Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, writer, musician, inventor, architect, mathematician and scientist. He lived during the historical period we call the Renaissance, a period during which many discoveries were made in painting techniques, architectural design and engineering, medicine, and many other fields. We continue to learn about Leonardo’s interests in his Notebooks, discovered in the 19th century. Leonardo da Vinci had many talents, but he is best known for his paintings, particularly his two most famous paintings, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He is considered the founding father of the High Renaissance style of painting.
Leonardo da Vinci was an illegitimate child of a well-known Florentine notary. He was born in Vinci, near Florence, in Italy. He was an only child brought up in his father’s household, and he displayed in childhood an early interest in nature and a talent for drawing.
His father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrochio, a Florentine sculptor, painter and goldsmith. Leonardo entered the painter’s guild in Florence in 1472, and opened his own studio in 1478.
In 1482 he moved to Milan, his new patron being Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, where he worked until 1499. He painted The Last Supper during this period. The date he painted the Mona Lisa is unknown; it is considered to be within the period between 1503 and 1506, but may have been begun as early as 1498. He returned to Florence to his new patron Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna and the son and chief general of Pope Alexander VI, where he stayed until about 1508. Then he returned to Milan, living there until 1513. In 1513 he moved to Rome, where he was sponsored by the pope, Leo X, one of the sons of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He established a workshop in the Vatican, and remained there until the pope’s death in 1516. The new king of France, Francis I became his last patron, and Leonardo moved to Amboise, France, in 1516, remaining there until his death.
Leonardo painted only 25 paintings that we know of, and less than a dozen of these paintings remain today. His great contributions to painting include the use of the principle of linear perspective and clarity, that objects nearby are clearer to the eye than distant ones, sfumato, or the use of shadows and blurred outlines in the background of a painting to emphasize the main subject in the foreground, and new painting techniques, such as fresco. The Mona Lisa can be seen at the Louvre, Paris, The Last Supper can be seen at the Church of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, Italy and other Da Vinci works may be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Web Sites
- Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts
- Louvre, Paris, France
- The Last Supper Online
- Artcyclopedia
- The High Renaissance
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