Jaxon Davis
Term Paper Rough Draft:
Leonardo da Vinci, or Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, was born in April of 1452 in the Republic of Florence to father, Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci and mother Caterina. He became one of the biggest influences in the personification of the Renaissance approach to science and developing as a whole. Da Vinci also led experiments within many fields including natural science, mathematical studies, and engineering and invention. His work in anatomy is the most noteworthy and leads him to be credited as the father of modern science.
Early on, da Vinci lived in his mothers house until 1457 when he moved in to a house with his father, grandparents, and uncle. His parents were unmarried when he was born, and he was treated as “legitimate” except he was truly illegitimate. His father married many women over the years, including a sixteen year-old who was in love with da Vinci. These women gave da Vinci twelve half-siblings, all who were separated greatly by age and were not very involved in his life. His mother, who was a peasant, also supplied five other children. When da Vinci was around his forties, he had seventeen half-siblings.
Once as a child, da Vinci discovered a cave that he thought could harbor a monster yet he wanted to explore and was curious to find its secrets. Another event was when a kite fell from the sky onto his cradle and it’s feathers brushed his face. These were the only two incidents that da Vinci recorded about growing up.
Da Vinci was mostly self-educated and spent his entire life writing notes about inventions and theories, mostly about his pursuits from aeronautics to anatomy. He received an informal education in mathematics, Latin, and geometry. Instead of pursuing more information he did not see useful, his father apprenticed him at the age of fourteen to become a sculptor and painter under Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence.
At the age of 20, da Vinci qualified as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke after six years of sharpening his metalworking, drawing and sculpting, carpentry, and leather arts. For the two years following, he is unaccounted for and believed to have pursued individual work. In 1482, he moved to Milan to work for the city’s duke, dropping his work on two pieces in Florence, leading many to believe that he saw staying in Florence as an inhibitor and the Neoplatonism present contrasted da Vinci’s beliefs. Later, it became known Medici wanted him gone due to charges of sodomy. He was known as the painter and engineer of the duke, and managed to complete six pieces in the years he was there. The Virgin of the Rocks, for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception took 3 years of work on the altar while the Last Supper, found in the monastery of Santa Maria took roughly six years to complete (1492-1498):
Ludovico also had him do many things, including pageants, designs for the Milan Cathedral, and floats. He stayed in Milan a total of seventeen years, until when Ludovico, the duke, lost reign of power in 1499. Da Vinci’s mother, Caterina, died in 1945 while he was still in Milan.
When da Vinci left Milan and arrived in Venice, he became a military engineer and architect and was a great help in planning defense for threats of naval attack. In 1503, he returned to Florence and rejoined the Guild of Saint Luke. The following two years were spent on The Battle of Anghiari, for the Signoria. The only extant sculpture of da Vinci’s is a wax model of the French governor of Milan.
The Mona Lisa is some of his most famous work and is speculated to be based on Lisa del Gioconda to honor the birth of her second child, but da Vinci never gave it to her because he sought perfection. It has been argued as being his greatest achievement as an artist:
Da Vinci’s studies in science contained 13,000 pages worth of drawings and writings. He added to them continuously throughout his life, going over many topics and interests. There were amazing inventions and ideas within. He also maintained a more observational approach in his studies focusing less on experiments and explanations and more on rendering and describing. When experiments were conducted, they were to follow scientific method.
He faced a rough start in the area of science because of his lack of education. Many viewed him as unqualified due to his informal studies, so he took it upon himself to learn and gain respect in his work and show that education can always be gained. Experiments of the time were also not believed to be accurate. Da Vinci played a role in helping people understand that consistent results from experiments prove knowledge and open up doors to new ideas. He was also one of the first, if not the first, who connected math and science. However, this was not extremely successful due to key mathematical formulas not being discovered yet.
Biomechanics is an area that da Vinci contributed greatly to after a period of silence for the study. He looked at muscle forces and how joints function to better understand many things in anatomy, but because of this he also can be seen as an originator of this field. Because of his inventions and studies, he helped prefigure the modern science of biomechanics.
During his time with Verrocchio, it is believed that his interest in anatomy was sparked. To follow this interest, he began to dissect human bodies to learn how the joints and muscles work together in this work of nature. He spent almost twenty years dissecting thirty corpses in his life. From these corpses came drawings of the skeleton and of the internal organs including the heart, the lungs, and the brain, which he labeled as the motors of life and the senses. Da Vinci was also a big believer in proportion. One of his most famous diagrams, the Vitruvian Man, focuses on the correlation of human body proportions:
On the second of April 1489, he wrote “What nerve is the cause of the eye’s movement and makes the movement of one eye move the other? Of closing the eyelid. Of raising the eyebrows. . . . Of parting the lips with teeth clenched. Of bringing the lips to a point. Of laughing. Of expressing wonder. Set yourself to describe the beginning of man when he is created in the womb and why an infant of eight months does not live. What sneezing is. What yawning is. Epilepsy. Spasm. Paralysis. . . . Fatigue. Hunger. Sleep. Thirst. Sensuality. . . . Of the nerve that causes the movement of the thigh. And from the knee to the foot and from the ankle to the toes.” This opening page of his new notebook led him to discover great things, and opened the door for discoveries that could have taken much longer to figure out if it wasn’t for his brilliant research.
In da Vinci’s old age, he lived much of his life out in the Vatican, Rome under Pope Leo X. He kept a low profile until 1516 where he left Italy for the last time as he was commissioned to make a mechanical lion that would be impressive even in todays’ times. He spent the last three years of his life at Clos Lucé until his death on the second of May in 1519 due to a recurrent stroke.
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most talented and knowledgeable historical figures. He paved the way for many modern inventions and helped define the scientific method. He taught us about the body, involving himself in work that many would not have the guts to do. He epitomized who the ideal Renaissance man should be. His somewhat unnoticed work to help others understand the importance of experiments is monumental, especially since he did not even rely on them as he found observing to be more efficient in his studies. Leonardo da Vinci is not only the father of modern science, but also an icon and influencer for many striving architects, artists, and scientists.