Leonardo da Vinci

In his book Inventing Leonardo, A. Richard Turner states that "[s]elf revelation was not Leonardo's strong suit" (9). Turner observes that, although da Vinci kept many notes about his art and mechanical and scientific investigations over the years, he included very little about his personal feelings, daily activities, or relationships to other people in these notes (9). Patrice Boussel, in her analysis of the numerous biographies of da Vinci, concludes that the few documents available concerning da Vinci's childhood leave a gap in the understanding of his early years (5). Only recently have historians been able to piece together a few specific bits of information about his early years.

Emil Moller, one of da Vinci's most notable historians, discovered a note written by da Vinci's grandfather in 1452: "On Saturday, April 15, at three o'clock in the morning, was born to me a grandson, the son of my son Ser Piero. He was given the name Leonardo" (Boussel 5). da Vinci's father, Ser Piero, was a notary, and his mother lived with her husband (who was not Ser Piero) on a farm in Anchiano that belonged to Ser Piero's family (Boussel 5). Da Vinci, however, was born in his grandfather's house, and the family took him in (5). He was baptized and brought up by his grandmother, Monna Lucia, and Albiera, the 16-year-old his father had married the year da Vinci was born (Boussel 5). All that is known about da Vinci's early education is that he later de

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e sketches are of elevations and plans of centralized churches capped by a dome. Turner states that these drawings are "utterly lucid, based on carefully proportioned, repeated units, and the exterior elevations offer a clear idea of interior space" (34). In June 1490, he was in Pavia to consult on work for the cathedral with Sienese architect Francesco di Giorgio, whose treatise on architecture Leonardo annotated (Turner 34). He also evidenced an interest in city planning, studying patterns of circulation and sanitation. One drawing proposes a double-tiered city, with the means for commercial transportation and sanitation afforded by a canal below, and amenable circulation for the citizenry above (Turner 34). However, despite all this activity, no building today can be attributed to da Vinci, nor is there reason to think that any of his major designs was ever executed (Turner 34). Antonina Vallentin argues that many of da Vinci's technical discoveries "give the impression that he was fascinated by the potentialities of mechanical invention, and less interested in practical results than in the release of power and its augmentation and multiplication" (138). Nonetheless, he tried to fulfill many everyday purposes by means of

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