Breve biografia di Leonardo da Vinci

His map of Imola was very original for its time. Leonardo used precise measurements to show the streets from directly above. This was an unusual method at the time. In this way, he made a clear, almost round map. Borgia could use the map to understand and control the area. Even today, the map looks surprisingly modern. Leonardo did not stay with Borgia for long, and in 1503 he was back in Florence.

At that time, Florence was home to another brilliant artist: Michelangelo. He was younger than Leonardo and famous for the strength of his human figures. Later stories describe tension between the two artists. Those stories may, however, exaggerate. Florence asked each man to paint a large battle scene in the same public hall. The people of the city were fascinated by their competition. Neither artist finished his picture in the end.

At that time, Leonardo began painting La Gioconda, also known as the Mona Lisa. The woman was probably Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine businessman. She sits before a distant landscape of roads, water and rocky mountains. Her clothes are simple, and she wears no shiny jewellery. People keep looking at her face because her expression seems to change. Sometimes she appears to smile; at other times, the smile almost disappears.

Leonardo achieved this effect by using many thin layers of paint. The lines around the mouth and eyes are soft rather than sharp. Light seems to move slowly across the skin. The strange landscape also makes the calm woman seem part of a much larger natural world. Leonardo kept the painting with him and may have continued changing it for many years. He probably never delivered it to the client, but we do not know why.

The battle painting in Florence ended very differently. It showed men and horses fighting hard for a flag. According to a later story, Leonardo again tried an unusual method to paint the wall, but this method caused technical problems. The painting remained unfinished and was finally lost. Some drawings and copies still show some of the scene’s great energy.

In 1506, Leonardo went back to Milan, which was under French control at that time. The new rulers respected him and let him study and work freely. Several younger artists came to work with him. Francesco Melzi was one of them, and he became a student and a loyal friend. Another assistant, Salaì, was a young man who often caused problems but stayed with Leonardo for years. Together, these assistants formed a very close group and stayed with him for a long time. There is no record that Leonardo married or had children.

In his later years in Milan, Leonardo began to study anatomy again with fresh energy. He worked with some doctors and hoped to create a large book about the human body. His pages show the spine, the heart, a baby inside its mother’s body, and moving muscles. He drew the same part of the body from different angles, almost like pictures in a modern technical guide. But he never finished the book, and no one printed it. Because of this, doctors at that time could not make much use of his work on anatomy.