Illegitimate son. Apprenticed to Verrocchio at 14, anonymously accused of sodomy at 24 (acquitted), at 30 wrote a self-recommendation to the Duke of Milan listing painting tenth. In Milan for 17 years he secretly dissected 30 cadavers, designed flying machines, painted the Last Supper (whose experimental medium began flaking immediately). Fled when the French took Milan; spent his remaining years between Florence, Rome, and finally Amboise at the invitation of François I. Carried the Mona Lisa with him to France, retouching it for 16 years without delivering it. Died at 67 at Amboise, reportedly in the king's arms. His 15,000 pages of notebooks scattered for 400 years before being reassembled by scholars.
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9 月銀行家 Cosimo de' Medici 流亡一年後凱旋返佛羅倫斯,從幕後操控政局 30 年。家族以銀行業致富,贊助 Donatello、Brunelleschi、Ghiberti,奠定佛羅倫斯文藝復興黃金期。
In September, banker Cosimo de' Medici triumphantly returned to Florence after a year's exile, ruling from behind the scenes for 30 years. The family's banking wealth patronized Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Ghiberti — founding the Florentine Renaissance.
相關主軸:Related axes:藝術文化Arts & Culture貿易Trade達文西Leonardo da Vinci
4 月 15 日生於托斯卡尼 Vinci 村附近 Anchiano。父親 Ser Piero 是公證人,母親 Caterina 是農婦。父母未婚,不能繼承父姓,全名「Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci」(來自 Vinci 的、Piero 之子 Leonardo)。私生子身分意外讓他免於繼承父親的職業,可自由發展藝術。
Born April 15 near the town of Vinci in Tuscany, at Anchiano. Father Ser Piero was a notary; mother Caterina a peasant woman. Unmarried, he could not bear his father's surname — his full name "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci" means "Leonardo, son of Piero, of Vinci." Illegitimacy ironically freed him from inheriting his father's profession to pursue art.
Illegitimate son, apprentice, Florentine painter, Milanese military engineer, anatomist, designer of flying machines, exile in Rome, ending his days at Amboise in France. 15,000 pages of mirror-written notebooks covering painting, anatomy, botany, hydraulics, mechanics, architecture, and weapons. Fewer than 20 finished paintings — but the Mona Lisa is the world's most famous artwork. The term "Renaissance man" was coined for him.
14 歲入 Verrocchio 工坊·佛羅倫斯At 14, Apprenticed to Verrocchio in Florence
圖:Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
14 歲被送入佛羅倫斯名雕塑家畫家 Andrea del Verrocchio 工坊。Verrocchio 工坊也培養出 Botticelli、Perugino 等。達文西在此學雕塑、繪畫、金工、機械——受全方位文藝復興匠人訓練。
At 14 he was sent to Florence to apprentice with the sculptor-painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop also trained Botticelli and Perugino. Leonardo learned sculpture, painting, metalwork, and mechanics — the full Renaissance craftsman's training.
《基督受洗》中天使·超越老師Angel in Baptism of Christ — Surpasses His Master
圖:Andrea del Verrocchio / Leonardo da Vinci · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Andrea del Verrocchio / Leonardo da Vinci · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Verrocchio commissioned the Baptism of Christ; he assigned his pupil Leonardo to paint the angel in the lower left. Leonardo used the new oil paint technique (Verrocchio worked in tempera) so masterfully that, according to Vasari, Verrocchio swore "never to paint again" — the student had outclassed the master.
An early oil painting completed at age 20, now in the Uffizi in Florence. Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary. The angel's wings are drawn with anatomical precision from bird studies; the distant mountains use the aerial perspective Leonardo would later perfect.
Portrait of 17-year-old Ginevra de' Benci, daughter of a Florentine banker, on her engagement. The juniper bush behind (ginepro) puns on her name. In 1967 the US National Gallery bought it from the Liechtenstein royal family for $5 million — still the only Leonardo in the Western Hemisphere.
On April 9 an anonymous complaint accused 24-year-old Leonardo and three young men of sodomy (a capital offense). After investigation, for lack of evidence — and because a Medici relative was implicated — the case was dismissed twice. Leonardo became more reserved afterward; never married.
Commissioned by the monks of San Donato, scheduled for 30 months. Leonardo laid down a brown underdrawing and then left for Milan — never finishing. Yet the revolutionary composition — figures swirling around the Virgin, ruins and rearing horses behind symbolizing a collapsing old world — influenced composition for 500 years.
At 30, Leonardo da Vinci moved from Florence to Milan, serving Duke Sforza for 17 years. He produced 'The Last Supper' (1495-98), 'Virgin of the Rocks,' and anatomical notebooks. Returning to Florence in 1500, he began 'Mona Lisa' in 1503 — the universal Renaissance genius.
相關主軸:Related axes:藝術文化Arts & Culture科學技術Science & Tech達文西Leonardo da Vinci
自薦信給米蘭公爵·軍事工程師為先Self-Recommendation Letter to Milan — Military Engineer First
圖:Molteni&Motta/Universal Images Group · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Molteni&Motta/Universal Images Group · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
At 30 he left Florence for Milan. He wrote a long letter of self-introduction to Duke Lodovico Sforza, listing 10 talents: bridges, siege engines, artillery, naval warfare, mining — only at the 10th line did he add: "Also, I can paint and sculpt." His 17 years in Milan were his most productive.
Commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan. The Virgin, infant Jesus, John the Baptist, and an angel in a rocky grotto — triangular composition, fantastical geology, and interlocking gazes set the standard for High Renaissance composition. The Confraternity rejected it as too "mystical"; Leonardo painted a second version (now in London). The original hangs in the Louvre.
Designed for Duke Sforza of Milan: a conical, turtle-shaped vehicle of wood plated with iron, with cannons facing in all directions and 8 soldiers inside cranking it forward. The original drawing has the gears reversed (a much-debated mystery: deliberate sabotage to prevent theft?) — the design as drawn could not actually move. The BBC built a working prototype in 2010 by reversing the gears.
相關主軸:Related axes:義大利Italy跨文明Cross-Civilization達文西Leonardo da Vinci
Designed a rotating cannon with three banks of 11 barrels (33 total): one bank fires while the other two cool, then rotate. Solved the early cannon's slow rate of fire and overheating — the conceptual precursor of the Gatling gun (1862) and the machine gun. Never actually built.
Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, 16-year-old mistress of Duke Sforza of Milan, holding a white ermine (Sforza's heraldic symbol). She later married a count, bore four children, and ran an influential literary salon. The painting is in Kraków, Poland — looted by the Nazis in WWII and recovered after the war.
解剖 30 具屍體·為畫畫求真Dissects 30 Cadavers — Anatomy in Service of Art
圖:https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/3b/c3/a1c31c4c51123bf8c5b1802873 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsImage: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/3b/c3/a1c31c4c51123bf8c5b1802873 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
In Milan, Florence, and Rome hospitals he secretly dissected 30 cadavers at night — old men, youths, pregnant women, fetuses. He drew 240 anatomical sheets of unmatched precision, including the womb with fetus, heart valves, and blood circulation. But the notebooks were never published — only rediscovered by scholars in the 1900s. Had they been public then, modern anatomy might have come 300 years earlier.
He studied bird flight for years. Designed the ornithopter (flapping-wing machine), gliders, a helicopter prototype (the aerial screw), and a parachute — all based on aerodynamic observation. Modern scholars have reconstructed his parachute and glider from the drawings and confirmed they fly. But he never built one that flew himself.
Following the Roman architect Vitruvius's theory of human proportions, Leonardo drew the most famous male nude — four limbs in two simultaneous poses, inscribed in both a circle and a square. Below it, his notes in mirror script. The image embodies the Renaissance creed: man is the measure of all things.
In September, French king Charles VIII led 25,000 troops across the Alps into Italy. The 65-year Italian Wars began as Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire battled for the peninsula. The political independence of Renaissance city-states ended.
相關主軸:Related axes:法國France歐洲Europe達文西Leonardo da Vinci
Milan-period portrait. The sitter's gaze locks onto the viewer in the same way as the Mona Lisa. Her identity remains disputed — possibly another Sforza mistress, Lucrezia Crivelli, or possibly the duchess Beatrice d'Este. In the Louvre, it is Leonardo's second-most-famous female portrait.
《岩間聖母》倫敦版·重畫的同題Virgin of the Rocks (London) — The Reworked Version
圖:Leonardo da Vinci and workshop · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Leonardo da Vinci and workshop · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
米蘭聖方濟會拒收原版後,達文西耗 13 年重畫第二版。比巴黎版更「正統」——加聖嬰光圈、約翰持十字、明亮色調。長期掛聖方濟會教堂祭壇,現在倫敦國家美術館。學者爭議是否多由助手 Ambrogio de Predis 完成。
After the Confraternity rejected the original, Leonardo spent 13 years repainting a second version. More conventionally pious — added halos for the infants, a cross for John, brighter tones. Hung over the Confraternity altar for centuries; now in London's National Gallery. Scholars debate how much was painted by Leonardo himself versus his assistant Ambrogio de Predis.
A three-wheeled wooden cart driven by two giant clockwork springs, capable of traveling about 40 meters with a pre-settable steering angle — the world's first self-propelled mechanical vehicle. Long thought a pure concept; in 2004 Italian researchers built a working 1:3 scale model from the drawings, proving the design works. Called "Leonardo's robot car" — ancestor of both the automobile and the robot.
機械騎士·人形機器人始祖Robotic Knight — The First Humanoid Robot
圖:Photo by Erik Möller. Leonardo da Vinci. Mensch - Erfinder - Genie exhibit, Berl · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Photo by Erik Möller. Leonardo da Vinci. Mensch - Erfinder - Genie exhibit, Berl · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
A full suit of armor designed as a court entertainment automaton for the Sforza of Milan — internally a system of ropes and pulleys allowing it to sit, stand, wave its arms, and open and close its jaw. Only rediscovered in the notebooks in 1957. NASA roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working prototype from the drawings in 1996 — vindicating the 500-year-old design.
米蘭 Santa Maria delle Grazie 修道院食堂壁畫。3 年完成。突破點:耶穌剛說「你們之中有人要出賣我」的瞬間,12 門徒各自反應。實驗用油彩取代壁畫顏料,幾年內就開始剝落——歷代修復十多次。
A wall painting in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Three years to complete. The breakthrough: the moment after Jesus said "One of you will betray me" — each of the 12 apostles reacting. Leonardo experimented with oil instead of fresco — and the surface began flaking within a few years. Restored more than ten times since.
為米蘭 Naviglio 運河設計新式 V 形雙葉閘門 (mitre gate):兩片門呈 V 形、水壓自動把門推緊。比舊式垂直閘門更密、開關更省力。Naviglio 運河至今部分仍在使用達文西的閘門設計。
Designed a new V-shaped double-leaf lock gate (mitre gate) for the Naviglio canals of Milan: two leaves meeting at an angle, with water pressure automatically pressing them tight. Far more watertight and easier to operate than the older vertical gate. Parts of the Naviglio still use Leonardo's design today.
法王 Louis XII 入米蘭,Sforza 公爵被俘解送法國。達文西流亡威尼斯、Mantua、再回佛羅倫斯。米蘭 17 年穩定創作期結束,從此餘生 20 年遊走多城,從未再有那麼多時間專注。
King Louis XII took Milan; Duke Sforza was captured and sent to France. Leonardo fled to Venice, then Mantua, then back to Florence. The 17-year period of stable Milanese creativity was over; he spent his remaining 20 years moving between cities, never again with so much time to focus.
Designed a keyboard instrument: pressing keys lowers strings onto a continuously rotating horsehair bow, producing sustained string tones — capable of polyphony like an entire string section. Never built in Leonardo's lifetime. In 2013 the Polish pianist Sławomir Zubrzycki built a working version from the notebooks; the public premiere astonished the music world.
When Venice threatened Milan, Leonardo designed a leather diving suit: full leather body, glass eyepieces, reed breathing tube up to a floating bladder, webbed gloves and flippers — for divers to swim underwater and scuttle enemy ships. He kept the design secret, writing: "Humanity is too evil. I will not publish methods of killing in stealth."
A small Madonna and Child painted for the French royal secretary Robertet. The Christ child plays with a yarnwinder — foreshadowing the cross. The original is lost; at least 30 surviving versions exist. Two are accepted as workshop productions. The Scottish version was stolen in 2003 and recovered in 2007.
At 50 he briefly joined Cesare Borgia — illegitimate son of the pope and the model for Machiavelli's Prince — as military engineer. He drew remarkably accurate maps of the Romagna, designed fortresses, and inspected defenses. The job introduced him to Machiavelli himself — two Florentine geniuses meeting.
Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire requested designs for a bridge over the Golden Horn. Leonardo proposed a single-span stone bridge 240 meters long — would have been the world's longest at the time. The sultan judged it structurally unsafe and declined. In 2001 Norway built a 110-meter version from Leonardo's drawings as a footbridge over a stream — it works perfectly, vindicating the design after 500 years.
《聖母聖子聖安妮》·Freud 的精神分析Virgin and Child with Saint Anne — Freud's Subject
圖:original file: C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: original file: C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The pyramidal composition perfected — Saint Anne, the Virgin, the Christ Child, and a lamb across four generations. Leonardo brought this to France along with the Mona Lisa and Saint John. In 1910 Freud wrote an entire book analyzing it, claiming Anne's robe hides a vulture — corresponding to Leonardo's recorded childhood dream of a vulture flying into his cradle and brushing his lips with its tail.
接佛羅倫斯絲綢商 Francesco del Giocondo 委託,畫他妻子 Lisa Gherardini 肖像。技巧上首次完全使用「sfumato」(煙霧法) ——眼角嘴角無清晰邊界。這幅畫達文西帶身邊 16 年、四度修改、從未交給訂主。最後跟他到法國 Amboise,現在羅浮宮。
Commissioned by Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo to paint his wife Lisa Gherardini. Leonardo used sfumato — "smoky" gradation with no sharp edges around eyes and mouth — for the first time fully. He carried this painting with him for 16 years, retouched it four times, and never delivered it. It traveled with him to Amboise; today it hangs in the Louvre.
與米開朗基羅同壁畫對戰·雙雙未完Wall-Painting Duel with Michelangelo — Both Unfinished
圖:Bastiano da Sangallo / After Michelangelo · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Bastiano da Sangallo / After Michelangelo · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The Florentine Signoria commissioned Leonardo to paint The Battle of Anghiari and Michelangelo to paint The Battle of Cascina on opposite walls of the same hall. The two giants of the Renaissance, head to head. But Leonardo's experimental wax-based medium melted; Michelangelo was called away by the pope to do the Sistine Chapel — neither was finished.
Zeus, taking the form of a swan, seduced Leda, queen of Sparta — bearing four children including Helen of Troy. Leonardo painted Leda standing nude, embracing the swan, with four infants hatching at her feet. The original was still in the French royal collection in the 17th century; then mysteriously disappeared — possibly destroyed in a flood, possibly destroyed by religious conservatives. Only 5-6 student copies survive.
圖:https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/3b/c3/a1c31c4c51123bf8c5b1802873 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsImage: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/3b/c3/a1c31c4c51123bf8c5b1802873 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
With the Paduan anatomist Marcantonio della Torre, Leonardo drew 240 anatomical sheets of unmatched precision: a 4-month-old fetus in the womb (the world's first); heart valves in operation; muscle-bone leverage; nerve distribution in the tongue. Della Torre died of plague in 1511, ending the collaboration. The drawings were scattered for 250 years before scholars reassembled them in the 1900s.
61 歲入羅馬,受教宗 Leo X 弟弟 Giuliano de' Medici 庇護居梵蒂岡 Belvedere。但羅馬被米開朗基羅、Raphael 主導,達文西已老、被邊緣化。教廷禁止他繼續解剖。3 年無重大新作。
At 61 he moved to Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X's brother Giuliano de' Medici, lodged in the Vatican Belvedere. But Rome was dominated by Michelangelo and Raphael — Leonardo, now old, was sidelined. The papacy forbade him further dissection. Three years passed with no major new work.
His last completed painting, done in Rome. John emerges from absolute darkness with a Mona Lisa smile, finger pointing to heaven. The androgynous figure and seductive pose drew conservative criticism as "too sensual" and unfit for a religious work. Now in the Louvre — one of the three he carried to France.
François I 邀入法國·Amboise 城堡François I Invites Him to France — Château at Amboise
圖:original file: C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: original file: C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
64 歲法王 François I (年僅 22) 仰慕至極,邀達文西入法。賜 Clos Lucé 莊園 (近 Amboise 王宮)、終身年俸 1000 écus、頭銜「國王首席畫家工程師建築師」。達文西騎驢翻越 Alps 帶三幅未完成畫到法國——蒙娜麗莎、施洗約翰、聖母與聖嬰與聖安妮。
At 64 the young King François I (just 22) — an immense admirer — invited Leonardo to France. He was given the Clos Lucé manor next to the royal château at Amboise, an annual pension of 1,000 écus, and the title "Premier Painter, Engineer and Architect to the King." Leonardo crossed the Alps by mule carrying three unfinished paintings — the Mona Lisa, Saint John the Baptist, and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne.
At Amboise he suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right hand (fortunately he was naturally left-handed). He continued drawing, writing notes, and retouching the Mona Lisa with his left. His final two years were spent organizing notebooks and designing châteaux gardens and canals for the king.
遺贈給弟子兼可能的伴侶 Francesco Melzi。Melzi 死後筆記散失:賣給西班牙國王、輾轉到倫敦、米蘭、巴黎。19-20 世紀學者重組為 Codex Atlanticus、Codex Arundel、Codex Leicester 等 12 部。Codex Leicester 1994 年 Bill Gates 以 3080 萬美元拍下,個人擁有。
Bequeathed to his pupil and possible companion Francesco Melzi. After Melzi's death the notebooks scattered: sold to the Spanish king, then to London, Milan, Paris. In the 19th and 20th centuries scholars reassembled them into 12 codices — the Codex Atlanticus, Codex Arundel, Codex Leicester, and others. Bill Gates bought the Codex Leicester in 1994 for $30.8 million; it remains in private hands.
5/2 死於 Amboise·傳說在法王懷中May 2 — Dies at Amboise, Reportedly in the King's Arms
圖:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
5 月 2 日死於 Clos Lucé 莊園,67 歲。Vasari 浪漫描述:法王 François I 親自坐在床邊、達文西在他懷中嚥氣。實際法王當時可能不在 Amboise——但這幅畫面(Ingres 1818)成為文藝復興天才之死的標誌性形象。
Died May 2 at Clos Lucé, age 67. Vasari romantically described King François I sitting at his bedside, Leonardo dying in his arms. The king was probably not actually at Amboise that day — but the image (immortalized by Ingres in 1818) became the iconic tableau of the death of the Renaissance genius.
François I 死後,《蒙娜麗莎》留在法國王室。法國大革命後 1797 年入羅浮宮。1911 年 8 月 21 日被一個義大利清潔工 Vincenzo Peruggia 竊走 (藏外套底下)、藏 2 年,1913 年想賣回義大利時被捕。失竊事件讓蒙娜麗莎從「博物館一畫」變成全球家喻戶曉。
After François I's death, the Mona Lisa remained with the French royal family. After the French Revolution, in 1797 it entered the Louvre. On August 21, 1911 an Italian janitor named Vincenzo Peruggia stole it (under his coat) and hid it for two years. Caught in 1913 trying to sell it back to Italy. The theft turned the Mona Lisa from "a painting in a museum" into the global icon it is today.
On November 15, 2017, Salvator Mundi sold at Christie's New York for $450.3 million to the Saudi crown prince — the most expensive painting ever auctioned. Scholars hotly debate whether it is fully a Leonardo and how much was painted by his own hand. Its current location is unknown.