by Martin Kemp
1519
April 23
Sixty-seven years old and ill, he draws up his will, which includes a provision for the saying of masses. Melzi is the beneficiary of Leonardo’s written and drawn legacy.
May 2
Leonardo dies at Cloux and is buried in the cloister of the church of Saint-Florentin at Amboise (destroyed).
June 1
Francesco Melzi writes movingly to Leonardo’s half-brother Ser Giuliano da Vinci to notify the family of Leonardo’s death.
Detail of “Val d’Arno” Landscape, c. 1473.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Any manageable selection from the vast bibliography of Leonardo is bound to omit things of significance. A number of the works below direct the reader to the primary sources and to those that provide extensive references to the literature.
The annual publication Raccolta Viciana provides bibliographic updates. See: https://raccoltavinciana.milanocastello.it/en
A valuable service is provided by the Biblioteca Leonardiana at Vinci, which also provides digitized versions of the manuscripts: http://www.bibliotecaleonardiana.it/bbl/bb-leo/bb-leo-home.shtml
See also the bibliographies by Frank Zöllner, and by Claire Farago and Matthew Landrus, at Oxford Bibliographies: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com
A good resource on the internet is: http://universalleonardo.org.
For the documentation of Leonardo’s career, see Edoardo Villata, ed., Leonardo da Vinci. I documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee (Sforza Castle, Milan, 1999); and Leonardo da Vinci: la vera immagine: documenti e testimonianze sulla vita e sull’opera, eds. Vanna Arrighi, Anna Bellinazzi, Edoardo Villata (Giunti, Florence, 2005).
Also Carlo Vecce, Leonardo (Salerno, Rome, 2006); and Martin Kemp and Giuseppe Pallanti, Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting (Oxford University Press, New York, 2017).
A good point of reference for Leonardo’s paintings is Frank Zöllner with Johannes Nathan, Leonardo da Vinci (Taschen, Cologne), available in a number of editions, most recently in 2017 (The Complete Paintings).
Kenneth Clark’s monograph remains a fine introduction: Kenneth Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Martin Kemp (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1988).
For the great stock of drawings in the Royal Collection, see Kenneth Clark, The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, 2nd ed., with Carlo Pedretti, 3 vols. (Phaidon, London and New York, 1968); and more generally, A. E. Popham, The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Martin Kemp (Pimlico/Random House, London, 1994).
For Leonardo’s own writings, the anthology by J. P. Richter is still fundamental: The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols. (Phaidon, Oxford, 1970); and with commentary by Carlo Pedretti, 2 vols. (Phaidon, Oxford, 1977).
A selection of Leonardo’s writings on painting is Martin Kemp, ed., Leonardo on Painting: An Anthology of Writings by Leonardo da Vinci with a Selection of Documents Relating to His Career as an Artist, trans. Martin Kemp and Margaret Walker (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2001).
ADDITIONAL READING
Bambach, Carmen C., ed., et al. Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.
Brown, David Alan. Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Beatis, Antonio de, ed. J. R. Hale, The Travel Journal of Antonio Beatis. Translated by J. R. Hale and J. Lindon. London: Hakluyt Society, 1979.
Delieuvin, Vincent et al. Saint Anne: Leonardo da Vinci’s Ultimate Masterpiece. Paris: Officina Libraria, 2012.
Farago, Claire, ed. Leonardo’s Writings and Theory of Art, 5 vols. London: Taylor & Francis, 1999.
Galuzzi, Paolo, ed. Water as Microscope of Nature: Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester. Florence: Giunti and Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, 2018.
Keele, Kenneth D. Leonardo da Vinci’s Elements of the Science of Man. London: Academic Press, 1983.
Kemp, Martin. Leonardo. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
———, ed. Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Scientist, Inventor. With essays by E. H. Gombrich, Jane Roberts, Philip Steadman, and M. Kemp and catalogue by M. Kemp with J. Roberts. London: Hayward Gallery, 1989.
———. Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, Design. London and Princeton, NJ: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2006–7.
———. Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
———. Living with Leonardo: Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World and Beyond. London: Thames & Hudson, 2017.
Kemp, Martin, and Domenico Laurenza. The Codex Leicester of Leonardo da Vinci: A New Edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Marani, Pietro C. Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
Menu, Michel et al. Leonardo da Vinci’s Technical Practice: Paintings, Drawings and Influence. Paris: Hermann, 2004.
Pedretti, Carlo. Leonardo: A Study in Chronology and Style. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973.
Syson, Luke et al. Leonardo da Vinci at the Court of Milan. London: National Gallery, 2011.
Wells, Francis C. The Heart of Leonardo. London: Springer-Verlag, 2013.
PICTURE CREDITS
AKG: 101; British Library: 82; Cameraphoto: 111 top left; De Agostini Picture Library/G. Cigolini: 62; De Agostini Picture Library/M. Ranzani: 6, 68 top left
Alamy: Album: 43 right, 90, 100; ART Collection: 86; Artepics: 84, 141; Heritage Image Partnership Ltd.: 108; Historic Images: 36, back cover bottom; Masterpics: 155; The Picture Art Collection: 8, 24
Art Resource: Alfredo Dagli Orti: 89; © RMN-Grand Palais: 76, 96, 160; © RMN/Thierry Le Mage: 161 right; © RMN/Rene-Gabriel Ojeda: 130; Scala: endpapers A, vi, 4, 29, 190, 199; The National Gallery, London: 152; © The Trustees of the British Museum, 22, 159
Biblioteca Nacional de Espana: 88
Bridgeman Images: Alinari/Biblioteca Reale: 43 left, 154, 209; © Boltin Picture Library: 166; © British Library Board: 184; De Agostini Picture Library/Vatican Museums and Galleries: 30; Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge: 51; Galleria degli Uffizi: 26; Louvre: 38, 40, 188, 195; National Gallery, London: 156; Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, 2018: vii, 10, 19, 44, 58, 61, 64, 68, 70, 72, 74, 78, 94, 106, 112, 114, 116, 118, 122, 124, 132, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144, 151, 161 left, 162, 168, 170, 172, 174, 178, 179, 180, 182, 186, endpapers D; © Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana/Pinacoteca Ambrosiana: 46
British Museum: 12, endpapers E
De Agostini Picture Library: © Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana – Milano: cover bottom, iii, xiv, 32, 34, 80, 92, 120, 176, endpapers F
Getty Images: Paul Ellis/AFP: 129; Seth Joel/Corbis/VCG: 146; Universal History Archive: 104
Courtesy of Mory Gharib: 175
Courtesy of Martin Kemp: 181
National Gallery of Art: i, 52, throughout
Shutterstock.com: Mystical Link: cover stamp
SkySport Engineering Ltd.: 99
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: ii, 54, 56, 111 top, 126, 148, back cover; Czartoryski Museum: 48; Livioandronico2013: 2, 6; National Gallery of Art: cover top, iii inset, 16; The Hermitage: 20, 39; Yelkrokoyade: 14