Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was born on the fifteenth of April, 1452, near thetown of Vinci, not far from Florence. He was the son of a Florentine notary,Piero da Vinci, and a young woman named Caterina. Leonardo spent most of his In 1469 he was apprenticed to Andrea Verrocchio, a leading Renaissancemaster. Leonardo acquired a variety of skills while he remained at the workshopuntil 1476. He left Florence for Milan in about 1482 to work for Duke LodovicoSforza. He stayed in Milan for nearly eighteen years. During his time there heapplied his knowledge of mechanics to his obligations as a civil and militaryengineer. He also took up study in anatomy, biology, mathematics, and physics.During that time he completed his single most important painting, The Last Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500. Three years later, Leonardobegan several important artistic projects, including the Battle of Anghiarimural for the council chamber of the Town Hall, the portrait of Mona Lisa, andthe lost Leda and the Swan. At the same time his interests in anatomy led himto perform dissections, and he organized a study of the flight of birds.
For ten months during 1502, Leonardo served as military adviser and engineer. He served as principle engineer in the duke's military projects. His remarkable illustrations of the human body elevated drawing into a means of scientific investigation and exposition and provided the basic principles for modern scientific illustration. Sfumato is characterized by subtle, almost infinitesimal transitions between color areas, creating a delicately atmospheric haze or smoky effect; it is especially evident in the delicate gauzy robes worn by the sitter and in her enigmatic smile. To this day no one knows whether the woman in the painting was a real person, or whether is was Leonardo's vision of himself as a women. Although Leonardo produced a small number of paintings he was an influent artist. Because none of Leonardo's sculptural projects were brought to completion, his approach to three dimensional art can only be judged by his drawings. He spent his last years at the Chateau de Cloux, near Amboise, where he died. His extensive studies of human anatomy were portrayed in anatomical drawings, were among the most significant achievements of Renaissance Science. His scientific theories were based on careful observation and precise documentation. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence, a major intellectual and artistic center of Italy, could offer. Leonardo died at the age of67 on May 2, 1519, at Cloux, near Amboise, France. Other works ascribed to his youth are the so-called Benois Madonna (1478?, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg), the portrait Ginevra de' Benci (1474?, National Gallery, Washington, D. From 1514 to 1516 Leonardo lived in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X. The same strictures apply to his architecture: None of his building projects was actually carried out as he devised them.
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