Who won the battle of the battles? Clark marvels at Leonardo’s baroque design and extols his unsurpassed depiction of horses and individual human faces while emphasizing that their contemporaries probably favored Michelangelo because of the incomparable beauty of his classical nudes. We know that Michelangelo copied parts of Da Vinci’s design in his notebook and that Leonardo was influenced by his younger rival to give his own nudes a more heroic pose. We’ll call it a draw.
François I, king of France and patron of Leonardo.
Accompanied by his small entourage of pupils and assistants, Leonardo wound his way through Milan to Amboise in the Loire Valley, knowing he would not return to the land of his birth. The last few years of his life were spent there under the patronage of François I, king of France. Although Da Vinci had many patrons and admirers throughout his days, the French king was perhaps the only one who came close to recognizing and appreciating the singular nature of Da Vinci’s genius. François provided Leonardo with a lovely château and a generous stipend and left the great master free to think and work as he pleased. Although his official title was “painter, engineer, and architect of the king,” Da Vinci’s primary obligation was to converse, to muse, and to philosophize with his majesty. According to Benvenuto Cellini, François “affirmed that never had any man come into the world who knew so much as Leonardo, and that not only in sculpture, painting, and architecture, for in addition he was a great philosopher.”
Under King François’s patronage Leonardo persevered in his studies, but time was running out. Years of exile had sapped his vitality. Then a severe stroke cost him the use of his right hand. Leonardo saw that he would die without fully realizing his dream of unifying all knowledge.
His last days, like much of his life, are shrouded in mystery. He once wrote, “As a day well spent brings blessed sleep, so a life well lived brings a blessed death.” Yet elsewhere he noted, “It is with the greatest reluctance that the soul leaves the body, and its sorrow and lamentations are not without cause.” Vasari tells us that as death approached, Leonardo, never religious but always deeply spiritual, “desired scrupulously to be informed of Catholic practice and the good and holy Christian religion.”
Leonardo Da Vinci died at the age of sixty-seven on May 2, 1519. Vasari claims that in his final days Leonardo was filled with repentance and apologized to “God and man for leaving so much undone.” Yet toward the end Leonardo also wrote, “I shall continue” and “I never tire of being useful.” Vasari records that Leonardo was observing and describing, in scientific detail, the nature of his illness and symptoms as he died in the arms of the French king. Although some scholars claim that documents prove that François was elsewhere at the time of Da Vinci’s death, the evidence is inconclusive, and Vasari may be right. It is easy to believe, however, that the maestro would, even at the moment of death, continue his process of learning and study.
The life of Leonardo da Vinci is a mysterious tapestry, woven in paradox, dyed in irony. No one has ever attempted so much in so many areas, and yet much of his work was left unfinished. He never completed The Last Supper, The Battle of Anghiari, or the Sforza horse. Only seventeen of his paintings exist, a number of which are incomplete. Although his notebooks contained wondrous information, he never organized and published them as he intended.
Scholars have offered a range of social, political, economic, and psychosexual explanations for Da Vinci’s leaving so many works incomplete. Some have even branded him a failure because he left so much unfinished. Professor Morris Philipson argues convincingly, however, that this is somewhat like criticizing Columbus for not discovering India.
Leonardo’s sketch of the Arno River valley, dated August 5, 1473, is brimming with the forces of nature.
Philipson and other scholars all seem to agree, however, that more important than any of his specific accomplishments is the example of the man himself. Leonardo offers the supreme inspiration for reach to exceed grasp.
It would take an encyclopedia to begin to do justice to the full scope of Leonardo’s accomplishments. We can get a glimpse of some of his most notable achievements through the categories of art, invention, military engineering, and science.
Leonardo the artist transformed the direction of art. He was the first Western artist to make landscape the prime subject of a painting. He pioneered the use of oil paints and the application of perspective, chiaroscuro, contrapposto, sfumato, and many other innovative and influential methods.
In a sentiment echoed later by Freud, biographical novelist Dmitry Merezhkovsky, author of The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, compared Leonardo to “a man who wakes too early, while it is still dark and all around him are still sleeping.”
Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are recognized universally as two of the greatest paintings ever produced. They are certainly the most famous. Leonardo also created other wonderful paintings including The Virgin of the Rocks, The Madonna and Child with St. Anne, The Adoration of the Magi, St. John the Baptist, and his portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci that hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Although Leonardo’s paintings are few in number, his drawings are abundant and equally magnificent. Like the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s Canon of Proportion has become a universally familiar icon. His studies for The Madonna and Child with St. Anne and the heads of the apostles in The Last Supper, along with his drawings of flowers, anatomy, horses, flight, and flowing water, are unmatched.
Leonardo was also renowned as an architect and a sculptor. Most of his architectural work focused on general principles of design, although he did consult on a number of practical projects including cathedrals in Milan and Pavia, and the French king’s château at Blois. While he is believed to have contributed to a number of sculptures, scholars agree that the only existing sculptures definitely touched by the maestro’s hand are three bronzes on the north door of the Baptistery in Florence. The Saint John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharisee was created in collaboration with the sculptor Rustici.
The figure of Plato, king of philosophers, in Raphael’s masterpiece The School of Athens is believed to be based on Leonardo.
Leonardo’s design for a mortar is bursting with creativity.
Leonardo the inventor made plans for a flying machine, a helicopter, a parachute, and many other marvels including the extendable ladder (still in use by fire departments today), the three-speed gear shift, a machine for cutting threads in screws, the bicycle, an adjustable monkey wrench, a snorkel, hydraulic jacks, the world’s first revolving stage, locks for a canal system, a horizontal waterwheel, folding furniture, an olive press, a number of automated musical instruments, a water-powered alarm clock, a therapeutic armchair, and a crane for clearing ditches.
More than any single invention, Leonardo deserves credit for pioneering the concept of automation. He designed myriad machines that could save labor and increase productivity. Although some were fanciful and impractical, others, like his automated looms, were portents of the Industrial Revolution.
As a military engineer Da Vinci made plans for weapons that would be deployed four hundred