Leonardo da Vinci was born in. Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci can safely be considered one of the unique people of our planet... After all, he is known not only as one of the greatest artists and sculptors of Italy, but also as the greatest scientist, researcher, engineer, chemist, anatomist, botanist, philosopher, musician and poet. His creations, discoveries and research were several epochs ahead of their time.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 near Florence, in the city of Vinci (Italy). Quite a bit of information is known about da Vinci’s mother, only that she was a peasant woman, was not married to Leonardo’s father, and raised her son in the village until he was 4 years old, after which he was sent to his father’s family. But Leonardo’s father, Piero Vinci, was a fairly wealthy citizen, worked as a notary, and also owned land and the title of Messer.

Leonardo da Vinci received his primary education, which included the ability to write, read, and basic mathematics and Latin, at home. For many, his manner of writing in mirror image from left to right was interesting. Although, if necessary, he could write traditionally without much difficulty. In 1469, the son and his father moved to Florence, where Leonardo began to study the profession of an artist, which was not the most revered at that time, although Piero had a desire for his son to inherit the profession of a notary. But at that time, an illegitimate child could not be a doctor or a lawyer. And already in 1472 Leonardo was accepted into the guild of painters of Florence, and in 1473 the very first dated work of Leonardo da Vinci was written. This landscape depicted a sketch of a river valley.

Already in 1481 - 1482. Leonardo was accepted into the service of the ruler of Milan at that time, Lodovico Moro, where he served as the organizer of court holidays, and part-time as a military engineer and hydraulic engineer. Being engaged in architecture, da Vinci had a huge influence on the architecture of Italy. In his works, he developed various options for a modern ideal city, as well as projects for a central domed temple.

At this time, Leonardo da Vinci tried himself in various scientific directions and achieved unprecedented positive results almost everywhere, but could not find the favorable environment he needed so much in Italy at that time. Therefore, with great pleasure, in 1517 he accepted the invitation of the French king Francis I to the position of court painter and arrived in France. During this period, the French court tried to actively join the culture of the Italian Renaissance, so the artist was surrounded by universal veneration, although, according to the testimony of many historians, this veneration was rather ostentatious and of an external nature. The artist’s weakened strength was at its limit and after two years, on May 2, 1519, Leonardo da Vinci died in, near Amboise, in France. But despite his short life, Leonardo da Vinci became a recognized symbol of the Renaissance.

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 their own, individual face, their own pose, expressing their 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.

There is a theory according to which geniuses are born only at that historical moment when development, cultural and social, has already prepared the ground for them. This hypothesis well explains the emergence of great personalities whose deeds were appreciated during their lifetime. The situation is more difficult with those brilliant minds whose calculations and developments have far surpassed their era. Their creative thought, as a rule, received recognition only centuries later, often being lost over the centuries and revived again when all the conditions for the implementation of brilliant plans appeared.

The biography of Leonardo da Vinci is just an example of such a story. However, among his achievements there were those recognized and understood by his contemporaries, and those that were only recently able to be appreciated.

Son of a notary

Leonardo da Vinci's date of birth is April 15, 1452. He was born in sunny Florence, in the town of Anchiano, not far from the town of Vinci. Most of all, his origin is evidenced by his name, which actually means “Leonardo comes from Vinci.” The childhood of the future genius largely predetermined his entire future life. Leonardo's father, the young notary Piero, was in love with a simple peasant woman, Katerina. Da Vinci became the fruit of their passion. However, soon after the birth of the boy, Piero married a rich heiress and left his son in the care of his mother. Fate would have it so that their marriage turned out to be childless, so at the age of three little Leo was separated from his mother and began to live with his father. These events left an indelible imprint on the future genius: the entire work of Leonardo da Vinci was permeated with the search for the image of his mother, Katerina, abandoned in childhood. According to one version, it was the artist who captured it in the famous painting “Mona Lisa”.

First successes

From childhood, the great Florentine showed a penchant for many sciences. Quickly grasping the basics, he was able to baffle even the most experienced teacher. Leonardo was not afraid of complex mathematical problems; he was able to construct his own judgments based on learned axioms, which often surprised his teachers. He also held music in high esteem. Among the many instruments, Leonardo gave his preference to the lyre. He learned to extract beautiful melodies from it and sang with pleasure to its accompaniment. But most of all he liked painting and sculpture. He was passionate about them, which soon became noticeable to his father.

Andrea del Verrocchio

Piero, paying tribute to his son’s sketches and drawings, decided to show them to his friend, the then famous painter Andrea Verrocchio. The work of Leonardo da Vinci made a great impression on the master, and he offered to become his teacher, to which his father, without thinking twice, agreed. So the young artist began to become familiar with great art. The biography of Leonardo da Vinci covered here would be incomplete without mentioning how this training ended for the painter.

One day Verrocchio was commissioned to paint the baptism of Christ. At that time, masters quite often assigned their best students to paint minor figures or backgrounds. Having depicted Saint John and Christ, Andrea del Verrocchio decided to paint two angels side by side and commissioned the young Leonardo to paint one of them. He did the job with all diligence, and it was difficult not to notice how the student’s skill surpassed that of the teacher. The biography of Leonardo da Vinci, presented by Giorgio Vasari, a painter and the first art critic, contains a mention that Verrocchio not only noticed the talent of his apprentice, but refused to take up a brush forever after that - this superiority hurt him so much.

Not only a painter

One way or another, the union of the two masters brought many results. Andrea del Verrocchio was also involved in sculpture. To create the statue of David, he used Leonardo as a model. A characteristic feature of the immortalized hero is a slight half-smile, which a little later will become almost da Vinci’s calling card. There is also reason to believe that Verrocchio created his most famous work, the statue of Bartolomeo Colleone, together with the brilliant Leonardo. In addition, the master was famous for being an excellent decorator and director of various festivals at court. Leonardo also adopted this art.

Signs of a genius

Six years after starting his studies with Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo opened his own workshop. Vasari notes that his restless mind, always eager to achieve perfection in many ways, had some flaw: Leonardo often left his undertakings unfinished and immediately took on new ones. The biographer regrets that much was never created by the genius because of this, how many great discoveries he did not make, although he stood on their threshold.

Indeed, Leonardo was a mathematician, a sculptor, a painter, an architect, and an anatomist, but many of his works lacked completeness. Take, for example, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. For example, he was commissioned to depict Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The painting was intended as a gift to the Portuguese king. The artist skillfully painted the trees, which seemed likely to rustle at the slightest breath of wind, and carefully depicted the meadow and animals. However, that’s where he completed his work, without ever finishing it.

Perhaps it was this kind of inconstancy that made Leonardo a jack of all trades. Throwing away the picture, he took to the clay, talking about the development of plants, and at the same time observed the life of the stars. Perhaps, if a genius strived to complete each of his works, today we would know only the mathematician or the artist Leonardo da Vinci, but not both in one person.

"Last Supper"

In addition to the desire to embrace a lot, the great genius was characterized by a desire to achieve perfection and the ability to understand where the limit of his capabilities in this sense was. Leonardo da Vinci's paintings became famous during the master's lifetime. He performed one of his most famous works for the Dominican Order in Milan. The refectory of the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie is still decorated with his Last Supper.

There is a legend associated with the painting. The artist spent a long time searching for suitable models for the faces of Christ and Judas. According to his plan, the Son of God was supposed to embody all the good that is in the world, and the traitor was evil. Sooner or later, the search was crowned with success: among the choir members, he spotted a model suitable for the face of Christ. However, the search for a second model took three years, until Leonardo finally spotted a beggar in a ditch whose face was more than suitable for Judas. The drunk and dirty man was taken to the church because he was unable to move. There, seeing the picture, he exclaimed in surprise: it was familiar to him. A little later, he explained to the artist that three years ago, when fate was more favorable to him, Christ was drawn from him for the same picture.

Vasari's information

However, most likely, this is only a legend. At least, Vasari's biography of Leonardo da Vinci does not contain any mention of this. The author provides other information. While working on the painting, the genius really could not complete the face of Christ for a long time. It remained unfinished. The artist believed that he would not be able to depict the extraordinary kindness and great forgiveness with which the face of Christ should shine. He didn't even intend to look for a suitable model for him. However, even in such an unfinished form, the picture is still amazing. On the faces of the apostles their love for the teacher and suffering due to their inability to comprehend everything that he tells them are clearly visible. Even the tablecloth on the table is painted so carefully that it cannot be distinguished from the real thing.

The most famous painting

The main masterpiece of the great Leonardo is, without a doubt, the Mona Lisa. Vasari quite definitely calls the painting a portrait of the third wife of the Florentine Francesco del Giocondo. However, it was common for the author of many biographies, in addition to verified facts, to use legends, rumors and speculation as sources. For a long time, researchers could not find a comprehensive answer to the question of who Da Vinci’s model was. Researchers who agreed with Vasari's version dated Giaconda to 1500-1505. During these years, Leonardo da Vinci worked in Florence. Opponents of the hypothesis noted that the artist had not yet achieved such perfect skill by that time, and therefore the painting was probably painted later. In addition, in Florence, Leonardo worked on another work, “The Battle of Anghiari,” and it took a lot of time.

Among the alternative hypotheses were suggestions that the “Mona Lisa” is a self-portrait or an image of da Vinci’s lover and student, Salai, whom he captured in the painting “John the Baptist.” It was also suggested that the model was Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan. All the mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci paled before this one. However, in 2005, scientists managed to find solid evidence in favor of Vasari's version. The notes of Agostino Vespucci, an official and friend of Leonardo, were discovered and studied. They, in particular, indicated that da Vinci was working on a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

Ahead of its time

If da Vinci's paintings gained fame during the author's lifetime, many of his achievements in other areas were appreciated only centuries later. The date of death of Leonardo da Vinci is May 2, 1519. However, only at the end of the nineteenth century did the recordings of the genius become public. Leonardo da Vinci's drawings describing the devices were far ahead of their time.

If the master inspired many of his contemporaries with his painting and laid the foundation for the art of the High Renaissance, then his technical achievements were impossible to bring to life at the level of technological development that existed in the sixteenth century.

Leonardo da Vinci's flying cars

The brilliant inventor wanted to soar not only in thoughts, but also in reality. He worked on creating a flying car. Leonardo da Vinci's drawings contain a diagram of the structure of the world's first model of a hang glider. This was already the third or fourth version of a flying car. The pilot was supposed to be placed inside the first ones. The mechanism was set in motion by the rotating pedals that he turned. The hang glider prototype was designed for gliding flight. This model was tested in the UK in 2002. Then the world champion in hang gliding managed to stay above the ground for seventeen seconds, while she rose to a height of ten meters.

Even earlier, the genius developed a design for a device that was supposed to rise into the air with the help of a single main rotor. The machine vaguely resembles a modern helicopter. However, this mechanism, which came into motion as a result of the concerted work of four people, had a lot of flaws, and it was not destined to become a reality even after centuries.

War vehicles

Biographers often, when describing Leonardo da Vinci as a person, note his peace-loving nature and condemnation of military actions. However, apparently, this did not stop him from developing mechanisms whose only function was to defeat the enemy. For example, he created a drawing of a tank. It had little in common with the operating mechanisms of the Second World War.

The car was set in motion thanks to the efforts of eight people turning the wheel levers. Moreover, she could only move forward. The tank had a round shape and was equipped with a large number of guns aimed in different directions. Today, almost any Leonardo da Vinci museum can demonstrate such a combat vehicle, made according to the drawings of the brilliant master.

Among the weapons invented by da Vinci was a terrifying-looking scythe chariot and a prototype of a machine gun. All these products demonstrate the breadth of thought of a genius, his ability to predict for many centuries the path of development along which society will move.

Automobile

Among the genius's developments was a car model. Outwardly, it was not much like the cars we are used to, but rather resembled a cart. For a long time it remained unclear how Leonardo intended to move it. This mystery was resolved in 2004, when in Italy a da Vinci car was created according to the drawings and equipped with a spring mechanism. Perhaps this is exactly what the author of the model assumed.

Ideal city

Leonardo da Vinci lived in turbulent times: wars were frequent, and the plague raged in many places. The searching mind of a genius, faced with serious illnesses and the misfortunes they bring, sought to find a way to improve the quality of life. Da Vinci developed a diagram of an ideal city, divided into several levels: the upper one for the upper classes, the lower one for trade. According to the author’s idea, all houses were supposed to have constant access to water using a system of pipes and canals. The ideal city consisted not of narrow streets, but of wide squares and roads. The purpose of such innovations was to reduce disease and improve hygiene. The project remained on paper: the kings to whom Leonardo proposed it considered the idea too bold.

Achievements in other areas

Science owes a lot to genius. Leonardo da Vinci had a great understanding of human anatomy. He worked hard, sketching the features of the internal arrangement of organs and the structure of muscles, and created the principles of anatomical drawing. He also made a description of the thyroid gland and its main functions. Spending time on astronomical research, he explained the mechanism by which the Sun illuminates the Moon. Da Vinci did not deprive physics of his attention, introducing the concept of friction coefficient and identifying the factors influencing it.

There are also ideas in the works of the genius that are characteristic of modern archeology. Thus, he was not a supporter of the official version at that time, according to which shells, found in abundance on the mountain slopes, got there due to the Great Flood. According to the scientist, once upon a time these mountains could have been the shores of the seas or even their bottom. And after unimaginable periods of time, they “grew up” and became what they see.

Secret writings

Among the mysteries of Leonardo, after the mystery of the Mona Lisa, his mirror handwriting is most often discussed. The genius was left-handed. He made most of his notes in reverse: the words went from right to left and could only be read with the help of a mirror. There is a version according to which da Vinci wrote this way so as not to smear the ink. Another hypothesis says that the scientist did not want his works to become the property of fools and ignoramuses. Most likely, we will never know the correct answer to this question.

No less secret is the personal life of the great Leonardo. Little is known about her, since the genius did not seek to flaunt her. Therefore, today there are a lot of the most incredible hypotheses in this regard. However, this is a topic for a separate article.

Leonardo da Vinci's contribution to world art, his extraordinary mind, which could almost simultaneously comprehend problems from completely different areas of human knowledge, remains indisputable and obvious. Few people in history can compare with Leonardo in this sense. At the same time, he was a worthy representative of his era, incorporating all the ideals of the Renaissance. He gave the world the art of the High Renaissance, laid the foundations for a more accurate representation of reality, and created the canonical proportions of the body, embodied in the drawing “Vitruvian Man”. With all his activities, he actually defeated the idea of ​​​​the limitations of our minds.

(Leonardo da Vinci) (1452–1519) - the greatest figure, multifaceted genius of the Renaissance, founder of the High Renaissance. Known as an artist, scientist, engineer, inventor.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the town of Anchiano near the city of Vinci, located near Florence. His father was Piero da Vinci, a notary who came from a prominent family in the city of Vinci. According to one version, the mother was a peasant woman, according to another, a tavern owner known as Katerina. At about the age of 4.5 years, Leonardo was taken into his father's house, and in documents of that time he is named as the illegitimate son of Piero. In 1469 he entered the workshop of the famous artist, sculptor and jeweler Andrea del Verrocchio ( 1435/36–1488). Here Leonardo went through his entire apprenticeship: from rubbing paints to working as an apprentice. According to the stories of contemporaries, he painted the left figure of the angel in Verrocchio's painting Baptism(c. 1476, Uffizi Gallery, Florence), which immediately attracted attention. The naturalness of movement, the smoothness of lines, the softness of chiaroscuro - distinguishes the figure of an angel from Verrocchio’s more rigid writing. Leonardo lived in the master's house even after he was accepted into the Guild of St. Luke, a guild of painters, in 1472.

One of the few dated drawings by Leonardo was created in August 1473. View of the Arno Valley from above, it was made with a pen with quick strokes, conveying vibrations of light and air, which indicates that the drawing was made from life (Uffizi Gallery, Florence).

The first painting attributed to Leonardo, although its authorship is disputed by many experts, is Annunciation(c. 1472, Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Unfortunately, the unknown author made later corrections, which significantly deteriorated the quality of the work.

Portrait of Ginevra de Benci(1473–1474, National Gallery, Washington) is permeated with a melancholy mood. Part of the picture at the bottom is cropped: probably, the hands of the model were depicted there. The contours of the figure are softened using the sfumato effect, created even before Leonardo, but it was he who became the genius of this technique. Sfumato (Italian sfumato - foggy, smoky) is a technique developed in the Renaissance in painting and graphics, which allows you to convey the softness of modeling, the elusiveness of object outlines, and the feeling of an airy environment.

Between 1476 and 1478 Leonardo opens his workshop. This period dates back to Madonna with a flower, so-called Madonna Benoit(c. 1478, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). The smiling Madonna addresses the baby Jesus sitting on her lap; the movements of the figures are natural and flexible. This painting exhibits Leonardo's characteristic interest in showing the inner world.

An unfinished painting is also an early work. Adoration of the Magi(1481–1482, Uffizi Gallery, Florence). The central place is occupied by the group of Madonna and Child and the Magi placed in the foreground.

In 1482, Leonardo left for Milan, the richest city of that time, under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza (1452–1508), who maintained an army and spent huge amounts of money on magnificent festivities and the purchase of works of art. Introducing himself to his future patron, Leonardo talks about himself as a musician, military expert, inventor of weapons, war chariots, cars, and only then talks about himself as an artist. Leonardo lived in Milan until 1498, and this period of his life was the most fruitful.

The first commission Leonardo received was to create an equestrian statue in honor of Francesco Sforza (1401–1466), father of Lodovico Sforza. Working on it for 16 years, Leonardo created many drawings, as well as an eight-meter clay model. In an effort to surpass all existing equestrian statues, Leonardo wanted to make a grandiose sculpture, to show a horse rearing up. But when faced with technical difficulties, Leonardo changed his plan and decided to depict a walking horse. In November 1493 model Horse without a rider was put on public display, and it was this event that made Leonardo da Vinci famous. About 90 tons of bronze were required to cast the sculpture. The collection of metal that had begun was interrupted, and the equestrian statue was never cast. In 1499 Milan was captured by the French, who used the sculpture as a target. After some time it collapsed. Horse- a grandiose, but never completed project - one of the significant works of monumental sculpture of the 16th century. and, according to Vasari, “those who have seen the huge clay model ... claim that they have never seen a more beautiful and majestic work,” called the monument “a great colossus.”

At the Sforza court, Leonardo also worked as a decorative artist for many festivities, creating previously unseen decorations and mechanisms, and making costumes for allegorical figures.

Unfinished canvas Saint Jerome(1481, Vatican Museum, Rome) shows the saint in a moment of penance in an elaborate turn with a lion at his feet. The picture was painted in black and white colors. But after covering it with varnish in the 19th century. the colors turned olive and golden.

Madonna of the Rocks(1483–1484, Louvre, Paris) is a famous painting by Leonardo, painted in Milan. The image of the Madonna, baby Jesus, little John the Baptist and an angel in a landscape is a new motif in Italian painting of that time. Through the opening of the rock one can see a landscape to which sublimely ideal features are given, and in which the achievements of linear and aerial perspective are shown. Although the cave is dimly lit, the picture is not dark, faces and figures softly emerge from the shadows. The finest chiaroscuro (sfumato) creates the impression of dim diffused light, modeling faces and hands. Leonardo connects the figures not only by a common mood, but also by the unity of space.

LADY WITH ERMINE. 1485–1490. Czartoryski Museum

Lady with an ermine(1484, Czartoryski Museum, Krakow) is one of Leonardo’s first works as a court portrait painter. The painting depicts Lodovic's favorite Cecilia Gallerani with the emblem of the Sforza family, an ermine. The complex turn of the head and the exquisite bend of the lady’s hand, the curved pose of the animal - everything speaks of the authorship of Leonardo. The background was rewritten by another artist.

Portrait of a musician(1484, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan). Only the young man's face is completed, the rest of the picture is not painted. The type of face is close to the faces of Leonardo's angels, only executed more courageously.

Another unique work was created by Leonardo in one of the halls of the Sforza Palace, which is called Donkey. On the vaults and walls of this hall he painted crowns of willows, whose branches are intricately intertwined and tied with decorative ropes. Subsequently, part of the paint layer fell off, but a significant part was preserved and restored.

In 1495 Leonardo began work on Last Supper(area 4.5 × 8.6 m). The fresco is located on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, at a height of 3 m from the floor and occupies the entire end wall of the room. Leonardo oriented the perspective of the fresco towards the viewer, thereby it organically entered into the interior of the refectory: the perspective reduction of the side walls depicted in the fresco continues the real space of the refectory. Thirteen people are sitting at a table parallel to the wall. In the center is Jesus Christ, to the left and right of him are his disciples. The dramatic moment of exposure and condemnation of betrayal is shown, the moment when Christ has just uttered the words: “One of you will betray Me,” and the different emotional reactions of the apostles to these words. The composition is built on a strictly verified mathematical calculation: in the center is Christ, depicted against the background of the middle, largest opening of the rear wall, the vanishing point of perspective coincides with his head. The twelve apostles are divided into four groups of three figures each. Each is given a vivid characterization through expressive gestures and movements. The main task was to show Judas, to separate him from the rest of the apostles. By placing him on the same line of the table as all the apostles, Leonardo psychologically separated him by loneliness. Creation last supper became a notable event in the artistic life of Italy at that time. As a true innovator and experimenter, Leonardo abandoned the fresco technique. He covered the wall with a special composition of resin and mastic, and painted with tempera. These experiments led to the greatest tragedy: the refectory, which was hastily repaired by order of Sforza, the picturesque innovations of Leonardo, the lowland in which the refectory was located - all this served a sad service to the preservation last supper. The paints began to peel off, as Vasari already mentioned in 1556. Secret supper It was restored several times in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the restorations were unskilled (paint layers were simply reapplied). By the mid-20th century, when last supper fell into a deplorable state, they began scientific restoration: first the entire paint layer was fixed, then later layers were removed, and Leonardo’s tempera painting was revealed. And although the work was severely damaged, these restoration works made it possible to say that this Renaissance masterpiece was saved. Working on the fresco for three years, Leonardo created the greatest creation of the Renaissance.

After the fall of Sforza's power in 1499, Leonardo travels to Florence, stopping at Mantua and Venice along the way. In Mantua he creates cardboard with Portrait of Isabella d'Este(1500, Louvre, Paris), made with black chalk, charcoal and pastel.

In the spring of 1500, Leonardo arrived in Florence, where he soon received an order to paint an altar painting in the Monastery of the Annunciation. The order was never completed, but one of the options is considered to be the so-called. Burlington House Cardboard(1499, National Gallery, London).

One of the significant commissions received by Leonardo in 1502 to decorate the wall of the meeting room of the Signoria in Florence was Battle of Anghiari(not preserved). Another wall for decoration was given to Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), who painted a painting there Battle of Kashin. Leonardo's sketches, now lost, showed a panorama of the battle, in the center of which a fight for the banner took place. Cartons by Leonardo and Michelangelo, exhibited in 1505, were a huge success. As is the case with Last Supper, Leonardo experimented with paints, as a result of which the paint layer gradually crumbled. But preparatory drawings and copies have survived, which partly give an idea of ​​the scale of this work. In particular, a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) has survived, which shows the central scene of the composition (c. 1615, Louvre, Paris).
For the first time in the history of battle painting, Leonardo showed the drama and fury of battle.

MONA LISA. Louvre, Paris Mona Lisa- the most famous work of Leonardo da Vinci (1503–1506, Louvre, Paris). Mona Lisa (short for Madonna Lisa) was the third wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo dele Giocondo. Now the picture has been slightly changed: originally columns were drawn on the left and right, now cut off. The small-sized painting makes a monumental impression: the Mona Lisa is shown against the backdrop of a landscape where the depth of space and airy haze are conveyed with the greatest perfection. Leonardo’s famous sfumato technique is here brought to unprecedented heights: the thinnest, as if melting, haze of chiaroscuro, enveloping the figure, softens the contours and shadows. There is something elusive, bewitching and attractive in a light smile, in the liveliness of facial expression, in the majestic calm of the pose, in the stillness of the smooth lines of the hands.

In 1506 Leonardo received an invitation to Milan from Louis XII of France (1462-1515). Having given Leonardo complete freedom of action and regularly paying him, the new patrons did not require specific work from him. Leonardo is interested in scientific research, sometimes turning to painting. Then the second version was written Madonnas of the Rocks(1506–1508, British National Gallery, London).

MADONNA AND CHILD AND ST. ANNA. OK. 1510. Louvre, Paris

St. Anne with Mary and the Christ Child(1500–1510, Louvre, Paris) is one of the themes of Leonardo’s work, to which he repeatedly addressed. The last development of this topic remained unfinished.

In 1513 Leonardo travels to Rome, to the Vatican, to the court of Pope Leo X (1513–1521), but soon loses the pope's favor. He studies plants in the botanical garden, draws up plans for draining the Pontine swamps, and writes notes for a treatise on the structure of the human voice. At this time he created the only Self-portrait(1514, Bibliotheca Reale, Turin), executed in sanguine, showing a gray-haired old man with a long beard and a gaze.

Leonardo's last painting was also painted in Rome - Saint John the Baptist(1515, Louvre, Paris). St. John is shown as pampered with a seductive smile and feminine gestures.

Leonardo again receives an offer from the French king, this time from Francis I (1494–1547), successor of Louis XII: to move to France, to an estate near the royal castle of Amboise. In 1516 or 1517 Leonardo arrives in France, where he is given apartments at the Cloux estate. Surrounded by the king's respectful admiration, he receives the title "First Artist, Engineer and Architect of the King." Leonardo, despite his age and illness, is engaged in drawing canals in the Loire River valley and takes part in the preparation of court festivities.

Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519, leaving his drawings and papers in his will to Francesco Melzi, a student who kept them throughout his life. But after his death, all the countless papers were distributed all over the world, some were lost, some are stored in different cities, in museums around the world.

A scientist by vocation, Leonardo even now amazes with the breadth and variety of his scientific interests. His research in the field of aircraft design is unique. He studied the flight, gliding of birds, the structure of their wings, and created the so-called. ornithopter, a flying machine with flapping wings, never realized. He created a pyramidal parachute, a model of a helical propeller (a variant of a modern propeller). Observing nature, he became an expert in the field of botany: he was the first to describe the laws of phyllotaxy (laws governing the arrangement of leaves on the stem), heliotropism and geotropism (laws of the influence of the sun and gravity on plants), and discovered a way to determine the age of trees by annual rings. He was an expert in the field of anatomy: he was the first to describe the valve of the right ventricle of the heart, demonstrated anatomy, etc. He created a system of drawings that now help students understand the structure of the human body: he showed the object in four views to examine it from all sides, created an image system organs and bodies in cross section. His research in the field of geology is interesting: he gave descriptions of sedimentary rocks and explanations of marine deposits in the mountains of Italy. As an optical scientist, he knew that visual images are projected upside down on the cornea of ​​the eye. He was probably the first to use a camera obscura (from Latin camera - room, obscurus - dark) - a closed box with a small hole in one of the walls - for sketching landscapes; rays of light are reflected on the frosted glass on the other side of the box and create an inverted color image, used by 18th century landscape painters. for accurate reproduction of views). In Leonardo's drawings there is a design for an instrument for measuring the intensity of light, a photometer, which was brought to life only three centuries later. He designed canals, locks, and dams. Among his ideas you can see: lightweight shoes for walking on water, a lifebuoy, webbed gloves for swimming, a device for underwater movement, similar to a modern spacesuit, machines for making rope, grinding machines and much more. Talking to mathematician Luca Pacioli, who wrote the textbook About Divine Proportion, Leonardo became interested in this science and created illustrations for this textbook.

Leonardo also acted as an architect, but none of his projects were ever brought to life. He participated in a competition to design the central dome of the Milan Cathedral, created a design for a mausoleum for members of the royal family in the Egyptian style, and a project he proposed to the Turkish Sultan for the construction of a huge bridge across the Bosphorus Strait, under which ships could pass.

There are a large number of Leonardo's drawings left, made with sanguine, colored crayons, pastels (Leonardo is credited with the invention of pastels), silver pencil, and chalk.

In Milan Leonardo begins to paint Treatise on Painting, work on which continued throughout his life, but was never completed. In this multi-volume reference book, Leonardo wrote about how to recreate the world around him on canvas, about linear and aerial perspective, proportions, anatomy, geometry, mechanics, optics, the interaction of colors, and reflexes.

John the Baptist. 1513-16

Madonna Litta 1478-1482 Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Leda with a swan 1508 - 1515 Ufizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

The life and work of Leonardo da Vinci left a colossal mark not only in art, but also in science and technology. Painter, sculptor, architect - he was a natural scientist, mechanic, engineer, mathematician, and made many discoveries for subsequent generations. This was the greatest personality of the Renaissance.

"Vitruvian Man"- the generally accepted name for a graphic drawing by da Vinci made in 1492. as an illustration for entries in one of the diaries. The drawing depicts a naked male figure. Strictly speaking, these are even two images of the same figure superimposed on each other, but in different poses. A circle and a square are described around the figure. The manuscript containing this drawing is sometimes also called the “Canon of Proportions” or simply “Proportions of Man.” Now this work is kept in one of the museums of Venice, but is exhibited extremely rarely, since this exhibit is truly unique and valuable both as a work of art and as a subject of research.

Leonardo created his “Vitruvian Man” as an illustration of the geometric studies he carried out based on the treatise of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius (hence the name of da Vinci’s work). In the treatise of the philosopher and researcher, the proportions of the human body were taken as the basis for all architectural proportions. Da Vinci applied the research of the ancient Roman architect to painting, which once again clearly illustrates the principle of the unity of art and science put forward by Leonardo. In addition, this work also reflects the master’s attempt to relate man to nature. It is known that da Vinci considered the human body as a reflection of the universe, i.e. was convinced that it functions according to the same laws. The author himself considered the Vitruvian Man as a “cosmography of the microcosm.” There is also a deep symbolic meaning hidden in this drawing. The square and circle in which the body is inscribed do not simply reflect physical, proportional characteristics. A square can be interpreted as the material existence of a person, and a circle represents its spiritual basis, and the points of contact of geometric figures with each other and with the body inserted into them can be considered as the connection of these two foundations of human existence. For many centuries, this drawing was considered as a symbol of the ideal symmetry of the human body and the universe as a whole.

Leonardo da Vinci - Italian scientist, inventor, artist, writer. One of the brightest representatives of the Renaissance. Many researchers consider him the most brilliant person of all times.

Biography

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in the small village of Anchiano, not far from Florence. His father Pierrot was a notary, his mother Katerina was a simple peasant woman. Soon after Leonardo was born, his father left the family and married a rich woman. Leonardo spent his first years with his mother. Then the father, who was unable to have children with his new wife, took the boy to be raised with him. When he was 13 years old, his stepmother died. The father remarried and became a widower again. His attempts to interest his son in notarial business were unsuccessful.

At a young age, Leonardo began to demonstrate extraordinary talent as an artist. His father sends him to Florence, to the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio. Here he mastered the humanities, chemistry, drawing, and metallurgy. The apprentice was actively involved in sculpture, drawing, and modeling.

When Leonardo turned 20 years old (in 1473), the Guild of St. Luke awarded Leonardo da Vinci the qualification of a master. At the same time, Leonardo had a hand in creating the painting “The Baptism of Christ,” which was painted by his teacher Andrea del Verrocchio. Da Vinci's brush belongs to part of the landscape and the angel. Leonardo’s nature as an innovator is already evident here - he uses oil paints, which were a novelty in Italy at that time. Verrocchio entrusts a talented student with commissions for paintings, while he himself focuses on sculpture. Leonardo's first self-painted painting was “Enlightenment.”

After this, a period of life begins, which is characterized by the artist’s fascination with the image of the Madonna. He creates the paintings “Madonna Benois”, “Madonna with a Carnation”, “Madonna Litta”. A number of unfinished sketches on the same subject have been preserved.

In 1481, the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto commissioned Leonardo to paint “The Adoration of the Magi.” Work on it was interrupted and abandoned. Already at that time, da Vinci was “famous” for his tendency to suddenly abandon work unfinished. The Medici family ruling in Florence did not favor the artist, so he decided to leave the city.

In 1482, Leonardo went to Milan to the court of Ludovico Sforza, where he played the lute. The artist hoped to receive a reliable patron in Sforza, offering his services as a weapons inventor. However, Sforza was not a fan of open conflicts, but of intrigue and poisoning.

In 1483, da Vinci received his first order in Milan - to paint an altar from the Franciscan Brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception. Three years later, the work was completed, and then the trial over payment for the work lasted another 25 years.

Soon orders from Sforza begin to arrive. Leonardo becomes a court artist, painting portraits and working on a statue of Francesco Sforza. The statue itself was never completed - the ruler decided to use bronze to make cannons.

In Milan, Leonardo begins to create his Treatise on Painting. This work lasted until the death of the genius. Da Vinci invents a rolling mill, a machine for producing files, and a machine for making cloth. All these valuable inventions did not interest Sforza. Also during this period, Leonardo created sketches of temples and took part in the construction of the Milan Cathedral. He developed a city sewer system and carried out land reclamation work.

In 1495, work begins on The Last Supper, which ends 3 years later. In 1498, the painting of the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco was completed.

In 1499, Sforza lost power and Milan was captured by French troops. Leonardo had to leave the city, and the following year he returned to Florence. Here he painted the paintings “Madonna with a Spindle” and “St. Anne with Mary and Child.”

In 1502, Leonardo became an architect and longwall engineer in the service of Cesare Borgia. During this period, da Vinci designed canals to drain swamps and created military maps.

In 1503, work began on the portrait of Mona Lisa. For the next decade, Leonardo wrote little, trying to devote more time to anatomy, mathematics and mechanics.

In 1513, Leonardo came under the patronage of Giuliano Medici and came with him to Rome. Here, for three years, he studied mirror making, mathematics, researched the human voice and created new paint formulations. In 1517, after the death of the Medici, Leonardo became court artist in Paris. Here he works on land reclamation, hydrography and very often communicates with King Francis I.

On May 2, 1519, at the age of 67, Leonardo da Vinci died. His body was buried in the church of Saint-Florent-ten, but the grave was lost during many years of war.

Major achievements of da Vinci

• Leonardo's contribution to the development of world artistic culture is extremely important. He became the founder of a new painting technique.
• Wheel pistol lock.
• Tank.
• Parachute.
• Bike.
• Portable army bridges.
• Catapult.
• Spotlight.
• Telescope.
• Robot.
• Leonardo left a huge legacy in literature. Most of his works have survived to this day poorly organized, and often written in secret.

Important dates in da Vinci's biography

• April 15, 1452 - birth in Anchiano.
• 1466 - work begins in Verrocchio's workshop.
• 1472 - becomes a member of the Florentine Guild of Artists. Begins work on the paintings “The Annunciation”, “The Baptism of Christ”, “Madonna with a Vase”.
• 1478 – opening of his own workshop.
• 1482 - move to Milan to the court of Lodovico Sforza.
• 1487 - work on a winged machine - an ornithopter.
• 1490 – creation of the famous drawing “Vitruvian Man”.
• 1495-1498 – creation of the fresco “The Last Supper”.
• 1499 - departure from Milan.
• 1502 - service with Cesare Borgia.
• 1503 - arrival in Florence. Start of work on the painting "Mona Lisa". Finished in 1506.
• 1506 - service with the French king Louis XII.
• 1512 – “Self-Portrait”.
• 1516 - move to Paris.
• May 2, 1519 - died at the castle of Clos-Lucé in France.

• He played the lyre masterfully.
• He was the first to scientifically explain the blueness of the sky.
• Worked equally well with both hands.
• Most researchers tend to believe that da Vinci was a vegetarian.
• Leonardo's diaries are written in mirror image.
• He was interested in cooking. He created his signature dish “From Leonardo”, which was highly appreciated in the court worlds.
• In the computer game Assassin's Creed 2, Da Vinci is presented as a minor character who helps the main character with his inventions.
• Despite a good education at home, Leonardo felt a lack of knowledge of Latin and Greek.
• According to some proposals, Leonardo loves carnal pleasures with men. One day he was sued for harassing a posing boy. However, da Vinci was acquitted.
• Leonardo was the first to establish that the light of the Moon is the light of the Sun reflected from the Earth.
• I have compiled a list of synonyms for the word “penis”. Moreover, a very voluminous list.