1. Leonardo Da Vinci True Renaissance Man:
Painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, writer, inventor, mathematician, engineer.
Leonardo Da Vinci

2. Da Vinci (of / From Vinci)
Born April 15, 1452 in Vinci, a small town outside of the city state of Florence (Firenze).
Birth Name – Leonardo di Ser Piero - Illigitimate.
Born out of wedlock, his Father, Piero, was a notary and Mother, Caterina, was a peasant. Became “da Vinci”

3. DA Vinci & Verrocchio
Da Vinci’s father used his position to get young Leonardo in Andrea del Verrocchio’s studio as an artist’s apprentice.
Verrocchio taught Da Vinci and they painted together. The Baptism of Christ is said to be the last painting Verrocchio did because after seeing Da Vinci’s angel in the painting, Verrocchio believed the apprentice had now become the master, and vowed never to paint again.

4. DA Vinci & Verrocchio
Leonardo’s angel has softer hair and and shows more attention to detail than the other figures in the work.

5. The Medici – Florence’s Banking and Ruling Family
Left - Ponte Vecchio .
Above -Medici Corridor or walkway.
The Medici Family was also a patron to the arts.
Da Vinci worked for the Medici as an artist, but soon became tired of Florence and its politics. He was Also growing angry that a new artist was emerging in Florence (Michelangelo).

6. Da Vinci Leaves Florence
Fed up with, his rival and seeking new possibilities, Leonardo left Florence in the middle of an alter painting, Adoration of the Magi in This was one of his first commissions.
Leonardo once said “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

7. Adoration of the Magi
The passion found in the on-lookers faces in the painting and the action represented by their body language was a direct influence of Donatello on Leonardo.
Left Image - Detail From Adoration of the Magi
Right Image – Donatello’s David

8. Addoration of the Magi (Study)

9. Da vinci relocates north to Milan

10. Da Vinci in Milan
Italy was not a unified country but separate provinces or City-States.

11. Da Vinci in Milan
Leonardo moved in 1483 north to the city-state of Milan, to work for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.
The Duke of Milan was military minded. Milan was a warring city-state.
Leonardo loved to design possible weapons for war. He approached the Duke with his designs.
Many of his engineering ideas were colossal in size and ahead of his time.

12. War Machine Engineer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgaRpfRvgTA

13. War Machine Engineer
Doing Da Vinci is a television show on Discovery Networks that attempt to create working versions of his mechanical inventions.

14. Obsessed with flight
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” – Leonardo Da Vinci

15. Studied the human anatomy
Leonardo would preform autopsies and create detailed sketches of the human body.

16. Studied the human anatomy
Vitruvian Man

17. Horses and Da Vinci’s Lost PAinting
Da Vinci was enamored with the anatomy and musculature of Horses, often sketching them in his notebooks.

18. Horses and Da Vinci’s Lost PAinting
Da Vinci’s “lost” fresco The Battle of Anghiari is believed by some to be still intact in a hidden in a trapped compartment behind another painting in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

19. Horses and Da Vinci’s Lost PAinting

20. The Sforza Equestrian Monument
The Duke of Milan commissioned Leonardo to create a cast bronze sculpture immortalizing his war horse. The Sforza Equestrian Monument was abandoned shortly after the full size clay model was revealed to the Duke. The bronze was used to make cannon balls, and invading French soon destroyed the clay sculpture.
This Replica stands 24 feet tall in Milan
The Sforza Equestrian Monument

21. The Sforza Horse

22. Two Paintings / Same Subject
Virgin on
the Rocks
National Gallery, London
Madonna on
the Rocks
The Louvre, Paris
Confraternity on Immaculate Conception commissioned Leonardo and brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista de' Predis to create altarpiece.
CIC refused to pay and Duke of Milan bought original. Thought to have been stolen by Louis XII in 1499.

23. Madonna on the rocks Displays atmospheric perspective
Air particles obscure (make less clear) objects in the background, and make the background look blue and hazy
Da Vinci discovered this natural occurrence and used it to show depth in his paintings

24. The Last Supper - Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper
, S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan
Unique Groupings, expressions, and in 1-point perspective

25. From 1978 to 1999, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon guided a major restoration project to reverse the damage caused by dirt, pollution, and the misguided 18th and 19th century restoration attempts
Chapel was bombed during WWII.

26. The Mona Lisa
Started in 1503 and considered never finished and was in his possession when he died in France in 1517.
Thought to be a portrait of Francesco del Giocondo, Lisa Del Giocondo. “Ma Donna Lisa” – Madam Lisa
 in 1911 Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia . He gave the painting to the Uffizi Galleries (National Galleries of Italy). The Uffizi returned the painting to the Louvre in Paris in 1913.
Sfumato – Smoky blending of values and color. Prominent painting technique during the Renaissance.