Leonardo da Vinci and The Mystery of Life
Leonardo Da Vinci The Anatomy and Mechanics of Life Exhibition.
The Saint Bris family in Amboise are more than the justifiably proud owners of the lovely Château Clos Lucé and its magnificent gardens, they are far more important than that. Much more. They are custodians of the, well, it’s not too fanciful to say, soul, of Leonardo da Vinci. If his soul is anywhere, it’s here. Where he would want it to be. He certainly didn’t want to die in Italy. He never expressed any desire to return to the land of his birth.
The years he lived here were the happiest of his life. He had no problems. No concerns. He was loved. Cherished. Appreciated. Life was bliss. This, too, is where he wrote his will and chose to die.
One can only doff one’s hat at the family’s dedication to his genius. Leonardo da Vinci is their vocation and the world is all the richer for it. Their latest homage, first mooted as far back as 2010, is an Exhibition* of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings.
This for some, shows perhaps a lesser known Leonardo, a Leonardo determined to uncover the secrets of the human body. A Leonardo who discovered a complex machine made up of spare parts. Leonardo, the pioneer anatomist, is considered in the medical profession as a forefather. Today’s practising anatomists tell us he was the first to;
discover the sinus; identify each of the thoracic and lumbar cervical vertebrae in the spine; diagnose arteriosclerosis by noting the narrowing the hardening of the coronary arteries; the first to study the digestive system; embryology; the anatomy of a foetus in the womb; to probe the brain, heart and lungs as the motors of the senses and of life.
For thirty years Leonardo obsessively studied anatomy by dissecting thirty human cadavers, more than many of today’s doctors, to find out out how the body works.
‘Describe’ he wrote in a note to himself as an aide memoire, ‘what sneezing is, what yawning is, the falling sickness, spasm, paralysis, shivering with cold, sweating, fatigue, hunger, sleep, thirst, lust’
Dissection was not new but drawing and recording what this excellent exhibition calls The Mechanics of Life was. He was the first artist to do so.
The Leg of Man and Horse Manuscript Facsimile, Leonardo da Vinci. Institut de France.
Bodies were to surgeons as animals were to butchers. It took an artist to see beyond the blood and gore to the beauty of the intricacies of the body.
To figure out how heart valves work he made a model and pumped water inside. He did the same with a model of the lung.
As for that famous, mysterious, enigmatic Mona Lisa smile, how could it be anything but?
Leonardo studied lip muscles, he dissected them then drew lips with skin on and skin off. Gruesome, but as the millions who queue to see them, effective.
Leonardo was obsessed with achieving immortality. Hand in hand with his genius, a few lucky breaks along his way meant he succeeded and then some.
His father, Piero, a respected, wealthy lawyer, and Caterina, his mother, never married.
Piero could have consigned him to the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of The Innocents) in Florence built to care for the illegitimate offspring of wealthy citizens. Anonymity was guaranteed. Babies were deposited after dark in a basin near the door or in a revolving container in the wall.
Leonardo was spared this indignity. He grew up in his father’s comfortable family home with a loving uncle and grandfather until he was apprenticed to Verrochio, a Florentine Master, when he was fourteen.
He was in the right place at the right time.
Verrochio’s biggest fan was Lorenzo de Medici who gave him prestigious commissions. Lorenzo, who made Florence the most glorious city in Europe, worshipped artists. An adherent of Plato’s concept of genius in which the divine spirit enters the artist, setting them apart from ordinary men in order to create masterpieces which would win them immortality.
Leonardo, in pursuit of immortality, picked his commissions. It was no accident he chose as his subjects immortal characters who would never go out of fashion: Jesus, Mary, Saint Anne, John the Baptist, Saint Jerome, Venus and Leda. But did he sense that, thanks to his father he received a commission to paint a portrait of Mona Lisa, the wife of a family friend, she, an unknown housewife, with nothing special about her, would become the most famous woman in the world.
Then there was Leonardo’s own Number One Fan, Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan who commissioned him to paint the equally famous The Last Supper.
More Luck. Francis I, the young, dynamic, king of France, who gave Leonardo Château Clos Lucé, a Grace and Favour Home in Amboise, so that he could end his days in peace in the beautiful Loire Valley. All Francis asked for in return was Leonardo’s company.
Leonardo was lucky too that his loyal, devoted pupil, Francesco Melzi, lovingly and painstakingly edited his Master’s Notebooks, hundreds of them, a mammoth task, to ensure Leonardo’s name would live on.
Finally. More Luck. Enter the Saint Bris family.
For us, there was a touch of home in the Exhibition. Two hundred and fifteen anatomical boards belong to the Royal Collection in Windsor which owns six hundred drawings by Leonardo.
Charles, Britain’s new King, makes all the decisions regarding its management.
Now there’s a thought for the ever inventive Saint Bris family.
Invite Charles to view its own impressive collection. Whatever we know or do not know about Charles III we know one thing for sure. He is passionate about art.
* Leonardo da Vinci and Anatomy, the Mechanics of Life Exhibition is on until 17 September.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art), Photography by Mark.
Read more about the life of Leonardo and his time in Amboise
Leonardo da Vinci
The Amboise Connection
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