Transcript Leonardo DA VINCI - Istituto Comprensivo Luigi Settembrini

Leonardo da Vinci
The Life
Leonardo was born on April 15th 1452 in Vinci, a small Tuscan village
between Pisa and Florence.
In 1460 he moves to Florence with his step mother and his father, a
notary who wants Leonardo to become a notary like him.
In 1466 at the age of fourteen Leonardo joins Verrocchio's studio, one
of the most important workshop in Florence. Here Leonardo will
start his apprenticeship and will meet other famous artists.
He knows the Medici (the most important family in Florence) and
meets many other intellectuals.
When he was in Milan he realizes
“The Last Dinner" ("l'Ultima Cena"), one of the most famous
Leonardo's painting. On 1500 he comes back to Florence, where he
will stay until 1506, working for Cesare Borgia, as a military
engineer. In this period Leonardo paints two of his most famous
works: "La Gioconda" and "La Leda".
When Leonardo is in Rome he meets Michelangelo and visits the
Sistina Chapel, just ended by Michelangelo.
He dies on May 2nd in Clos Lucè.
L’ ultima cena
Observations and Discoveries
Leonardo Da Vinci, ingenious man of the Renaissance, fully incarned the
Renaissance humanist ideal.
He was an Italian painter, engineer, scientist, inventor, anatomist, geologist:
he is considered the most diversely talented person that ever lived.
He was a precursor of geology. He discovered that the fossils of pre-history
stay in the seabed.
In the field of Botany, Leonardo made some important observations: he
noticed that leaves on branches are not casually located, but follow
mathematical laws (that were formulated only three centuries later): leaves
grow avoiding overlapping, in order to take most possible quantity of light.
Leonardo also discovered that tree's circles in the trunks show the plant's
age. At the same conclusion arrived Marcello Malpighi one century later.
Leonardo studied the capillarity phenomena: he started observing how the
water comes up through three's trunk.
He discovered the lymph's ascendant and descendant flows.
He also made an experiment that anticipated hydroponics: he studied
hydraulics.
Leonardo: Painter and Inventor
La Gioconda
Deltaplano (hang glider)
Carro armato (tank)
The Self-Portrait
Leonardo da Vinci’s self-portrait was drawn about 1515 and it is
actually exhibited at Turin Royal Library. The drawn of the famous
self-portrait, the only one surely representing the artist, is mostly
dated from his last years, when he was living in France at the
service of Francesco I.
After Leonardo da Vinci’s death, all his works were left in inheritance to
his trusted collaborator Francesco Melzi. The self-portrait
reappeared in the beginning of 19th century in Milan, but afterward
it vanished again since 1840, when a collector sold it to Carlo
Alberto di Savoia. From the collections of Savoia family the selfportrait arrived later in Royal Library.
The work represents the face of a man with long hairs white as the
beard, but bald to the top of his head. Signs of the time are well
evident, with furrows along his forehead.
The self-portrait, finally, was drawn from right to the left, as seen in a
mirror.
The authors:
Valentina Vavala’
Alessandro Tancredi
Christian Nardi
Antonello De Santis
Margherita Contri
Alessandro Benevolo