Abstract
Late one evening, in the springtime of 1452, in the low foothills of Montalbano, northwestern Tuscany, an illegitimate baby boy was born to a local farmer’s daughter called Caterina. The child was Leonardo da Vinci. He was conceived, perhaps, as the result of a brief romantic entanglement between the relatively affluent son of an old Vinci family of notaries (Ser Piero da Vinci) and a woman of lower birth, about whom very little is really known. He would grow into the original Renaissance man, whose good looks, charm, and charisma became a legend in his own time. Furthermore and pertinent to our story, he would become a contemporary icon for both science and the arts.
Wisdom is the daughter of experience
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Notes
- 1.
A reproduction of the crest can be seen there now, but the original has been taken down for conservation reasons. It is to be found in the da Vinci museum in Vinci.
- 2.
The lira da braccio was a forerunner of the violin. It was often made with a very fanciful sounding box, an attribute that Leonardo would later exploit.
- 3.
This is only circumstantial evidence, as the presence of another mouth to feed was tax deductible.
- 4.
Matthew Landrus, Leonardo da Vinci. (London: Carlton Books, 2006): 6.
- 5.
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists. Volumes I & II. London: Penguin Classics, 1987.
- 6.
Leonardo da Vinci. Codex Urb. 20r-v.
- 7.
Martín Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci. The marvellous works of nature and man. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 165.
- 8.
C.A. 1082 recto.
- 9.
Carmen C. Brambach, Editor, Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman (New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Series). (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003): 375.
- 10.
Kemp (p. 57) suggests that this painting should be dated 1481 but “would not be surprised if evidence emerges that assigns it firmly to his time in Milan.”
- 11.
RL 19059 recto.
- 12.
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists. Volumes I & II. London: Penguin Classics, 1987.
- 13.
Les Manuscrits de Leonard de Vinci. Manuscrit C. ed. C. Ravasson-Mollien, 6 vols, Paris, 1881–91.
- 14.
Irma A. Richter, Editor, The notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. (Oxford, Oxford World, 1998): 334.
- 15.
C.A. 247 recto.
- 16.
Venice 1496 and 1502 and Paris O on cover of manuscript.
- 17.
Codex Arundel in the British Museum. 202 verso.
- 18.
Martín Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci. The marvellous works of nature and man. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
- 19.
Man. K 48 verso.
- 20.
F. Saxl, Pagan sacrifice in the Italian Renaissance. Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 4. (April 1939): 346–367.
- 21.
This entry by Leonardo is part of a paraphrase from Regimen Sanitas of Arnold of Villanova or one of the numerous modifications of that work such as the tract of Vgr. Brenzo of Milan 1481.
- 22.
C. Atlanticus, fols 500v, 671r, 768r.
- 23.
Beatis 1979, 131–4. The original journal is in the National Library of Naples, X.F.28.
- 24.
RL 19001 recto.
- 25.
C Atlanticus 166r/59r-b, R 1142.
- 26.
RL 19045 verso.
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Wells, F.C. (2013). The Making of a Master: Leonardo, His Life and Times. In: The Heart of Leonardo. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4531-8_1
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