Leonardo was born in the town of Vinci in 1452. He was the illegitimate son of an important noble of the town. When Leonardo grew up, he took the name “Vinci” for his last name, so that his name meant “Leonardo from Vinci.” From a very young age Leonardo showed a talent for drawing, so he was soon sent to Florence to be apprenticed to a great painter of the time, Andrea del Verrocchio. When he turned 20 years old, Leonardo helped his master finish a drawing of the baptism of Christ. Although he drew only a small part of the painting, a kneeling angel in the left hand corner, this was considered to be the best part of the whole painting. When Verrocchio saw how much better his student’s painting was then his, he swore, according to legend, never to pick up a paintbrush for the rest of his life.²

In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci moved to Milan in search of better prospects, because in Florence he had earned reputation for being a talented, but very untrustworthy artist, because he often never finished commissions.³

While he was in Milan, Da Vinci became interested in science and technology. This influenced him for the rest of his life, because, after becoming an expert in the human and animal body, he used this knowledge in paintings. For example, he painted the wings of angels based on his knowledge of bird wings. Also, his knowledge of perspective, light, and shadow helped him draw the realistic and three-dimensional backgrounds for which he is famous. “Saper vedere” (meaning “knowing how to see”) was the motto that Leonardo da Vinci used while working on finding out man’s anatomy. ⁴

An example of Leonardo’s fame for being also an inventor is shown in the fact that the Duke of Milan asked Leonardo to build for him war machines. Leonardo Da Vinci recorded his genius ideas in hundreds of notebook pages. An interesting fact is that he wrote everything backwards. Everything, from mathematical formulas to grocery lists were written in such a way that they could only be read by looking in a mirror.⁵ This was probably because Da Vinci didn’t want other people to steal his ideas, or maybe because he was left handed and that writing from right to left didn’t smudge the ink.⁶ Leonardo da Vinci died in the year 1519 in France. He was by then famous throughout Europe, and already considered to be the one and only truly great painter in history.

I like most of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings, but I have two special favorites. These are not The Mona Lisa or The Last Supper, but a pair of simple, but delicately beautiful paintings.

One of them is the La Madonna Benois. In this painting, Da Vinci portrays a popular theme of the time, the Virgin and Child, but in a completely new way. Both the Madonna and baby Jesus are happy, playing with each other. The child doesn’t look heavenly, but is just a chubby, smiling baby immersed in his game of playing with a flower. The Virgin is young and radiant, looking on at her child with love and laughing at his antics. The only clue that they are heavenly beings are the delicate gold haloes surrounding both their heads.

The other favorite painting of mine is called Lady with Ermine. It portrays a beautiful aristocratic girl, painted on a very dark background, which makes it seem as if she glows with an inner radiance. She is obviously a girl of noble heritage, because of her velvet dress and a pure white marten (a very rare species) resting in the crook of her arm. Art historians say that this girl was the niece of one of Da Vinci’s many noble patrons. ¹ Da Vinci did many more similar portraits, and often their most important feature was a light figure on a dark background. Lady with Ermine is a good example of Leonardo’s genius, because the painting is done so delicately and thoroughly, that barely any brush strokes can be seen.

Although Leonardo set himself many unachievable goals, his genius was impossible to recreate in any other human being, so if you put together all the things which Leonardo had done in his lifetime, in the end all his finished and unfinished achievements can be called an “unfinished symphony.”⁸