LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer,botanist, and writer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

LIFE

Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452, "at the third hour of the night"[nb in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci.

Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Lionardo diser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, (son) of (Mes)ser Pierofrom Vinci“.

Little is known about Leonardo's early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his motherthen from 1457 he lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci. His father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but died young. When Leonardo was sixteen his father married again, to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini. It was not until his third and fourth marriages that Ser Piero produced legitimate heirs.

Leonardo received an informal education in Latin, geometry and mathematics.

In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face.[13] The second occurred while he was exploring in the mountains: he discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.

Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter.Notable work(s): The Mona Lisa

The Last SupperThe Vitruvian ManThe Lady with an Ermine

MONA LISAThe Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world“.The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco, is in oil on a white Lombardy , and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506, although Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at The Louvre museum in Paris since 1797.

Theft and vandalismThe painting's fame was emphasized when it was stolen on 21 August 1911.The next day, Louis Béroud, a painter, walked into the Louvre and went to the Salon Carré where the Mona Lisa had been on display for five years. However, where the Mona Lisa should have stood, he found four iron pegs. Béroudcontacted the section head of the guards, who thought the painting was being photographed for marketing purposes.A few hours later, Béroud checked back with the section head of the museum, and it was confirmed that the Mona Lisa was not with the photographers. The Louvre was closed for an entire week to aid in investigation of the theft. French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be "burnt down", came under suspicion; he was arrested and imprisoned. Apollinaire tried to implicate his friend Pablo Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated.At the time, the painting was believed to be lost forever, and it was two years before the real thief was discovered. Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen it by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed.

ValueIt is believed that Francis I bought Mona Lisa in 1504 or 1506 for $9,200. Among works in the Louvre, in 1852 its market value was 90,000 francs compared to works by Raphael valued at up to 600,000 francs. In 1913, it was reported that the English government offered $5 million for the painting, the highest estimate of its value at that time

SpeculationAlthough the sitter has traditionally been identified as Lisa del Giocondo, a lack of definitive evidence has long fueled alternative theories, including Leonardo's mother Caterina in a distant memory and the possibility that Leonardo used his own likeness. Other aspects of the painting that have been subject to speculation are the original size of the painting, whether it is the original, why it was painted, and various explanations for how the effect of an enigmatic smile was achieved.