Leonardo da Vinci

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Lore & Background

Leonardo's portrait was used, within his own lifetime, as the iconic image of Plato in Raphael's School of Athens. His biography was written in superlative terms by Vasari. He has been repeatedly acclaimed as the greatest genius to have lived. His painting of the Mona Lisa has been the most imitated artwork of all time and his drawing the Vitruvian Man iconically represents the fusion of Art and Science. Leonardo's biography has appeared in many forms, both scholarly and fictionalized. Every known aspect of his life has been scrutinized and analyzed. His paintings, drawings and notebooks have been studied, reproduced and analyzed for five centuries. The interest in and appreciation of the character of Leonardo and his talents has never waned. Leonardo has appeared in many fictional works, such as novels, television shows, video games and movies, the first such fiction dating from the 16th century. Various characters have been named after him.

In Their Own Story

Leonardo's pupils and followers copied or closely imitated many of his pictures. Several of his important works exist only as copies by his admirers. These include: his cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist was copied as an oil painting by Luini; The Battle of Anghiari was copied several times by unknown Florentine artists as well by Peter Paul Rubens; Leda and the Swan exists only as copies in the Louvre and Villa Borhgese. Other much-copied works include: Mona Lisa, for which Angela della Chiesa cites 14 examples, of which six are bare-breasted. These include paintings by Bernardino Luini, Salaì and Joos van Cleve; John the Baptist for which there exists at least five versions by other hands, including Salai. No painting has been more imitated and satirised than the Mona Lisa. In 1883, Le rire, an image of a Mona Lisa smoking a pipe, by Sapeck (Eugène Bataille), was shown at the 'Incoherents' show in Paris. In 1919, Marcel Duchamp created L.H.O.O.Q., a Mona Lisa parody made by adorning a cheap reproduction with a moustache and a goatee as well as adding a rude inscription. Salvador Dalí painted Self portrait as Mona Lisa in 1954. In 1963, Andy Warhol created serigraph prints of multiple Mona Lisas called Thirty are Better than One. 'Il Gran Cavallo' is a monumental bronze horse, 7 metres (24 feet) high, and a conjectural re-creation of a clay horse that was created in Milan by Leonardo da Vinci for the Ludovico Sforza and intended to be cast in bronze. Leonardo never finished the project because of war with France, and the clay horse was ruined. This representation was based on a number of Leonardo's preparatory drawings. It was created in 1999 in New York and given to the city of Milan. The Last Supper is to be the subject of an animation by British film-maker Peter Greenaway, who plans to project interpretative images onto its surface.

Reader's Guide

The story of Leonardo dying in the arms of the French king Francis I, although apocryphal, appealed to the self-image of later French kings and to French history painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. Apparently on commission from Louis XVI, Ménageot painted The Death of Leonardo da Vinci in the arms of Francis I in 1781, setting it in a background of classical statuary. This painting, which was the triumph of the Salon of 1781, included a portrayal of the Borghese Gladiator, although this was an anachronism since Leonardo died in 1519, about ninety years before the statue was discovered. The 1818 painting The Death of Leonardo da Vinci by the French painter, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, depicts the scene of Leonardo's death shown taking place in the home Clos Lucé, which was provided for him at Amboise by King Francis I. The King is shown supporting Leonardo's head as he dies, as described by Vasari, watched by the Dauphin who is comforted by a cardinal. A distraught young man may represent Leonardo's pupil Melzi. A monument to Leonardo was erected in 1872 in Piazza del Scala, Milan. It comprises five marble statues by Pietro Magni, of Leonardo and his pupils Cesare da Sesto, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Marco d'Oggiono and 'Andrea Salaino', and four reliefs depicting scenes in Leonardo's life. A statue of Leonardo by the Bulgarian sculptor Assen Peikov stands outside Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Leonardo has appeared in many fictional works, such as novels, television shows, video games and movies, the first such fiction dating from the 16th century. Various characters have been named after him.

Did You Know?

• Leonardo's portrait was used, within his own lifetime, as the iconic image of Plato in Raphael's School of Athens.
• His painting of the Mona Lisa has been the most imitated artwork of all time, with Angela della Chiesa citing 14 examples, of which six are bare-breasted.
• In 1919, Marcel Duchamp created L.H.O.O.Q., a Mona Lisa parody with a moustache and goatee, intended as a Freudian joke referring to Leonardo's alleged homosexuality.
• 'Il Gran Cavallo' is a 7-metre (24 feet) high bronze horse re-creation of a clay horse Leonardo created for Ludovico Sforza, which was never finished due to war with France; the replica was created in 1999 in New York and given to Milan.
• The story of Leonardo dying in the arms of King Francis I, although apocryphal, was painted by Ménageot in 1781 and by Ingres in 1818.