The Life Of Da Vinci

Second Part

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an excellent Italian painter, as well. “Mona Lisa” was one of the works that made him famous as one of the greatest names in the Renaissance. He was born in the small village of Vinci, near Florence, Italy, on April 15, 1452. Son of the notary Pierro and young Catarina, still a boy, he was already drawing and painting. In 1466, he moved with his family to Florence. At the age of 16, he became an apprentice to the Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio, where Boticelli, Filippino Lippi, and other painters worked, protected by Governor Lourenço de Medici. Da Vinci's first important work was part of the painting “The Baptism of Christ”, by Verrocchio, when he painted the angels and the landscape to the left of the painting.

In 1478, Leonardo da Vinci executed a panel from the altar to the chapel of São Bernardo, at the Palácio da Senhoria. In 1481 he was in charge of painting a panel for the church of the friars of San Donato, in Scopeto, near Florence, but the work “Adoration of the Magi” was unfinished. In 1482, at the age of 30, Da Vinci moved to Milan and offered his services to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, presenting himself as an engineer, architect and painter. In 1483 he painted the painting “The Virgin of the Rocks”, of which there are two versions, one at the Louvre Museum and the other, probably later, at the National Gallery in London.

In 1495, Leonardo da Vinci starts the work “The Last Supper”, a fresco of considerable dimensions, 9 meters wide and 4 meters and 20 cm high, on a wall at the Convent of Santa Maria del Grazie, in Milan. It was three years work, drawing and redrawing the figures of the Supper. At that time, he painted the portrait of Cecília Gallerani, known as “A Dama com Arminho”.

Leonardo da Vinci stayed in Milan until 1499 to design the cathedral, but ended up sketching and building the network of canals and a vast irrigation and water supply system. He did the complete urbanization project for the city. That same year, when the French invaded the city, Leonardo returned to Florence. He travels all the time. In Venice, Da Vinci studies the defensive system of the city threatened by the Turks. He studies anatomy and is accused of disrespecting the dead, for dissecting corpses, a practice that was a crime, in addition to being a sin against the Church. He recorded countless drawings in the “Treaty of Anatomy” that he wrote. Back in Florence he is appointed Military Engineer and accompanies César Borgia in his war ventures. In 1503, the Gioconda screen began. According to the painter and biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) Francesco del Giocondo, a rich Florentine, commissioned Leonardo's portrait of his wife. In 1507 he was appointed painter and engineer at the court of Louis XII of France. That same year, Giocondo's Mona Lisa ended, which became the most celebrated painting in Western painting. Today he is at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Leonardo da Vinci lived in Rome between 1513 and 1516, where he was protected by the brother of Pope Leo X. He puts himself in the service of Juliano de Medici. At that time, he painted “São João Batista”, probably his last work. With the death of Juliano, da Vinci leaves Italy for good and moves to the Castle of Cloux, in Amboise, France, a residence of Francisco I. He takes his manuscripts, hundreds of drawings and three paintings, all made to order and none of them delivered. Leonardo da Vinci died at the Chateau de Cloux, Amboise, France, on May 2, 1519. He was buried in the convent of the Church of Saint Florentin, in Amboise.