by Ann Hood
In 1482, Lorenzo went under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, the future Duke of Milan. The Sforzas controlled Milan, but unlike the Medicis, who were bankers, the Sforzas were warriors, and Leonardo learned about machinery and military equipment in Milan. He served as the duke’s chief military engineer and architect, but he also began The Last Supper, one of his most famous paintings, during this time. The duke commissioned it to be painted on the wall of the family chapel, which was thirty feet long by fourteen feet high. Due to the type of paint Leonardo used and the humidity in the chapel, the painting is extremely fragile and began to deteriorate almost immediately. In 1999, a restoration was completed, but very little of the original paint remains, and the expressions of the Apostles are difficult to make out.
In 1499, the duke was forced out of Milan, and King Louis XII of France took over all of his land. With the military experience Leonardo had gained with Sforza, he was able to get work with Cesare Borgia’s army in 1502. Borgia was a notorious figure during the Renaissance. He allegedly killed his own brother, and many believe that Machiavelli based his book The Prince on Borgia. Although Borgia commissioned Leonardo to design bridges, catapults, cannons, and other weapons, he was also a patron of the arts, so Leonardo worked with him until 1503, when King Louis’s governor made Leonardo the court painter in Milan.
Under King Louis, Leonardo continued to do military and architectural engineering in addition to painting. But he was also able to continue his studies in anatomy, botany, hydraulics, and other sciences. In 1513, King Louis XII was forced out of Milan, thus ending Leonardo’s role in his court and freeing him to return to the Medici patronage. By this time, Lorenzo’s son Giovanni had become pope (known as Pope Leo X), and another son, Giuliano, served as the head of the pope’s army. As a result, Leonardo moved to Rome, where he had his own workshop and lived in the Vatican.
During his career, Leonardo developed a technique in painting called sfumato, a word that comes from the Italian sfumere, which means “to tone down” or “to evaporate like smoke.” Sfumato is a fine shading that produces soft, almost invisible transitions between colors and tones using subtle gradations, without lines or borders, from light to dark areas. In Rome, Leonardo painted St. John the Baptist, which is considered the best example of sfumato.
For the last three years of his life, Leonardo worked in the court of Francois I, who became the king of France after Louis XII. Francois invited Leonardo to visit, and made him premier architect, engineer, and painter of his court. He was given a fine home near the palace in the Loire Valley and had no expectations placed on him but to be the king’s friend. Leonardo spent his final years sketching and continuing his scientific studies and designs. In fact, his paintings of water moving and of whirlpools were used in scientific research of turbulence.
Leonardo’s favorite of his own work was his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. Completed in 1506, it is the smallest of his paintings—only thirty inches by twenty-one inches—and is oil painted on wood. Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, Leonardo’s neighbor, is believed to be the model for the Mona Lisa, though no one is 100 percent certain. The painting is famous for many reasons: it is an excellent example of sfumato and of chiaroscuro (a contrasting of light and shadow), but it is her expression that is most discussed about the painting. In it, her slight smile seems both innocent and knowing at the same time, and her eyes seem to follow you. Leonardo kept the painting with him until his death, at which point it became the property of King Francois. Although it now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, it has also been in Napoleon’s possession, hidden to protect it during the Franco-Prussian War and World War II, traveled to other countries and other museums, and was even stolen in 1911 by an Italian employee of the Louvre who believed it should reside in Italy. It was returned two years later. In 1956, part of the painting was damaged when a vandal threw acid at it, and later that same year, a rock was thrown at it, resulting in the loss of a speck of pigment near the left elbow. It is now protected by bulletproof glass.
Sandro Botticelli
May 20, 1455–May 17, 1510
Sandro Botticelli was born in Florence and became an apprentice when he was fourteen years old. He also studied under Andrea del Verrocchio, as well as the engraver Antonio del Pollaiuolo and the master painter Fra Filippo Lippi. Botticelli got his own workshop when he was twenty-five and stayed in Florence under the patronage of the Medicis and other wealthy families there. His most famous painting is The Birth of Venus, which he completed around 1486, and now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It is widely agreed that his model for Venus and other women in his work was Simonetta Vespucci, for whom he had an unrequited love. Simonetta died in 1476. The unmarried Botticelli asked that when he died, he be buried at her feet. His wish was carried out when he died thirty-four years later, and they are both buried in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence.
Piero della Francesca
Circa 1415–October 12, 1492
Although Piero della Francesca became one of the most admired painters of the Italian Renaissance, very little is known about his early life or his training as an artist. He was born in the Tuscan town of Borgo Santo Sepolcro sometime around 1415. Early records indicate that he may have apprenticed with a local painter before moving to Florence around 1439 to paint frescoes for a church there. In addition to art, he was also known as a brilliant mathematician.
Throughout his life, della Francesca received commissions to paint frescoes and altarpieces in churches in Tuscany and beyond. Though many of these have been lost or destroyed, his cycle of frescoes in the basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo is considered to be not only one of his masterpieces but also one of the masterpieces of the entire Renaissance. His painting The Baptism of Christ is probably the most representative of his style, in particular his use of color and light, which makes his paintings appear almost bleached.
Della Francesco never lost his ties with his small hometown, always returning there after time in cities. He spent the last two years of his life there. During that time, he is believed to have abandoned painting and returned to the study of mathematics and its relationship to painting. Interestingly, although he was respected by his peers, he did not have the influence many of them did. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that he was recognized as a major artist of the Italian Renaissance.
I do so much research for each book in The Treasure Chest series and discover so many cool facts that I can’t fit into every book. Here are some of my favorites from my research for The Treasure Chest: #9 Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Master. Enjoy!
One of my favorite cities in the whole world is Florence, Italy. I’ve been lucky enough to go there dozens of times and always find something new to see. The works of art of Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo are all over the city, constant reminders of the lasting effects of the great art of the Renaissance.
In order to really appreciate the Renaissance, it’s important to look back first at the Middle Ages and pre-Renaissance Italy. The Middle Ages, also called the Medieval Period or the Dark Ages, describes Europe between the fall of Rome in 476 CE and the beginning of the Renaissance in the fourteenth century. After the fall of the Roman Empire, no single state or government united the people, and the Catholic Church became so powerful that kings, queens, and other leaders derived their power from their alliances with the Church.
The influence of the Church’s dominance during this period can be seen in many ways. In 1095, Pope Urban II authorized a holy army to fight nonbelievers all the way to Jerusalem. Known as the Crusades, this conflict continued for almost four hundred years. Another way to demonstrate devotion to the Church during this period was to build grand cathedrals. These cathedrals can still be visited in most of the cities throughout Europe.
In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press; prior to that, many books were works of art handmade with gold and s
ilver in monasteries and universities. These books were called illuminated manuscripts.
The political system during the Middle Ages was called feudalism. Peasants—also known as serfs—did the work on the large pieces of land that kings granted to noblemen. Most of the crops they planted and harvested went to the wealthy landowners. They also had to tithe—give 10 percent of their income to the church. In exchange for their labor, they were allowed to live free on the land and to get protection from the king.
Agricultural innovations such as the heavy plow and three-field crop rotation in the eleventh century made farming more efficient. As a result, fewer farm workers were needed. People began to move into the cities. Because of the Crusades, goods from distant lands were in demand, and ports were developed to receive these goods. Some European cities reached populations of fifty thousand citizens by 1300.
The unification of Italy did not happen for many centuries. During the pre-Renaissance, it was made up of city-states that always battled with each other. As Italy moved toward the Renaissance, a word which means rebirth, artists—many of them in Florence—helped shape the transition from the feudalistic Middle Ages to this new age of enlightenment.
The architect Filippo Brunelleschi combined elements of classical architecture with newer ideas in structures such as the Duomo of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was one of the first to include the use of perspective in his designs, which he combined with classicism in such buildings as Santa Maria Novello in Florence. Also during this pre-Renaissance time, Dante wrote The Divine Comedy, and Giotto, credited with breathing life back into painting, popularized and revived art.
It is widely acknowledged that the Renaissance began in Florence, where bankers, merchants, and other wealthy members of society began to support the arts. The Medicis were the richest family in Italy—perhaps in all of Europe. Under Cosimo de’ Medici, and then Lorenzo the Magnificent, artists were commissioned to paint, sculpt, and build private and public works of art. In medieval times, the Church sponsored art. But now wealthy families employed artists for the duration of a work of art’s completion (which was often years), as well as supplying room and board and access to other wealthy families. This was a system that nurtured artists.
There is no precise date when the Renaissance came to an end, and there is no agreed upon reason for it. Many point to France’s invasion of Italy as the beginning of the end. Others point to the rise of power of the monk Savonarola and his subsequent brief rule, during which many works of art were destroyed in what was known as the “Bonfire of the Vanities” in the center of Florence. A few years later a wide array of Renaissance works of literature were banned.
Just as important was the end of stability with a series of foreign invasions known as the Italian Wars beginning in 1494 when France wreaked widespread devastation on Northern Italy and ended the independence of many of the city-states. On May 6, 1527, Spanish and German troops sacked Rome, ending the role of the papacy as the largest patron of Renaissance art and architecture. Yet even then, a new Renaissance called the Northern Renaissance began to develop, continuing the ideals of the great Italian Renaissance.
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