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Another thing to remember is beings the process of drawing took so long the bodies would start decomposing before he was finished with all of the drawings in which he intended to make. Leonardo Da Vinci was born on Saturday April 15, 1452. His father named Ser Piero Da Vinci was an important man, leading citizen who studied at the University of Vinci, and later became a notary just as his grand father, and great grandfather had done before him. However Leonardo could not study at the university as his father did. For he was not legitimate meaning his mother and father were never married. This is because his mother named Caterina was a peasant and Ser Piero was expected to marry a woman with money that came from a good family; someone much like himself. Leonardo is thought to have lived with his mother until she got married to a man of her class at which time Leonardo was likely to have moved in with his father. He is thought to have been around five when this occurred. Ser Piero’s wife and Leonardo’s care taker both died when Leonardo was still very young. When Leonardo was somewhere around the age of ten he was apprenticed to a famous artist of the time named Andrea del Verrocchio. At first Leonardo learned to grind colors, and make brushes as well as draw. Later he learned to paint, studied architecture, and learned to make sculptures of clay, bronze, and marble. When Leonardo was about twenty years of age he was accepted to the painters guild. As most people know Leonardo was a magnificent artist however some people don’t realize being an artist doesn’t always mean you’re good at painting and drawing. Leonardo was originally brought to the Moor who ruled the duchy of Milan by music not art. The Moor became Leonardo’s patron after Leonardo painted an altarpiece for the Church of San Francesco Grande. When the Moor decided to make a bronze statue of his father on horseback Leonardo stepped up to take on the task. Leonardo planned to make the horse first then make the rider separately and add it on later. He studied horses drawing the best the Moor had in his stable he also measured them even dissecting horses to make sure he had the plans just right. In 1493 Leonardo displayed his clay model that was full size. He still had to cast the enormous statue, which could prove to be the hardest part of making the sculpture. He invented a new way to get all the molten bronze into the mold quickly so it didn’t crack when it cooled. When all the bronze required to make the statue (more than seventy tons) was gathered and the molds made the Moor used the bronze to make cannons. The would be eighth wonder of the world was never cast and when the French captured Milan in 1499 the soldiers used Leonardo’s clay model for target practice. It eventually crumbled so even the model of the would be eighth wonder of the world is not around today. As an artist Leonardo also made three famous paintings. The Last Supper, The Masque of the Planets, and of course we all know the last one The Mona Lisa. The Last Supper was of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper when Jesus had just told his disciples that one of them would betray him. The painting was created from 1495 to 1497 in Santa Maria delle Grazie a church. The Masque of the planets was painted for the marriage of the moor’s nephew and the granddaughter of the King of Naples. The background was a mountain scene with a revolving stage in the middle. On the back was a night scene lit from behind so it looked like the stars twinkled surrounding it were the twelve signs of the zodiac and inside that were the seven heavenly bodies that could be seen then (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn portrayed as people) that rotated in mechanical orbits. The Mona Lisa was of a young Florentine lady sitting on a balcony originally flanked by two pillars. It is a flat painting but gives you not only the feeling its three dimensional but also the feeling its alive. Besides being an artist Leonardo was an inventor and a scientist. In his notebooks he showed all his thoughts and inventions. He wrote backwards not to keep his thoughts secret as rumored. When he wanted to do this he wrote in code but the real reason he did this was because he was left-handed and it was simply easier. The inventions in Leonardo’s notebooks are “an underwater diving apparatus, an automatic paper feeder for a printing press, a machine to make screws, one of the worlds first air cooling systems, a door that closed automatically, posthole diggers, shoes for walking on water, a automatic roasting spit, a clock for minutes and hours, a spring powered car, earth moving machines, a rolling mill for making sheet iron, a projector, a submarine, a pair of pliers, a modern monkey wrench, an automated one man band, a self closing toilet lid, contact lenses, prefabricated houses, artificial amber, pearls, and plastic glass, models of machine guns, grenades that threw shrapnel, a very modern-looking bomb, and a steam powered gun.”(from Diane Stanley’s Leonardo Da Vinci no page numbers given) Leonardo also invented new ways of drawing organs on top of each other where the top ones would be drawn transparent. (this is still used today). Leonardo died on May 2, 1519, at the age of sixty-seven in the arms of the King of France. Most people may have thought of Leonardo Da Vinci as just a painter but hopefully more people will realize he was actually also a talented drawer, an ingenious inventor, and a fantastic scientist. However people think of him, an old nutcase who carved up dead bodies, or a master scientist, artist, and inventor. He should be thought of as way ahead of his time. Bibliography: Stanley, Diane. Leonardo Da Vinci. New York: Marrow Junior Books, 1988. Wasserman, Jack. Leonardo Da Vinci. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc, 1984 Word Count: 1072
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