Leonardo da Vinci

da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, near the village of Vinci about 25 miles west of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a prominent notary of Florence, who had no other children until much later. Ser Piero raised his son himself, a common practice at the time, arranging for Leonardo's mother to marry a villager. When Leonardo was 15, his father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading artist of Florence and a characteristic talent of the early Renaissance.
Verrocchio, a sculptor, painter, and goldsmith, was a remarkable craftsman, and his great skill and passionate concern for quality of execution, as well as his interest in expressing the vital mobility of the human figure, were important elements in Leonardo's artistic formation. Indeed, much in Leonardo's approach to art was evolutionary from tradition rather than revolutionary against it, although the opposite is often true of his results.



Leonardo da Vinci, the Florentine artist, scientist, and inventor, was born at Vinci in Tuscany, the natural son of a notary, and died near Amboise, France. At his death he left a sizable collection of notebooks that were subsequently scattered in the various libraries of Europe. From 1881 on, many of these notebooks have been published. They consist of notes and jottings on various topics: mechanics, physics, anatomy, physiology, literature, and philosophy. They contain, moreover, plans and designs for machines that frequently have suggested Leonardo's "precursive genius." There are machines of war and of peace, flying machines based on the flight of birds, a parachute, a helicopter, tools and gadgets of all kinds. Leonardo's notebooks are also full of methodological notations on the procedures of scientific inquiry and philosophical considerations about the processes of nature. Undoubtedly many of the arguments that he discussed were taken from the philosophical literature of the time, especially from the writings of the Ockhamists; however, a coherent and complete philosophical scheme cannot be found in the notes, whose chronological order is extremely uncertain. Pierre Duhem held that Leonardo was mainly inspired by the doctrines of Nicholas of Cusa, but recent studies tend to emphasize his dependence on Marsilio Ficino. Leonardo lived in Florence for the first thirty years of his life and subsequently returned there many times.

Milan (1482-1499)
Leonardo presented himself to the Duke of Milan as skilled in many crafts, but particularly in military engineering, asserting that he had worked out improved methods for shooting catapults and diverting rivers. Such inventions, as well as the remarkable machinery that Leonardo produced in Milan for stage pageants, point to his profound interest in the laws of motion and propulsion, a further aspect of his interest in living things and their workings. Again, this preoccupation differs from older artists only in degree.
Leonardo's first Milanese painting is the altarpiece Virgin of the Rocks. It exists in two versions: the one in Paris is earlier and was executed by Leonardo; the one in London is later, and there is controversy as to whether Leonardo participated in its execution. A religious brotherhood in Milan commissioned an altarpiece from Leonardo in 1483, and it is also a matter of argument as to which version is the one commissioned. Some scholars believe that it is the London work and that the Paris version was painted while Leonardo was still in Florence. But this view requires some remarkable coincidences, and the more usual opinion is that the picture in Paris is the original one executed for the Milanese commission and that it was taken away by Leonardo's admirer the king of France and replaced in Milan by the second painting.

I feel that his art work was carfully done and everything he made was by his doing. He did not only create art but his true passion was for creating tools of war. He created the first tank and other objects. He also tryed to conquer the long trade of flight. He made the first model of a helicopter and watched nature to perfect it. He loved nature and spent much of his time there.

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Abbagnano, Nicola. "Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)." Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Donald Borchert. Vol. 5. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. 281-282. 10 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. City Colleges Of Chicago. 15 Oct. 2008 .