dsubrahmanyam's blog

Hello everybody!!!
Recognize this personality? Most of u might have got him correctly no doubt! Who does not know him? He is the most genious personality our humanity ever seen. He is the one of the greatest artists, inventer, philosopher, architect, engineer, mathematician, etc etc. U can add all the things u can think of and he is the master in it.
Yes my friends ur correct he is none other than Leonardo da Vinci. I think all of u who have read the da Vinci code must be thinking that i am going to write some thing about that again. No!!! I am planning to post a brief biography of him. Thats all!

Leonardo da Vinci  was born on 15th of April 1452 in Anchino which is about 3 km from Vinci. His father Ser Piero is a public notery and mother was a daughter of a farmer called Catarina. His parents were never married as Catarina was a formers daughter and a poor gal. Leonardo was christened as L:ionardo not as Leonardo as we know him now.
During his childhood he wes full of doubts about everything that his teachers were despaired  by all his questions to them. He later tried to improve his Latin as he thought he did not learn much of this language in school. All his writings now called notes were written in Italian. At the age of 14 Leonardo moved to Florence and joined in the workshop of Verrochio, who is the most gifted artist, sculpter, goldsmith, painter and bronz caster etc, as apprentice.
Leonardo’s first art work was dated around 1473 and from 1473 to 1475 he assisted Verrochio in his work. It is during this period he started his studies in mechanics.
I am not going to write any thing about the paintings of Leonardo as many of them are well known to all including the Mona Lisa, Last supper, Annuciation, Modanna, etc.
What is interesting is that he used to write all his notes in reverse order to kep them secret. (mirror image writing ie to read it u have to palce it befor mirror and read the image). Another controversal point of Leonardo was his relation with his model friend Jocapo Saltarelli. Leonardo was accused of having a homosexual relationship with this model which is still a debating point among the fans of Leonardo.
Leonardo has painted relatively very small number of paintings compared to his contemporaries. Many of these paintings were incomplete. He was given an assignment with then famous sculpter Michel Angello, but this assignment to was never completed.
 Most of his paints were quickly started deterioting because he did not use the treditional colours but always experimented with different media.
Leonardo has made many anatomical studies like muscle structure, bone structures, which are excellent in detail and are still of use in medical studies.
His studies in mechanics, and engineering has fetched him many assignments for design of buildings war machines etc. His studies in hydrolics made him a great palnner of bridges and irrigation canel planner.

King Francis I has invited Leonardo to spend his last year in his palace at Amboise in France. In 1516 Leonardo accepted the invitation and arrived to Amboise and spent his rest of life there. During this period Leonardo did not paint but continued his hydrologican studies.
Leonardo has suffered a paralysis stroke on right side of his body during 1517 and died on 2nd MAy 1519. Originally Leonardo buried in San Forientino but after destruction of this church he remains were shifted to Chapel of St Hubert.
This is only a brief and vert short introduction of a great person ever born. Hope u enjoyed it.

One of the excellent historical biographies of Leonardo I read was “The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci” by Dimitri Merezhkovsky. It is a rare book. I got this one from footpath market of Kothi in Hyderabad.

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