Leonardo da Vinci, Universal Genius.

Abstract

Leonardo da Vinci was born in Anchiano, a small village near Vinci on 15 April 1452, the natural son of the notary Piero and a certain Caterina. His status as an illegitimate child prevented him from attending regular courses of study and entering the notary's career. His training thus took place within the walls of his home and in the Tuscan countryside, where the young Leonardo was able to learn directly from nature and develop, free from conditioning and impositions, his personal experimental method. At the age of 18, he began his apprenticeship in Florence, in the prestigious workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, and in 1472 he was enroled as an independent artist in the Compagnia di San Luca, the guild of Florentine painters. The Annunciation (Florence, Uffizi), the Adoration of the Magi (Florence, Uffizi) and the Portrait of Ginevra Benci (New York, Metropolitan) date from this period. In 1482 he moved to Milan, to the court of Ludovico Sforza, where he stayed for 18 years, carrying out prestigious undertakings as painter, sculptor, architect, town planner, civil and military engineer and director of official ceremonies. Here he produced his most celebrated works, such as theVirgin of the Rocks (Paris, Louvre), the Lady of the Ermine in Krakow and the Belle Ferronière in the Louvre, and between 1494 and 1498, the Last Supper in the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In 1502, he followed Cesare Borgia's military campaigns in Emilia, Marches, Umbria and Tuscany, and in 1503 he received the commission for the Battle of Anghiari from the Florentine government for the new hall of the Grand Council in the Palazzo della Signoria; on the opposite wall, Michelangelo worked on the Battle of Cascina. The Mona Lisa also dates from this time. He then returned to Milan, where he resumed his studies of science, mechanics and anatomy, but in 1513, with the return of the Sforza family to power, he took refuge in Rome, welcomed by Cardinal Giuliano dei Medici. Here, Raphael and Michelangelo were by then famous and sought after, and at the full height of their personal and mature artistic expression, Leonardo, excluded from the St. Peter's building site and the decoration of theVatican palaces, worked on the project to reclaim the Pontine Marshes and devoted himself to the study of anatomy and ancient ruins. In 1516, after the death of his protector, Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, probably disappointed by the Roman environment and the reception given to him by the Pontiff, he decided to leave for France, entering the service of François I. As the king's first painter, he moved to Amboise, to the Château Clos Lucé, placed at his disposal by the French sovereign, where he died on 2 May 1519. He leaves a legacy to the world of ingenious insights, artistic masterpieces and a wealth of notes and drawings, some of which are unfortunately lost. InWestern culture, he has been taken as a symbol of Universal Genius, the personification of man's ingenuity and highest creative capacity. He himself, moreover, demonstrates a precise awareness of his versatility: in the letter preserved in the Codex Atlanticus in the Ambrosiana Lbrary in Milan with which he presented himself to Ludovico il Moro to be hired in his service, he describes himself as possessing secrets on the art of war and the construction of war instruments, but not only that, he is able to build bridges and bombards, dig tunnels, drain water from ditches, build ships, chariots for war and any other instrument for combat. These were his skills in the art of war, equally useful in times of peace, capable of fulfilling any request in the field of architecture, public and private construction, the design of water channelling works and the realisation of sculptural undertakings in marble, bronze and terracotta, and pictorial works of all kinds. While it is true that Leonardo did not achieve the public recognition during his lifetime that was reserved for Michelangelo and Raphael, it is equally true that his charisma was great and that the topos of the ‘genius of Vinci’ is already present in the testimonies of his contemporaries. The earliest known description of Leonardo is by the historian and humanist Paolo Giovio, who almost certainly had the opportunity to meet him in person and who traces a brief profile of him, in which we already find all the elements that would become recurrent in Leonardo's hagiography: his love for direct experience of nature, his eclecticism, his unflagging curiosity, his fickle nature and his perfectionism, which led to his constant dissatisfaction and difficulty in completing the work he had begun. Giovio also adds a physical description of Leonardo that will also be a commonplace for all later biographers: physical beauty, elegance of bearing and dress, combined with a particular pleasantness of manner and an innate capacity for entertainment.