ility. From 1480-1483, Leonardo put three hard years into the studying and working on this horse. He became obsessed with the studies, and spent most of his time on this project. Unfortunately it got destroyed before it could be finished.From the 1470’s-1480’s, Leonardo was living in Milan. He was succeeding greatly as an artist, inventor, and many other things. Leonardo began his obsessions with his inventions, when Duke Lodovico, the Duke of Milan at the time, made him create a monument. This monument was to honor his father, one of the greatest of Milan’s leaders. The statue was to be of his father, going into battle on horseback. Since the Duke knew that Leonardo was an accomplished painter and knew about anatomy, he hired him for the job.Leonardo was furious. He had wanted to work on his inventions, and not concern himself with art at the time. But still, he did as he was instructed. For almost a year, Leonardo did research on the anatomy of horses. He did hundreds of sketches; planning out what position the horse would be in, what the horse would look like, and other things. He soon finished the sketching and began to work on the full size clay model. This model even took Leonardo a few months to create. (21) It had to be exact, because this is what the bronze casting would be shaped from. Being a perfectionist, it was only natural to take large amounts of time doing his works. He made sure that the structure was anatomically correct, and that it was in a position to celebrate the triumph that the Duke’s father had created. The sculpture came out to be magnificent. (22) All that had left to be done on the horse was to make the bronze casting on the horse.About a week after it was finished, there was an attack on Milan. The city fought bravely, but fell quickly. During the battle a horrible thing had occurred. The attackers demolished the horse. It was an extremely sad day for Leonardo. And after it had been...
