VINCI, LIONARDO DA, a man of almost universal genius, and one who stands still unrivalled for the extent of his knowledge in art and science, was as remarkable for beauty of person as for capacity of mind, and was born at the castle of Vinci near Florence, in 1452. He was a natural son of Pietro da Vinci, a notary to the signory of
Vinci. Florence. From his youth he was quite remarkable both for aptitude and for universality. His drawings astonished his father, and on being shown to the painter Verocchio, they alike surprised him. This artist took Leonardo as a pupil, and his progress was so extraordinary as to be the wonder of all who frequented his studio. It is told that the youthful painter executed an angel in a picture of the "Baptism of Christ," on which his master was engaged, which so far excelled the other figures of the painting, that Verocchio in despair, laid down his brush for ever. The first original painting of Leonardo, was the monster known as the "Rotella del Fico," which he executed to astonish his father. Painting, however, was rather his amusement than his profession. A large portion of his time was taken up with poetry, music, astronomy, mathematics, sculpture, architecture, engineering, mechanics, botany, and anatomy. He was not only a student of those arts and sciences, he was a master in them all.
About 1483, Leonardo entered the service of Ludovico, duke of Milan, with a salary of 500 scudi per annum. He was indefatigable in painting, as he was in everything. Statuary, anatomy, fortification, architecture, nothing came amiss to him. He established a famous art academy at Milan in 1485; he modelled a bronze equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza; he painted portraits of the favourites of Duke Ludovico; he studied anatomy under the celebrated Marc Antonio della Torre; and he wrote a treatise on painting and sculpture, which is unfortunately now lost. In 1497, he commenced his greatest painting of the "Last Supper" on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican convent of the Madonna delle Grazie. Numerous copies and engravings of this celebrated work have appeared, but the painting itself no longer remains. An excellent copy of it by the pupil of Da Vinci, Marco Oggione, was purchased by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and is now in the Royal Academy of London. In 1499, the affairs of the Duke of Milan were in so bad a state, that Leonardo had to be content with a small freehold estate for his last two years' salary. On the flight of the Duke of Milan in 1500, Da Vinci, accompanied by his favourite pupil Andrea Salai (known in England as A. Solario) removed to Florence, where he was well received, and had an annual pension conferred upon him. He painted while here the cartoon of St Anne, and the portrait of the Madonna Lisa, now in the Louvre at Paris. But all his portraits must give way before the one of the artist himself now in the Florentine gallery. It is not surpassed by the finest portraits of Titian. He was employed in 1502 as architect and chief engineer to Pope Alexander VI. by Cesare Borgia, where he only remained till the death of his holiness in the course of the next year. At Florence he was chosen to design the "Battle of the Standard," of which he executed only a part, being jealous it is said of the rival cartoon of young Michael Angelo Buonarroti. He again visited Milan in 1507, where he painted a number of excellent portraits. In 1514 he set out for Rome, where Pope Leo X. at first patronised him, but subsequently slighting him, he set out for Pavia, and entered the service of Francis I. of France, a great patron of the arts, at an annual salary of 700 crowns. Proceeding to France in 1516, he left health and Italy behind him. His working-days were over, and he died (in the arms of Francis I., according to Vasari) at Fontainebleau, on the 2d of May 1519, aged sixty-seven.
Leonardo da Vinci was a man of proud and kindly bearing and disposition. He was remarkably handsome in person, and of very sumptuous habits: one of those regal geniuses, in short, which are sometimes sent into the world to impress men with the unexhausted fertility and formative power of the great mother of us all. No man borrowed less than he did; and, until Michael Angelo arose, he had no rival in design. His genius was too universal to stand pre-eminent in any one department; but taking him all in
all, his is without doubt the first name in the fifteenth century, alike for prodigious capacity, and for the singular and varied success which attended his inquiries. "The discoveries," says Hallam (Introduction to the Literature of Europe), "which made Galileo, and Kepler, and Maestlin, and Maurolicus, and Castelli, and other names, illustrious, the system of Copernicus, the very theories of recent geologists, are anticipated by Da Vinci, within the compass of a few pages, not perhaps in the most precise language, or on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us with something like the awe of preternatural knowledge." His best-known treatise is that on Painting, which has been twice translated into English and once into French, with engravings from drawings by Nicolas Poussin. The fragments of his writings alluded to above by Hallam, were published in 1797 by Venturi at Paris. (For further notice of Da Vinci as a painter, see ARTS, Fine, and PAINTING; also the works of Vasari, Lanzi, and Amoretti.)