Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, and died on May 2, 1519. He was an Italian expert in many fields during the High Renaissance. He worked as a painter, artist, engineer, scientist, writer, sculptor, and architect. Although he is most famous for his paintings, he is also well-known for his notebooks, where he drew and wrote about many subjects, such as the human body, stars, plants, maps, art, and fossils. Leonardo is widely seen as a brilliant person who represented the ideals of the Renaissance. His work greatly influenced European art, similar to the work of his contemporary, Michelangelo.
Leonardo was born to a notary and a woman of lower social class in or near Vinci. He was educated in Florence by the painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. He started his career in Florence but later worked for Ludovico Sforza in Milan. He returned to Florence and Milan later in his life and also briefly worked in Rome. Many artists imitated his work during his lifetime. After being invited by King Francis I of France, Leonardo spent his final years in France, where he died in 1519. Since his death, people have continued to admire his achievements, interests, and scientific thinking, which have inspired many cultural works.
Leonardo is considered one of the greatest painters in Western art history and is often called the founder of the High Renaissance. Although he created fewer than 25 major works, many of which were left unfinished, he produced some of the most famous paintings in Western art. The Mona Lisa is his most well-known painting and is considered the world’s most famous individual artwork. The Last Supper is the most copied religious painting in history, and his drawing of the Vitruvian Man is a widely recognized cultural symbol. In 2017, a painting called Salvator Mundi, which is believed to be partly or fully by Leonardo, was sold at an auction for $450.3 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.
Leonardo was known for his creative ideas in technology. He imagined flying machines, a type of armored military vehicle, a way to use the sun’s energy, a machine that could help with calculations, and a design for a ship with two layers of hulls. Many of his designs were not built during his time because the science and technology of the Renaissance were not advanced enough. However, some of his smaller inventions, like a machine to wind thread and a tool to test the strength of wire, were used in manufacturing without being widely recognized. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, water movement, geology, light, and friction, but he never published his findings. These discoveries did not directly influence later scientific work.
Biography
Leonardo da Vinci, whose full name was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ("Leonardo, son of ser Piero from Vinci"), was born on April 15, 1452, in or near the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, Italy, about 20 miles from Florence. He was born out of wedlock to Piero da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina di Meo Lippi, who came from a lower social class. It is not certain where Leonardo was born. Some believe he was born in Anchiano, a small village that could have provided privacy for his birth, while others think he may have been born in a house in Florence that his father owned. Leonardo’s parents married other people the year after his birth. Caterina, who later appeared in Leonardo’s notes as "Caterina" or "Catelina," is often believed to be the same woman who married Antonio di Piero Buti del Vacca, a local artisan. Piero married Albiera Amadori the following year and later married three more times. From these marriages, Leonardo had 16 half-siblings, 11 of whom survived childhood. He had little contact with them.
Little is known about Leonardo’s childhood, and much of the information is unclear or based on myths, including stories from a book written by Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century art historian. Tax records show that by 1457, Leonardo lived with his paternal grandfather, Antonio da Vinci. It is possible he lived with his mother in Vinci before that. He was close to his uncle, Francesco da Vinci, but his father, Ser Piero, was often in Florence. Ser Piero, who came from a long line of notaries, had a successful career and lived in Florence by 1469. Leonardo received only basic education in writing, reading, and math, possibly because his artistic talents were noticed early, and his family focused on developing those skills.
Later in life, Leonardo wrote about his earliest memory in the Codex Atlanticus. While discussing birds, he recalled an event from his childhood when a kite flew into his cradle and touched his mouth with its tail. Scholars debate whether this was a real memory or a story he imagined.
In the mid-1460s, Leonardo’s family moved to Florence, a city known for its art and learning. Around age 14, he became a studio boy in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, a leading painter and sculptor of the time. Verrocchio had studied under Donatello, a famous sculptor. Leonardo became an apprentice by age 17 and trained for seven years. Other famous artists who worked in Verrocchio’s workshop included Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. During his training, Leonardo learned many skills, such as drawing, painting, sculpting, and working with materials like metal and wood. He also studied subjects like chemistry and mechanics.
Leonardo was the same age as artists like Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Perugino, who were slightly older. He met them in Verrocchio’s workshop or at the Platonic Academy of the Medici, a group that studied philosophy and art. Florence was home to many great artists, including Masaccio, whose paintings showed realistic people, and Ghiberti, who created the famous Gates of Paradise with detailed gold leaf. Piero della Francesca studied perspective, and Leon Battista Alberti wrote a book on painting that influenced many artists, including Leonardo.
Most of the paintings in Verrocchio’s workshop were done by his assistants. According to Vasari, Leonardo helped paint The Baptism of Christ (c. 1472–1475), where he painted an angel holding Jesus’s robe. His work was so good that Verrocchio supposedly stopped painting after seeing it (though this may not be true). Leonardo may have also modeled for two of Verrocchio’s works: a bronze statue of David and an angel in Tobias and the Angel.
Vasari wrote about a story from Leonardo’s youth. A peasant asked Ser Piero to paint a shield for him. Inspired by the myth of Medusa, Leonardo painted a terrifying monster that spewed fire. His father bought a different shield for the peasant and sold Leonardo’s painting to an art dealer for 100 ducats.
By 1472, at age 20, Leonardo became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke, a group for artists and doctors. Even after starting his own workshop, he stayed close to Verrocchio. His earliest known dated work is a 1473 drawing of the Arno valley. Vasari said Leonardo suggested making the Arno River navigable between Florence and Pisa.
In January 1478, Leonardo received a commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saint Bernard in the Palazzo della Signoria, showing his independence from Verrocchio. An early biographer, Anonimo Gaddiano, said Leonardo lived with the Medici family in 1480 and worked in their garden, where a group of artists and thinkers met. In 1481, he received a commission for The Adoration of the Magi, but he abandoned both projects to offer his services to Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan. Leonardo sent a letter to Sforza describing his skills in engineering, weapon design, and painting. He also brought a silver musical instrument shaped like a horse’s head.
Leonardo met Humanist philosophers like Marsiglio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, and John Argyropoulos through the Medici. He also knew Pico della Mirandola, a young poet and philosopher. In 1482, Leonardo was sent by Lorenzo de’ Medici to Ludovico il Moro, who ruled Milan from 1479 to 1499.
- Madonna of the Carnation, c. 1472–1478
Personal life
Leonardo left behind thousands of pages in his notebooks and manuscripts, but he rarely mentioned his personal life. During his lifetime, his remarkable inventions, his "great physical beauty" and "infinite grace" as described by Vasari, and other aspects of his life, drew the interest of others. One such aspect was his love for animals, which may have included vegetarianism. According to Vasari, Leonardo also had a habit of buying caged birds and setting them free.
Leonardo had many friends who became important in their fields or in history. One was Luca Pacioli, a mathematician, with whom he worked on the book Divina proportione in the 1490s. Leonardo appears to have had few close relationships with women, except for his friendship with Cecilia Gallerani and the two Este sisters, Beatrice and Isabella. While traveling through Mantua, Leonardo drew a portrait of Isabella, which was later used to create a painted portrait that is now lost.
Salaì, also known as Il Salaino ("The Little Unclean One," meaning "the devil"), joined Leonardo's household in 1490 as an assistant. After one year, Leonardo listed Salaì's misbehavior, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton" because he stole money and valuables at least five times and spent a lot on clothes. Despite this, Leonardo treated him kindly, and Salaì remained in his household for thirty years. Salaì painted under the name Andrea Salaì, but Vasari said Leonardo "taught him many things about painting." However, Salaì's work is generally considered less artistically valuable than that of other students, such as Marco d'Oggiono and Boltraffio.
Leonardo kept his private life mostly hidden. His sexuality has been the subject of jokes, analysis, and guesses since the mid-16th century and again in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially by Sigmund Freud in his book Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood. Leonardo's closest relationships may have been with his students Salaì and Melzi. Melzi, who wrote to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his students as loving and passionate. Since the 16th century, some have claimed these relationships were sexual or romantic. Walter Isaacson, in his biography of Leonardo, clearly stated that his relationship with Salaì was intimate and homosexual.
In 1476, when Leonardo was 24, court records show that he and three other young men were accused of sodomy in an incident involving a male prostitute. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, and some believe the family of one of the accused, Lionardo de Tornabuoni, who was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, used their influence to get the charges dismissed. Since then, many have written about Leonardo's possible homosexuality and how it may have influenced his art, especially in the androgyny and eroticism seen in works like Saint John the Baptist and Bacchus, as well as in his explicit erotic drawings.
Paintings
For many years, Leonardo da Vinci was most famous for his paintings, even though people now also admire him as a scientist and inventor. Only a few paintings that are confirmed or believed to be his are considered masterpieces. These works are well-known for their unique qualities, which many artists have tried to copy, and art experts and critics have studied in detail. By the 1490s, people already called Leonardo a "Divine" painter.
What makes Leonardo’s paintings special includes his new ways of applying paint, his deep understanding of anatomy, light, plants, and rocks, his interest in how people show emotions through their faces and body language, his creative use of the human body in his compositions, and his skill in creating smooth changes in light and dark. These features are seen in his most famous paintings: the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and the Virgin of the Rocks.
Leonardo first became known for his work on The Baptism of Christ, which he painted with another artist named Verrocchio. Two other paintings from his time with Verrocchio are Annunciations. One is small, measuring 59 centimeters (23 inches) long and 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) high. It was meant to be placed at the bottom of a larger painting by Lorenzo di Credi, but the two works are now separated. The other Annunciation is much larger, 217 centimeters (85 inches) long. In both paintings, Leonardo used a formal arrangement similar to works by Fra Angelico, showing the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling on the right side of the picture, approached by an angel from the left. The angel has flowing clothing, raised wings, and holds a lily. The larger painting was once thought to be by Ghirlandaio, but it is now believed to be Leonardo’s work.
In the smaller painting, Mary looks away and folds her hands, showing willingness to accept God’s will. In the larger painting, however, Mary is reading when the angel appears. She marks her place in the Bible with her finger and raises her hand in a gesture of greeting or surprise. This calm young woman seems to accept her role as the Mother of God with confidence, not with sadness. In this painting, Leonardo shows the human side of the Virgin Mary, emphasizing how humans play a role in God’s plan.
In the 1480s, Leonardo received two important commissions and started another groundbreaking work. Two of the three paintings were never finished, and the third took so long that there were long discussions about when it would be completed and how much it would cost.
One of these works was Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, which Bortolon connects to a difficult time in Leonardo’s life, as noted in his diary: “I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.” Although the painting is barely started, its composition is unusual. Jerome, a penitent (someone who is repenting for sins), is placed in the center of the picture on a diagonal, viewed from above. His kneeling form creates a trapezoid shape, with one arm stretched toward the edge of the painting and his gaze looking in the opposite direction. J. Wasserman notes that this painting is linked to Leonardo’s studies of human anatomy. A large lion sprawls across the foreground, with its body and tail forming a double spiral. The background shows rough rocks, creating a dramatic contrast with the figure.
The bold figure composition, landscape, and personal drama also appear in The Adoration of the Magi, a commission from the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. This complex painting is about 250 × 250 centimeters. Leonardo made many drawings and studies, including a detailed sketch of ruined classical architecture in the background. In 1482, Leonardo went to Milan at the request of Lorenzo de’ Medici to gain favor with Ludovico il Moro, and the painting was abandoned.
The third important work from this period was The Virgin of the Rocks, commissioned in Milan for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. Leonardo painted this with the help of the de Predis brothers, and it was meant to be part of a large altarpiece. The painting shows a moment from the infancy of Christ, when the infant John the Baptist, protected by an angel, meets the Holy Family on their way to Egypt. The painting has an eerie beauty, with graceful figures kneeling in adoration around the infant Christ in a wild landscape of rocks and water. While the painting is large, about 200 × 120 centimeters, it is less complex than The Adoration of the Magi, which had about 50 figures and architectural details. Two versions of the painting were completed: one stayed at the chapel, and Leonardo took the other to France. The Confraternity and the de Predis brothers did not receive their painting or payment until the next century.
Leonardo’s most famous portrait from this time is The Lady with an Ermine, believed to be Cecilia Gallerani (c. 1483–1490), the lover of Ludovico Sforza. The painting shows the figure with her head turned at an unusual angle compared to her torso, a style that was not common at the time when many portraits were still stiff and in profile. The ermine has symbolic meaning, possibly relating to Cecilia or Ludovico, who was part of the prestigious Order of the Ermine.
Leonardo’s most famous painting from the 1490s is The Last Supper, created for the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. It shows the moment when Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him, causing shock among the group.
Matteo Bandello, a writer, observed Leonardo painting and noted that he sometimes worked from dawn until dusk without eating, then stopped painting for days at a time. This surprised the convent’s prior, who pressured Leonardo until he asked Ludovico to intervene. Vasari wrote that Leonardo struggled to accurately paint the faces of Christ and Judas, the traitor, and considered using the prior as a model.
The Last Supper was praised for its design and character, but it deteriorated quickly. Within 100 years, it was described as “completely ruined.” Leonardo used tempera paint on a surface mostly made of gesso, which led to mold and flaking. Despite this, the painting remains one of the most copied artworks, with many reproductions in different mediums.
Near the end of this period, in 1498, Leonardo painted
Drawings
Leonardo was a skilled artist who made many drawings. He kept journals filled with small sketches and detailed drawings that recorded things that interested him. In addition to these journals, many preparatory studies for paintings exist. Some of these studies can be linked to specific artworks, such as The Adoration of the Magi, The Virgin of the Rocks, and The Last Supper. His earliest dated drawing is Landscape of the Arno Valley from 1473. This drawing shows the river, mountains, Montelupo Castle, and farmlands beyond in great detail.
Among his famous drawings are The Vitruvian Man, which studies the proportions of the human body; Head of an Angel, used for The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre; a botanical study of the Star of Bethlehem; and a large drawing (160 × 100 cm) in black chalk on colored paper titled The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist in the National Gallery, London. This drawing uses a soft shading technique called sfumato, similar to that in The Mona Lisa. It is believed that Leonardo never painted from this drawing, though it resembles The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in the Louvre.
Other notable drawings include studies often called "caricatures," which are exaggerated but based on observations of real people. Vasari wrote that Leonardo looked for interesting faces in public to use as models. Many drawings show beautiful young men, often linked to Salaì, who had a rare facial feature known as the "Grecian profile." These faces are sometimes contrasted with those of warriors. Salaì is often shown in fancy costumes. Leonardo also designed sets for pageants, which may be connected to these drawings. Other detailed drawings show studies of clothing. Leonardo improved his ability to draw fabric in his early works. Another well-known drawing is a dark sketch from 1479 in Florence, showing the body of Bernardo Baroncelli, who was hanged for his role in the murder of Giuliano, the brother of Lorenzo de' Medici, during the Pazzi conspiracy. In his notes, Leonardo recorded the colors of the robes Baroncelli wore when he died.
Like architects Donato Bramante (who designed the Belvedere Courtyard) and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, Leonardo experimented with designs for centrally planned churches. These plans and views appear in his journals, though none were ever built.
Journals and notes
Renaissance humanism did not see science and the arts as completely separate or opposing areas. Leonardo da Vinci’s studies in science and engineering were as important and creative as his art. He recorded these studies in about 13,000 pages of notes and drawings. These pages combined art with natural philosophy, which was the early form of modern science. Leonardo created and kept these notes every day throughout his life and travels, as he carefully observed the world around him. His notes and drawings show a wide variety of interests, including simple things like grocery lists and people who owed him money, as well as more complex ideas like designs for wings and water-walking shoes. His work also included plans for paintings, studies of clothing and faces, animals, babies, dissections, plants, rocks, whirlpools, war machines, flying machines, and buildings.
After Leonardo died, his notebooks—originally loose papers of different sizes—were mostly given to his student and heir, Francesco Melzi. Melzi planned to publish them, but this was very difficult because of the large amount of material and Leonardo’s unique, hard-to-read handwriting. Some of Leonardo’s drawings were copied by an unknown artist for a book on art called Codex Huygens (around 1570). After Melzi died in 1570, the collection went to his son, Orazio, a lawyer, who was not at first interested in the notebooks. In 1587, a tutor named Lelio Gavardi took 13 of the notebooks to Pisa. The architect Giovanni Magenta criticized Gavardi for taking them without permission and sent them back to Orazio. Orazio then gave the notebooks to Magenta. News of these lost works spread, and Orazio recovered seven of the 13 manuscripts, giving them to Pompeo Leoni for publication in two volumes, one of which was the Codex Atlanticus. The other six notebooks were given to others. After Orazio’s death, his family sold the rest of Leonardo’s belongings, leading to the notebooks being separated.
Today, some of Leonardo’s works are in major collections, such as the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (which holds the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus), and the British Library in London (which has shared parts of the Codex Arundel online). Other works have been at Holkham Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the private collections of John Nicholas Brown I and Robert Lehman. The Codex Leicester is the only major scientific work of Leonardo’s that is privately owned; it is owned by Bill Gates and displayed once a year in cities around the world.
Most of Leonardo’s writings are written in mirror-image cursive, which means the text is reversed. This was likely easier for him because he wrote with his left hand, so he wrote from right to left. He used many shorthand symbols and wrote that he intended to prepare his notes for publication. In many cases, a single topic was explained in both words and pictures on the same page, so the information would not be lost if the pages were published out of order. It is unknown why his writings were not published during his lifetime.
Science and inventions
Leonardo’s approach to science was based on watching and recording details carefully. He tried to understand things by describing and drawing them in great detail, rather than by doing experiments or explaining them with theories. Because he did not have formal education in Latin or mathematics, many scholars of his time did not pay much attention to his scientific work, even though he taught himself Latin. His careful observations were noted, such as when he wrote, “Il sole non si muove” (“The Sun does not move”).
In the 1490s, he studied mathematics with Luca Pacioli and created drawings of regular shapes to be used in Pacioli’s book Divina proportione, published in 1509. While living in Milan, he studied light from the top of Monte Rosa. His notes about fossils in his journals were later seen as important for early studies of ancient life.
His journals suggest he planned to write many books on different subjects. A complete book about anatomy was reported to exist during a visit by a secretary of Cardinal Louis d’Aragon in 1517. Later, parts of his work on anatomy, light, and landscapes were collected and published as A Treatise on Painting in France and Italy in 1651 and in Germany in 1724. The book included drawings by the artist Nicolas Poussin. In France, the treatise was printed 62 times in 50 years, and it helped people see Leonardo as an important influence on early French art studies.
Although Leonardo’s experiments followed scientific methods, a recent study by Fritjof Capra suggests that Leonardo was different from scientists like Galileo and Newton. As a “Renaissance Man,” he combined science with art, especially painting, in his thinking and ideas.
Leonardo began studying human anatomy while working under Verrocchio, who required his students to learn deeply about the subject. As an artist, he became skilled at drawing visible parts of the body, such as muscles and tendons.
As a successful artist, Leonardo was allowed to dissect human bodies at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From 1510 to 1511, he worked with Dr. Marcantonio della Torre, a professor of anatomy at the University of Pavia. He made over 240 detailed drawings and wrote about 13,000 words for a book on anatomy. Only a small part of this work was included in A Treatise on Painting. When Melzi organized the material for publication, it was reviewed by anatomists and artists, including Vasari, Cellini, and Albrecht Dürer, who made drawings based on Leonardo’s work.
Leonardo’s drawings included studies of the human skeleton, its parts, muscles, and sinews. He studied how the skeleton and muscles work together, ideas that were ahead of their time and similar to modern biomechanics. He also drew the heart, blood vessels, sex organs, and other internal organs, including one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus inside the womb. His notes and drawings were far ahead of their time, and if published, they would have greatly helped medical science.
Leonardo also studied how aging and emotions affect the body. He drew people with facial deformities or signs of illness. He also studied and drew the anatomy of animals like cows, birds, monkeys, bears, and frogs, comparing their structures to humans. He made studies of horses as well.
His detailed studies of muscles, nerves, and blood vessels helped explain how the body moves. He tried to understand where emotions come from and how they are shown on the face. He found it hard to use the old ideas about bodily humors, but eventually stopped using them. He noted that humors were not in the brain or heart and that the heart controls the circulatory system. He was the first to describe atherosclerosis and liver cirrhosis. He made models of the brain’s ventricles using wax and built a glass aorta to study blood flow using water and grass seeds.
During his lifetime, Leonardo was also valued as an engineer. Using the same careful and logical approach he used for anatomy, he designed many machines and devices. He created the first modern technical drawings, including a method to show internal parts of machines. His notebooks contain over 5,000 pages of studies and ideas. In a letter from 1482 to Ludovico il Moro, he said he could build machines for city defense and sieges. When he fled Milan to Venice in 1499, he designed moveable barricades to protect the city. In 1502, he planned to change the flow of the Arno River, a project also worked on by Niccolò Machiavelli. He continued to study canals in Lombardy, the Loire River, and its tributaries. His notebooks include many inventions, both useful and not, such as musical instruments, a mechanical knight, hydraulic pumps, and a steam cannon.
Leonardo was interested in flight for much of his life. He studied birds and made plans for flying machines, like a flapping wing device and a machine with a spinning rotor. In a 2003 TV documentary, Leonardo’s Dream Machines, some of his designs, like a parachute and a large crossbow, were tested. Some worked well, while others did not. In 2009, engineers built ten of Leonardo’s machines for a TV show, including a fighting vehicle and a self-moving cart.
Research by Marc van den Broek found that many of Leonardo’s inventions were similar to older designs from the Middle Ages, Ancient Greece and Rome, China, Persia, and Egypt. Leonardo’s innovation was to combine these ideas into new designs that showed how they could be used.
In his notebooks, Leonardo first wrote about the “laws” of sliding friction in 1493. His interest in friction came from studying impossible machines that never stop moving, which he correctly said were not possible. His findings were not published and were not rediscovered until 1699 by Guillaume Amontons, whose name they are now linked to. For this, Leonardo was named the first person to study this topic.
Legacy
Although Leonardo da Vinci did not receive formal education, many historians and scholars consider him the best example of a "Renaissance Man," a person known for never-ending curiosity and a highly creative imagination. He is widely seen as one of the most talented individuals in history. Art historian Helen Gardner said that the range and depth of Leonardo’s interests were unmatched in history, and his mind and personality seem almost superhuman, while the man himself remains a mystery. Scholars believe that Leonardo viewed the world through logic, though the ways he studied things were unusual for his time.
During his lifetime, Leonardo was so famous that the King of France took him as a prize and is said to have cared for him in his old age. People continue to be interested in Leonardo and his work today. Crowds still line up to see his most famous artworks, his drawings appear on clothing, and writers still praise him as a genius while discussing his personal life and beliefs.
Many written works praise Leonardo’s talent. In 1528, Baldassare Castiglione, the author of Il Cortegiano, wrote, "Another of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which he is unequalled." Around 1540, a writer known as "Anonimo Gaddiano" said, "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf." In 1568, Vasari, in his book Lives of the Artists, described Leonardo in a chapter that highlights his achievements.
In the 19th century, people admired Leonardo’s genius even more. In 1801, Henry Fuseli wrote, "Such was the dawn of modern art, when Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour that distanced former excellence: made up of all the elements that constitute the essence of genius." In 1861, A. E. Rio wrote, "He towered above all other artists through the strength and the nobility of his talents."
By the 19th century, people knew about Leonardo’s notebooks and paintings. In 1866, Hippolyte Taine wrote, "There may not be in the world an example of another genius so universal, so incapable of fulfilment, so full of yearning for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far ahead of his own century and the following centuries."
In 1896, art historian Bernard Berenson wrote about Leonardo’s impact on art. Interest in Leonardo’s work has not stopped. Experts today study and translate his writings, use scientific methods to analyze his paintings, debate about which works he created, and search for artworks that are known but not yet found. In 1967, Liana Bortolon wrote about the importance of studying Leonardo’s life and work.
The Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana is a special collection of Leonardo’s works at the University of California, Los Angeles. In the 21st century, author Walter Isaacson wrote a biography of Leonardo based on thousands of notebook entries. He studied Leonardo’s personal notes, sketches, and ideas, and found that Leonardo had a joyful side in addition to his curiosity and creativity.
On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, the Louvre in Paris held the largest single exhibit of his work, called Leonardo, from November 2019 to February 2020. The exhibit included over 100 paintings, drawings, and notebooks. Eleven paintings Leonardo completed in his lifetime were shown. Five of these are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is very popular and remains on display in its own gallery. The Vitruvian Man was shown after a legal dispute with its owner, the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. Salvator Mundi was not included because its Saudi owner did not allow it to be borrowed.
The Mona Lisa, considered Leonardo’s greatest work, is often seen as the most famous portrait ever made. The Last Supper is the most copied religious painting in history, and Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man drawing is also a cultural icon.
In mid-2021, after more than a decade of research by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato, it was found that Leonardo has 14 living male relatives. This research may also help confirm if remains believed to be Leonardo’s are authentic.
Location of remains
Leonardo da Vinci was buried in the collegiate church of Saint Florentin at the Château d'Amboise on August 12, 1519. However, the exact location of his remains today is unknown. During the French Revolution, much of the Château d'Amboise was damaged, and the church was destroyed in 1802. This destruction caused some graves to be ruined, scattering the bones buried there and making it unclear where Leonardo's remains are. A gardener may have buried some of the bones in a corner of the courtyard.
In 1863, Arsène Houssaye, a fine-arts inspector general, was asked by the emperor to search the site. He found a partially complete skeleton with a bronze ring on one finger, white hair, and stone pieces with the letters "EO," "AR," "DUS," and "VINC," which were thought to spell "Leonardus Vinci." The skeleton had eight teeth, matching someone of the right age. A silver shield found nearby showed a beardless King Francis I, who looked like the king did during Leonardo's time in France.
Houssaye suggested that the unusually large skull might show Leonardo's intelligence. However, author Charles Nicholl called this idea questionable. Houssaye also noted that the feet were facing the high altar, a practice usually for non-religious people, and that the skeleton was about 1.73 meters (5.7 feet) tall, which some thought too short. Art historian Mary Margaret Heaton wrote in 1874 that this height was likely correct for Leonardo. The skull was shown to Napoleon III before being placed back in the chapel of Saint Hubert at the Château d'Amboise in 1874. A plaque above the tomb says the remains are only believed to be Leonardo's.
Later, it was suggested that the skeleton's right arm being folded over the head might match Leonardo's reported right-hand paralysis. In 2016, scientists planned to test the DNA of the remains to see if they belonged to Leonardo. The DNA would be compared to samples from Leonardo's artwork and to DNA from his half-brother Domenico's descendants.
In 2019, documents showed that Houssaye had kept the bronze ring and a lock of hair. In 1925, his great-grandson sold these items to an American collector. Sixty years later, another American bought them, and they were displayed at the Leonardo Museum in Vinci starting May 2, 2019, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death.