Life and career

1452 · Born near Vinci. Born on 15 April 1452 in or near the hill town of Vinci about 35 km from Florence. His parents were not married. His father was a Florentine notary. In 2017 Martin Kemp argued from Tuscan archives that his mother Caterina was a poor local orphan aged 15. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci · The Guardian (20 May 2017))
c.1466 · Verrocchio’s workshop. Around the age of 14 he joined the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. He learnt drawing and painting as well as metal casting, chemistry and mechanics. Vasari says his angel in The Baptism of Christ outshone his master. By 1472 he was a master in the Guild of Saint Luke. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
1481 · The first unfinished altarpieces. In March 1481 the monks of San Donato in Scopeto commissioned The Adoration of the Magi. An earlier altarpiece for the Palazzo della Signoria also stalled. He left both unfinished when he moved to Milan. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
1482 · Milan and Ludovico Sforza. He wrote to Ludovico Sforza listing the bridges, siege engines and guns he could build. He added that he could also paint. Lorenzo de’ Medici sent him to Milan as an envoy with a silver lute or lyre shaped like a horse’s head. He stayed until 1499. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci · Wikipedia: Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci)
c.1490 · The Vitruvian Man. In Milan he drew a man inscribed in a circle and a square after the Roman architect Vitruvius. He refined the ancient proportions with his own measurements. The drawing has been in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice since 1822 and is rarely shown. (Wikipedia: Vitruvian Man)
1493 · The Great Horse. Ludovico wanted the largest equestrian statue in the world. Leonardo showed a full-size clay model of the horse in November 1493. A year later the bronze went to make cannon against the French. French archers used the model for target practice in 1499. (Wikipedia: Leonardo’s horse (Gran Cavallo) · Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
1495 · The Last Supper. From about 1495 to 1498 he painted The Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. He chose tempera on a dry ground so he could revise slowly. The paint decayed fast. Within a century one viewer called it completely ruined. The last restoration was completed in 1999. (Wikipedia: The Last Supper (Leonardo) · Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
1502 · Engineer to Cesare Borgia. The French took Milan in 1499. He worked in Venice on defences against naval attack. In 1502 Cesare Borgia hired him as chief military engineer and architect. He drew a town plan of Imola and maps of the Chiana valley. The same year he designed a 240 m bridge for the Ottoman sultan. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci · Wikipedia: Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci)
1503 · Mona Lisa and Anghiari. Back in Florence by October 1503 he began a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. He kept working on it for years. In 1504 the city commissioned The Battle of Anghiari for the Palazzo Vecchio opposite Michelangelo’s battle scene. He abandoned the mural in 1505. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci · Wikipedia: Mona Lisa · Wikipedia: The Battle of Anghiari (Leonardo))
1508 · Second Milan and the dissections. He returned to Milan under the French. He had already dissected bodies at Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. In 1510 and 1511 he worked with the anatomist Marcantonio della Torre of Pavia. He drew the heart, the skeleton and one of the first scientific drawings of a foetus in the womb. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
1513 · Rome under the Medici. From 1513 to 1516 he lived in the Belvedere in the Vatican as a guest of Giuliano de’ Medici. He drew 33 ducats a month. Pope Leo X cancelled a commission when Leonardo began by inventing a new varnish. He studied botany and planned the draining of the Pontine Marshes. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
1516 · France and Francis I. Francis I invited him to France and gave him the manor of Clos Lucé near Amboise. He planned a palace town at Romorantin and built a mechanical lion for a royal pageant. A visitor in 1517 recorded that his right hand was paralysed. Melzi drew his portrait. A quick sketch of him by an assistant was identified in the Royal Collection in 2019. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci · The Guardian (2 May 2019))
1519 · Death at Amboise. He died at Clos Lucé on 2 May 1519 aged 67. His pupil Francesco Melzi inherited his paintings, tools and notebooks. Vasari’s story that the king held his head as he died may be legend. Francis later called him a very great philosopher. (Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci)
2017 · The Salvator Mundi sale. A damaged Christ bought in New Orleans for $1,175 in 2005 was restored and shown by the National Gallery in 2011 as a Leonardo. On 15 November 2017 Christie’s sold it for $450.3 million. It was reported to have gone to the Saudi Crown Prince. It has not been seen in public since. (Wikipedia: Salvator Mundi (Leonardo) · BBC News (12 July 2011) · The Guardian (26 May 2019))

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