Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci

Posted on July 6, 2009 by historian

This is a list of paintings attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, (baptised Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci) (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519), one of the leading artists of the High Renaissance. Fifteen works are generally attributed either in whole or in large part to him, most of them paintings on panel but including a mural, a large drawing on paper and two works in the early stages of preparation.

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Leonardo da Vinci in old age

Posted on July 6, 2009 by historian

Leonardo da Vinci died at Clos Lucé, on May 2, 1519

Francis I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died, although this story, beloved by the French and portrayed in romantic paintings by Ingres, Ménageot and other French artists, as well as by Angelica Kauffmann, may be legend rather than fact.

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Leonardo da Vinci was charged with sodomy

Posted on July 6, 2009 by historian

Court records of 1476 show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy, and acquitted. From that date until 1478 there is no record of his work or even of his whereabouts, although it is assumed that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476 and 1481.

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Leonardo da Vinci and Verrocchio (1466-1476)

Posted on July 6, 2009 by historian

In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo da Vinci was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio’s workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Other famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi.

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Childhood of Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1466

Posted on July 6, 2009 by historian

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, “at the third hour of the night” in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant who may have been a slave from the Middle East. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, “da Vinci” simply meaning “of Vinci”: his full birth name was “Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci”, meaning “Leonardo, (son) of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci”.

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