo, 2008. - P. 182. - ISBN 978-5-699-16394-6
4. Original Leonardo Da Vinci Music
5. White, Michael (2000). Leonardo, the first scientist. London: Little, Brown. p. 95. ISBN 0-316-64846-9
6. Clark, Kenneth (1988). Leonardo da Vinci. Viking. pp. 274
7. Bramly, Serge (1994). Leonardo: The Artist and the Man. Penguin
8. Georges Goyau François I, Transcribed by Gerald Rossi. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI. Published 1909. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 2007-10-04
9. Miranda, Salvador The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church: Antoine du Prat (1998-2007). Archived from the original on August 24, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2007.
10. Vasari Giorgio Lives of the Artists. - Penguin Classics, 1568. - P. 265.
11. Reconstruction of Leonardo's mechanical lion (Italian). Archived from the original on August 24, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2010.
12. “Ici Léonard, tu sera libre de rêver, de penser et de travailler” - Francis I.
13. Art historians have found the only sculpture by Leonardo. Lenta.ru (March 26, 2009). Archived from the original on August 24, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2010.
14. How accurate are Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings? , BBCRussian.com, 05/01/2012.
15. Jean Paul Richter The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. - Dover, 1970. - ISBN 0-486-22572-0 and ISBN 0-486-22573-9 (paperback) 2 volumes. A reprint of the original 1883 edition (English), cited by
16. Leonardo da Vinci's Ethical Vegetarianism
17. NTV television company. Official website | NTV News | Another da Vinci mystery
18. http://img.lenta.ru/news/2009/11/25/ac2/picture.jpg

Literature

• Antseliovich E. S. Leonardo da Vinci: Elements of Physics. - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1955. - 88 p.
• Volynsky A. L. Life of Leonardo da Vinci. - M.: Algorithm, 1997. - 525 p.
• Dityakin V. T. Leonardo da Vinci. - M.: Detgiz, 1959. - 224 p. - (School library).
• Zubov V. P. Leonardo da Vinci. 1452-1519 / V. P. Zubov; Rep. ed. Ph.D. art historian M. V. Zubova. The Russian Academy of Sciences . - Ed. 2nd, add. - M.: Nauka, 2008. - 352 p. - (Scientific and biographical literature). - ISBN 978-5-02-035645-0(in translation) (1st edition - 1961).
• Camp M. Leonardo / Transl. from English K. I. Panas. - M.: AST: Astrel, 2006. - 286 p.
• Lazarev V.N. Leonardo da Vinci: (1452-1952) / Design by the artist I. F. Rerberg; Institute of Art History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. - M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1952. - 112, p. - 10,000 copies.(in translation)
• Mikhailov B. P. Leonardo da Vinci architect. - M.: State Publishing House of Literature on Construction and Architecture, 1952. - 79 p.
• Mogilevsky M. A. Optics from Leonardo // Science first hand. - 2006. - No. 5. - P. 30-37.
• Nicoll Ch. Leonardo da Vinci. Flight of the mind / Trans. from English T. Novikova. - M.: Eksmo, 2006. - 768 p.
• Seil G. Leonardo da Vinci as an artist and scientist (1452-1519): Experience in psychological biography / Trans. from fr. - M.: KomKniga, 2007. - 344 p.
• Filippov M. M. Leonardo da Vinci as an artist, scientist and philosopher: Biographical sketch. - St. Petersburg, 1892. - 88 p.
• Zöllner F. Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519. - M.: Taschen; Art Spring, 2008. - 96 p.
• Zöllner F. Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519: Complete collection of paintings and graphics / Trans. from English I. D. Glybina. - M.: Taschen; Art Spring, 2006. - 695 p.
• “100 people who changed the course of history” Leonardo da Vinci Weekly publication. Issue No. 1
• Jessica Taisch, Tracey Barr Leonardo da Vinci for dummies = Da Vinci For Dummies. - M.: “Williams”, 2006. - P. 304. -

Not impressed? Well, the bearing may not be the coolest thing an inventor can do, but a lot of modern technology works with the help of bearings. Ball bearings allow drive shafts to rotate, push goods in a store or factory, and are the basis of almost any moving mechanism. Smooth balls placed between two moving surfaces virtually eliminate friction. For the first time, the idea, as many believe, was born during the Roman Empire, but historians believe that it was in da Vinci’s notebooks that the first sketches of the bearing appeared. Many of the devices invented by the genius would not work without bearings. But as with many of the inventor's concepts, the bearing had to be reinvented by someone else.

The distance from which a body falls depends on two factors: the force of gravity, which pulls it down, and the resistance of the atmosphere in which it falls. In the absence of an atmosphere, a falling body will simply accelerate to tremendous speed until it hits the surface, but the air slows down the fall until the body reaches the so-called terminal velocity. Different objects have different maximum speeds. For a person falling in the Earth's atmosphere - a parachutist, for example - this speed is approximately 193.1 km/h. Slowly, right? Let it be so, but this is enough for a person falling from an airplane to turn into a cake after hitting the surface of the earth. Only a parachute can save him.

Da Vinci, fascinated by the idea of ​​a flying man, conceived his parachute as a means of drifting through the air. Its pyramidal structure was draped with fabric. As da Vinci wrote in his notes, such a device would allow a person to “fall from any height without any injury or damage.” The twenty-first century naturalists who implemented da Vinci's idea recognized that it worked exactly as he predicted.

Da Vinci was inspired by birds. He watched them, drew them and thought about creating his own flying machines. One of the results of this hobby was the ornithopter, a device invented by da Vinci that could theoretically lift a person into the air like a bird. While a da Vinci parachute would allow a man to jump off a cliff and stay alive, an ornithopter would allow him to float in the air above the ground.

On paper, an ornithopter looks more like a bird (or bat) than modern aircraft. Its wings will start working after the pilot turns the handle. This invention demonstrates da Vinci's deep understanding of aerodynamics. Modern attempts to reproduce the ornithopter have shown that it could indeed fly - if it were lifted into the air. Building an aircraft that uses weak human muscles would be more difficult.

The parachute and ornithopter were only two of the flying machines described by da Vinci in his notebooks. Others included a glider and a helicopter-like aircraft, which we may talk about later.

The da Vinci machine gun or "33-barrel organ" was not a machine gun in the modern sense. He could not quickly fire bullets from one barrel. But it could fire volleys at short intervals, and if built, it would effectively mow down the advancing infantry.

The mechanism of this machine gun is simple. Da Vinci proposed assembling 11 muskets on a rectangular board, and then folding three such boards into a triangle. By placing a shaft in the middle, the whole thing could be rotated so that one set of 11 guns would fire while the other two cooled down and reloaded. After this, the entire mechanism turned over and fired another salvo.

And although da Vinci constantly noted in his notebooks that he hated war and cursed killing machines, he needed money, and he could easily convince wealthy patrons that such machines would help them defeat their enemies. Perhaps it was for the best that none of the killing machines conceived by da Vinci were built.

While living in Venice in the late 15th century, da Vinci developed the idea to repel invading ships. It was enough to send men to the bottom of the harbor in diving suits, and there they would simply open the bottoms of ships like tin cans. You may be underwhelmed by this idea because its implementation currently seems quite simple. But in Da Vinci's time this was unheard of. Da Vinci's divers could breathe using an underwater bell filled with air and wore masks with glass holes through which they could see underwater. In another version of the concept, divers could breathe using wine bottles filled with air. In both cases, the men would carry bottles with them to urinate in, so they could stay underwater for a very long time. Da Vinci's plan was not only feasible - it was practical!

These diving suits were actually created, but the invaders they were intended to be used against were successfully defeated by the Venetian fleet before underwater sabotage was needed.

Armored tank

While working for the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, da Vinci proposed what would become his crowning achievement in the field of military vehicles: the armored tank. Assisted by eight strong men, the armored tank looked like a turtle, bristling with 36 guns on all sides. It was equipped with a system of gears that formed a sequence. Eight people were protected from battle by the outer shell, so they could deliver such a “hedgehog” on foot right into the thick of the battle without being wounded. A weapon firing in all directions from an armored tank could be disastrous for an enemy squad.

The diagram of the armored tank in Da Vinci's notes contains a funny flaw: the wheels for forward movement turned in the opposite direction from the rear wheels. Built this way, the tank would not be able to move. Da Vinci was too smart to make such an unfortunate mistake, so historians have given several reasons why the inventor made such a mistake deliberately. Perhaps he really didn't want this car to be built. Another possibility is that he was afraid that the scheme would fall into the clutches of enemies, so he made a mistake to make sure that no one else could build the tank except him.

Self-propelled trolley

Working model.

Da Vinci's self-propelled cart is being promoted as the first automobile in history. Moreover, since it did not have a driver, it can also be considered the first robotic vehicle in history.

Da Vinci's drawings did not fully reveal the internal mechanism, so modern engineers had to guess what made the cart move forward. The best guess was a spring mechanism like the one used in watches. The springs were hidden in drum-shaped housings and could be wound by hand. And while the spring unwinds, the cart moves forward like a wind-up toy. The steering wheel could be programmed using a series of blocks in the gear chain, although the fact that the cart could only turn to the right would have significantly limited its usefulness.

Leonardo apparently considered his cart to be something of a toy, but we can be sure that if it had been built, more useful improvements would soon have followed.

Cities of the future

Leonardo da Vinci Bridge.

When Leonardo lived in Milan around 1400, the Black Plague was raging across Europe. Cities suffered far more than the countryside, and da Vinci theorized that there was something special about cities that made them vulnerable to the disease. This idea is surprisingly relatable, considering that germ theory was only developed in the early 20th century. Da Vinci set out to develop his own plan: a city, originally designed and created from scratch, that would be sanitary and habitable.

The result was a triumph of urban planning that was never built. Da Vinci's “ideal city” was divided into several levels, each of which had minimal unsanitary conditions, and a network of canals facilitated the rapid removal of waste. Water was to be supplied to the buildings through a hydraulic system, which served as the prototype of the modern one. The resources needed to create such a city were beyond the means at Da Vinci's disposal, and he was unable to find a philanthropist willing to shell out his money to build such a city.

Air propeller

Da Vinci's propeller is probably the coolest project that was found in his notebooks. It would operate on the principle of a modern helicopter. The flying machine looked like a huge pinwheel. The helicopter's "blades" were made of flax. If spun fast enough, they could create thrust, the aerodynamic phenomenon that allows planes and helicopters to fly. The air would create pressure under each of the blades, thereby lifting the flying car into the sky.

At least that was the idea. Could such a propeller fly? Hardly. But it would be cool.

Robot Knight

Leonardo da Vinci carefully studied human anatomy.

If the da Vinci self-propelled cart was the first working design for robotic transport, the robot knight could be the first humanoid robot, C-3PO of the 15th century. Da Vinci carefully studied the anatomy of the human body and spent hours dissecting corpses to find out how it worked. He realized that muscles move bones. After this, he decided that the same principle could form the basis of a machine. Unlike most of da Vinci's inventions, Leonardo appears to have actually built a robot knight, but it was used primarily as entertainment at the parties of the genius's generous patron, Lodovico Sforza. Of course, that robot was much different from .

Da Vinci's robot has not survived, and no one knows exactly what he was capable of. But apparently, he walked, sat and even worked with his jaws. It used a system of pulleys and gears. In 2002, robotics expert Mark Rosheim took da Vinci's workbooks to build a working model of the 15th century robot. As a result, Rosheim borrowed some ideas to create planetary reconnaissance robots, which.

As you can see, after half a century of space exploration, Leonardo da Vinci's projects finally went into outer space.