Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.
The Vitruvian Man is a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1490. Inspired by the writings of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, the drawing depicts a nude man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in both a circle and square. It was described by the art historian Carmen C. Bambach as "justly ranked among the all-time iconic images of Western civilization". Although not the only known drawing of a man inspired by the writings of Vitruvius, the work is a unique synthesis of artistic and scientific ideals and often considered an archetypal representation of the High Renaissance.
The Annunciation is a painting widely attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1472–1476. Leonardo's earliest extant major work, it was completed in Florence while he was an apprentice in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. The painting was made using oil and tempera on a large poplar panel and depicts the Annunciation, a popular biblical subject in 15th-century Florence. Since 1867 it has been housed in the Uffizi in Florence, the city where it was created. Though the work has been criticized for inaccuracies in its composition, it is among the best-known portrayals of the Annunciation in Christian art.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, sometimes called the Burlington House Cartoon, is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing is in charcoal and black and white chalk, on eight sheets of paper that are glued together. Because of its large size and format the drawing is presumed to be a cartoon for a painting. No painting by Leonardo exists that is based directly on this cartoon, although the drawing may have been in preparation for a now lost or unexecuted painting commissioned by Louis XII. The drawing is the only extant larger-scale drawing by the artist.
The Print Room at Windsor Castle is a print room which is an office in the Royal Collection Department of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for the care and maintenance of the royal collections of drawings and old master prints, including watercolours. The term refers to both an institution and a room, and is under the direction of the Head of Prints and Drawings, currently Martin Clayton MVO.
Saint John the Baptist is a High Renaissance oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Likely to have been completed between 1513 and 1516, it is believed to be his final painting. Its original size was 69 by 57 centimetres.
The Baptism of Christ is an oil-on-panel painting finished around 1475 in the studio of the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea del Verrocchio and generally ascribed to him and his pupil Leonardo da Vinci. Some art historians discern the hands of other members of Verrocchio's workshop in the painting as well.
The Codex Trivulzianus is a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci that originally contained 62 sheets, but today only 55 remain. It documents Leonardo's attempts to improve his modest literary education, through long lists of learned words copied from authoritative lexical and grammatical sources. The manuscript also contains studies of military and religious architecture.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an Italian polymath, regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in numerous diverse areas of study. While most famous for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, Leonardo is also renowned in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology.
A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body. Cadavers are used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Students in medical school study and dissect cadavers as a part of their education. Others who study cadavers include archaeologists and arts students. In addition, a cadaver may be used in the development and evaluation of surgical instruments.
The story of Leda and the Swan was the subject of two compositions by Leonardo da Vinci from perhaps 1503–1510. Neither survive as paintings by Leonardo, but there are a number of drawings for both by him, and copies in oils, especially of the second composition, where Leda stands.
Marcantonio della Torre (1481–1511) was a Renaissance Professor of Anatomy who lectured at the University of Pavia and at the University of Padua. It is believed that della Torre and Leonardo da Vinci, who studied human anatomy by dissecting corpses, were intending to publish a book, but this did not eventuate as della Torre's life was cut short by plague in 1511. By this time Leonardo had made over 750 detailed anatomical drawings with annotations. Both Giorgio Vasari and Paolo Giovio claim that della Torre had written anatomical texts, but none are known to have survived to the modern age.
Codex Arundel is a bound collection of pages of notes written by Leonardo da Vinci and dating mostly from between 1480 and 1518. The codex contains a number of treatises on a variety of subjects, including mechanics and geometry. The name of the codex came from the Earl of Arundel, who acquired it in Spain in the 1630s. It forms part of the British Library Arundel Manuscripts.
The portrait of a man in red chalk in the Royal Library of Turin is widely, though not universally, accepted as a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. It is thought that Leonardo da Vinci drew this self-portrait at about the age of 60. The portrait has been extensively reproduced and has become an iconic representation of Leonardo as a polymath or "Renaissance Man". Despite this, some historians and scholars disagree as to the true identity of the sitter.
Giovanni Agostino da Lodi was an Italian painter who was active from c. 1495 to c. 1525.
Carlo Pedretti was an Italian historian. In his lifetime, he was considered one of the world's leading experts on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci. He was a professor of art history and Armand Hammer Chair in Leonardo Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1960 until his retirement in 1993.
Adolf Mauritz Fonahn was a Norwegian physician, medical historian and orientalist. He is best known for his work including those revolving around Tibetan Buddhism, Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings, early Persian and Arabic medical literature, and more generally the study of medical history and Asian languages.
Horse and Rider is a beeswax sculpture depicting a rider on a horse. The history of the sculpture is unknown before the 20th century. The work has been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci by the Italian art historian Carlo Pedretti, though most historians have ignored or denied the attribution. A number of casts have been made, using a mold taken from the wax original.
Martin Clayton, LVO, FSA, is Head of Prints and Drawings for Royal Collection Trust at Windsor Castle. He is a specialist in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci.
The Tête d'enfant de trois quarts à droite is a silverpoint drawing on paper by the Florentine painter Leonardo da Vinci. It belongs to the Codex Vallardi and is preserved at the Department of Graphic Arts of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
