LEONARDO

“Since when was genius found respectable?” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The crocus, Crocus aureus, is the birthday flower for this day and it symbolises the gladness of youth. The ancient Greeks had a rather more lugubrious tale to tell. Crocus was a beautiful youth who loved Smilax, a nymph. His love was unrequited and he pined away and died. The gods turned the hapless youth into the flower while the nymph was changed into the yew tree.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci, in 1452, born in the little town of Vinci (his name means Leonard from Vinci!), situated in the heart of Tuscany, only a few kilometres from Florence and Pistoia, a stone's throw from Pisa, and within an hour's drive from Lucca and Siena. Leonardo had a keen eye and a quick mind that led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas. Instead he kept diaries and meticulous notebooks where he soliloquised about his thousands of ideas, recorded hundreds of his inventions and countless sketches.

He was a gentle vegetarian who loved animals and despised war, yet he worked as a military engineer to invent advanced and deadly weapons, some of which were used very successfully in the internecine wars that ravaged the Italy of his time. He was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance, yet he left only a handful of completed paintings, but each one of them universally admired as a true masterpiece.

Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant girl, Caterina. After a tranquil childhood in Vinci where is talent for drawing became apparent, he was sent to Florence, as an apprentice in the studio of Verrocchio (1469). His talent was acknowledged and he became a member of the corporation of painters in 1472. In 1473, he completed his first known drawing, “La valle dell'Arno” (The Arno Valley). He painted an angel in Verrocchio's "Baptism of Christ" (1475) and then “The Annunciation” in 1477. This is followed by the famous “Portrait of Ginevra de'Benci” in 1478.

He painted “San Gerolamo” and “The Adoration of the Magi” in 1481, but both of these remain unfinished. In 1482-3 leaves Florence for Milan, in the service of Ludovico Sforza. He paints the “Virgin of the Rocks” (1483-6) and begins to explore human flight (1486). His anatomical drawings in the manuscripts are drawn between 1488 and 1489. He designs a flying machine in 1492 and this is followed by work on the giant equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza (1493). He paints the second “Virgin of the Rocks” (1494) and “The Last Supper” (1495).

In 1496, he meets mathematician Luca Pacioli, with whom he studies Euclid and paints "Madonna and Child with St. Anne" in 1499. In the same year he leaves Milan to return to Florence, stopping in Mantua and Venice (1500). Cesare Borgia assumes Leonardo as military engineer in 1502 and Leonardo designs war machines and draws topographical maps (1502-3). He draws studies for "The Battle of Anghiari" (1503-6), followed by the famous “Mona Lisa” in 1504.

He studies the flight of birds, designs flying machines, and tries to square the circle in 1505. He studies fluid elements: Water, air and fire in 1506-8, returning to Milan in 1508. He paints "St. Anne" in 1509 and undertakes detailed anatomical research the following year. He goes to Rome seeking the patronage of the new pope, Leo X in 1513. In 1515, Leonardo constructs a mechanical lion for the coronation of Francis I, King of France and also draws the famous “Self-Portrait”. In 1516, he goes to the court of Francis I, Amboise and designs a palace in Romorantin in 1517. He died in Amboise, May 2, 1519.