April 15, 1452 Ser Piero and Catarina her first name is all that we know today gave birth to arguably the most important man in history, Leonardo da Vinci.. Leonardo was born in a farmho
Trang 1April 15, 1452 Ser Piero and Catarina (her first name is all that we know today) gave birth to arguably the most important man in history, Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo was born in a
farmhouse in Anchiano, which is 3 km away from Vinci Leonardo's family had lived in this area since the 13th century
Ser Piero, Leonardo's father, was a 25-year-old lawyer when Leonardo was born As the story goes, Ser Piero did not marry Leonardo's mother (Catarina) because she was the daughter of a farmer This caused many lifelong legal and emotional problems for Leonardo Ser Piero did marry a woman shortly after Leonardo was born, her name in unknown Leonardo had a total of four stepmothers in all, but it's thought that Leonardo's near by uncle is the one who nurtured Leonardo's powerful drive to learn
Leonardo was christened at the Baptismal Church in Vinci The parson Piero da Bartotomeo christened Leonardo to the name Lionardo, and not Leonardo Leonardo lived in Anchiano for about 5 more years, until he moved to Vinci
In 1457 Leonardo moved with his grandfather from Anchiano to Vinci From this time forth Leonardo was a member of his father's family Ser Piero and his first wife did not have any children; this may have been the reason for Leonardo's integration into his father's family
Leonardo attended school in Vinci Leonardo's teachers often became annoyed with his constant questioning of what they had just taught, and his many doubts While in school, Leonardo learned
to write, read, and calculate He was also taught Latin and geometry Leonardo believed that he had not learned enough Latin in school, so he taught himself more of it In 1466, after Leonardo turned 16, he moved to Florence to begin his apprenticeship in the workshop of Verrocchio Leonardo began his apprenticeship under Andrea del Verrocchio in 1466 Verrocchio was at this time the most gifted and magnificent artist in Florence Verrocchio had much influence on the young Leonardo, but Leonardo also had influence in Verrocchio Verrocchio was so fascinated by Leonardo's drawings, that he gave Leonardo a place in his workshop While working with
Verrocchio, Leonardo got a chance to work with some of the other great artists of the time, such
as Botticelli, Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi
During the years 1466-1472, there were no known works of art from Leonardo At this time Leonardo taught himself how to paint in oils One day when he painted an angel-Leonardo was known to draw better angel faces than anyone-Verrocchio reportedly threw down his paint brushes
in jealous admiration and swore he would never paint again In June 1472 Leonardo had begun being listed in the red books of painters from Florence With the membership in the painter's guild
of Florence, Leonardo's apprenticeship to Verrocchio ended Still Leonardo always felt at home with Verrocchio and in times of stress he would return to visit with him
Leonardo's first dated work is a pen and ink drawing of the Arnovalley He drew it on August 5,
1473 This picture shows the ingenious mind of Leonardo, because he drew the landscape in a way that could have been real No other artist had done this before
On April 8, 1476 an anonymous person denounced Leonardo for having had a homosexual affair with one of his models This was a great heresy against the church, punishable by death He was acquitted of the charge but after this he was even more secretive than before
In 1476 Leonardo and Verrocchio were commissioned to paint the Baptism of Christ This is a great picture to compare and contrast Leonardo's methods with Verrocchio's
Leonardo was not just skilled as a painter He was also a very good sculptor even though none of his pieces of sculpture survived the vandalism through the years More than a great artist, he was a great thinker, the best of his time and possibly the best of all time With the skills that Leonardo possessed he could easily have become a city planner, architect, inventor, engineer, physician, musician, anthropologist, botanist, or astronomer
Leonardo was a very curious person His most frequently used words in his notebooks were "I question His questions ranged from what it would be like to walk on water to would a fly make a different sound if you put honey on its wings?
Leonardo learned about human anatomy the same way most artists learned about it at the time They did autopsies on cadavers Leonardo had to keep his autopsies secret because they were banned by the
Church To make matters worse he was left handed, which in those days was perceived as a sign
of the devil He was a vegetarian because he felt sorry for the animals that people ate All of these personal habits and characteristics and his secrecy made people begin to think that he was a dark wizard, and his experiments were rumored to be a type of black magic Leonardo's desire for
Trang 2privacy was so much so that he wrote all of his notes backwards so that no one else could read them
He was a different type of man He was strong, healthy and handsome with a carefully curled and brushed beard His rose colored robes were short, unlike the robes of most men He was always extremely clean in an age when most people weren't He couldn't even stand to have paint on his fingers Most of the time he was calm, though he was known to blush when someone insulted him like his arch-rival Michelangelo Leonardo was a welcome addition to any party because of how
he was able to devise clever riddles that made people roll with laughter He even like to play pranks on people that would make them scream Once he even unleashed what appeared to be a dragon, but it was only his lizard He was an excellent horseman, sang well, played the lyre well and was capable of inventing his own instruments when needed His favorite food was minestrone soup There were two things that would put Leonardo in high spirits They were flying and his design for a submarine
Leonardo had no family of his own, but he adopted a peasant boy who lived with him for 26 years The boy was known as Salai, which means Devil, because he constantly stole from people He even stole from Leonardo In 1515 Leonardo drew a self-portrait of himself
King Francis I invited Leonardo to spend the last span of his life in Ambosie In the autumn of
1516 Leonardo arrived in Ambosie carrying the Mona Lisa Leonardo's final 3 years were the most serene of his life He came down with paralysis on the right side of his body in 1517 and his health continually declined after this time On April 23, 1519 Leonardo wrote his last will, and on May 2, 1519 Leonardo
Di Vinci died Vasari (a friend of Leonardo's) told the legend that King Francis I immediately came to Ambosie when he heard that Leonardo was near death The painting from Cesare Mussini shows this last meeting, but it is only a legend, because King Francis was in St Germain en Laye
on May 1, 1519