Talk:Leonardo da Vinci

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[edit] Architect?

Why has Leonardo been recorded as an architect? I have heard that none of his architectural designs have actually worked or been built? Visionsofthelastdays 14:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Burial

Are his remains still there? I would think that someone of da Vinci's status would have been somewhere near the top of the "tombs to plunder" list during the French Revolution (or earlier), given the fate of the lesser-known Nostradamus's remains. The article doesn't really elaborate on whether his body was ever moved, destroyed, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.165.87.40 (talk • contribs) 00:55, March 28, 2006 (UTC)

According to Leonardo: The First Scientist by Michael White (author): "Even the location of his grave is uncertain... later, under Napoleon's instruction, it was demolished and the bones buried there scattered..." Feel free to add that into the article, the book should also be a "see also" reference. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 02:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexuality

First of all, it should be made clear that there is NO solid evidence, that he was homosexual. 67.8.115.243 20:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A well written article, however, when first reading this article it seemed to me that the main topic was about his alleged homosexuality, since it is the largest of the early sections. If I get that impression, perhaps others will. True or false has nothing to do with it; surely these allegations are not what he is notable for? Perhaps this part of the text is a side-note that could go with a brief note here and most or all of that section moved into a side-article?DanielDemaret 05:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You may be right, I too think that the "gay" discussion is much langer than reasonable: Leonardo is famous for his art, engineering and vision and that is what should make up the bulk of the bio. But the previous unidentified editor simple vented his personal opinion and that is not appropriate, so I reverted back. Perhaps you might want to try your hand at clipping the remarks about sexuality down to size. Ande B 23:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Why not move the material further down into the article, and solve the imbalance by filling out the scholarship on the other aspects instead of bring this section down to their level? One of the main reasons the account of his relationships with boys was developed more fully is that editors would discount and delete the discussion of his pederasty for lack of corroborating evidence. Now that the evidence has been fleashed out, the cry goes up that there is too much detail. Removing the bulk of the discussion to another article would be a POV fork. So let's complete what's missing instead of removing what is complete. Haiduc 23:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Balance is always important and sometimes difficult to attain in a joint work in progress, such as Wikipedia. People have different approaches to biographical entries. I have no qualms about a person's sexual preference being mentioned in an article, but at times it overwhelms the reason for the person's notability in the first place. Right now, this looks to me like an attempt to make an "argument" to "prove" Leonardo's sexual preferences. Your repositioning of the info, however, does make Leonardo's achievements more immediately accessible to the casual reader. Ande B 00:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

This is another attempt by people to silence, downplay or segregate the personal lives of gay people. There is no discussion about whether the personal lives of Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt should be moved to the bottom of the page because there mostly known as presidents and that should be first. There is no discussion about whether the personal lives of Albert Einstein or George W. Bush should be shortened because they are known for other things. On none of these pages do you see there personal lives separated and put in two different areas of the page. Why is that? Oh yeah because they’re straight.

I want his relationships with other men joined with the other sections about his personal life. For the people that hate gays, too bad. Your hatred should NOT be put in to academic articles. (Anonymous Users) May 21, 2006

I think the work that Haiduc has done is very good, well referenced, too. My only concerns are editorial organizational ones. For some notable people, their sexual preferences are of overwhelming importance to their work or fame. For others, sexuality is of no consequence and the rest fall somewhere in between. But biographies are usualy written because a person has accomplished something significant. It's fairly standard for encyclopedias to treat a person's personal life in a separate section after the accomplishments have been covered. But in a wider view, I think you're right that many complaints arise from pure spite. Ande B 21:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
If is true (and is not) that "it's fairly standard for encyclopedias to treat a person's personal life in a separate section" than I don't understand why, on the very first line of this article, is written that he was "Roman Catholic" even more since that is quite wrong because among other things (being homosexual for one thing) he was performing autopsy on dead human bodies, thing at that time specifically prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church.--Dia^ 05:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gallego

I've heard that the name "Da Vinci" comes from the Gallego, or Galician language.

[edit] "Inventing" the Helicopter

Not to--in anyway--belittle his work or his genius, but is it really fair to say he "invented" the helicopter, calculator and others? Again, his ideas for these things were nothing short of genius I'm sure, but "invented" to me implies that he actually made these things as practical devices, which, to the best of my knowledge, he did not. But may that's not what "invent" implies to other people, plus I couldn't think of a better way of phrasing it. B.Mearns*, KSC 17:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. For some things, he came up with interesting concepts, but didn't produce any working examples or practical designs. I know that recently, some of his never-got-made drawings have been made into real, working objects, but the helicopter wasn't one of them. His design for the helicopter didn't really address any of the important design issues that made it possible for helicopters to fly today. I'm sure it's a similar story for some of his other ideas. — Soupisgoodfood 09:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References?

"Until recently, it was thought that Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a local peasant woman known as Caterina; now some evidence indicates that Caterina may have been a Middle Eastern Slave."

What is this new evidence? Does this refer to those "papers recently found by the Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci in his home town of Vinci"? I can't find anything on this subject from other encyclopedias (britannica, microsoft encarta & catholic encyclopedia) which hold it self-evident that Caterina was a peasant. Any idea where I could find out what kind of claims those papers support? -Riojajar 13:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

My attention was caught by exactly the same sentence. Where does this come from? What is the source? Telsa (talk) 10:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
This made headlines in many papers a while back, perhaps before Google news was around. Here's one cite: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,810926,00.html
Ande B 17:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh, interesting. Thanks a lot for the link. Telsa (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Why is the article located at www.anthonychristian.co.uk/ezine15.html not relevant enough to be included in the external links?

It is written by a very well known artist and art historian and gives a unique perspective of how Leonardo still influences artists today, which I think would relevant and interesting to anyone studying Leonardo and/or his techniques.

Mike Hannon 22.05.06

I'm just guessing here. Although I enjoyed the link to anthonychristian.co.uk, the site itself is more about a single individual's artistic relationship with Leonardo rather than a site that details Leonardo's influence on contemporaneous and later artists. Also, there seems to be a preference to keeping links limited to those that are used as references within the article or which are otherwise essential or specialized sources. The phrase I see often is "WP is not a site for a collection of links on a topic." Leonardo may well warrant more links and references than others but there are always going to be editorial limits. As I said, just my guess. Ande B 20:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I just deleted the last link in the list because it leads to a site that apparently exists to sell digital restorations of Leonardo's paintings. If I was making an erroneous assumption, someone might want to revert it -- but it sure smelled like spam to me. --grant 15:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last Supper defaced

The image of The Last Supper that is referenced in this article has been defaced. There is a cartoon-like figure in the window. I would fix it but do not know how.

I don't see what you are talking about. Can you be more specific. Paul August ☎ 22:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Uh... me bad. Or just me stupid. The image I was referring to is that of Thomas, immediately to the right of Jesus (Jesus' left), framed in the window. It looks like a cartoon figure in this picture, as if it were crudely added. Before remarking on this here, I counted all the figures and came up with one extra which seemed to indicate to me that I was, indeed, seeing a defaced image. Apparently I miscounted, and the "crude" image is simply what appears after the many restorations and in the state the original was in at the time the photo was taken. So... never mind and apologies.


[edit] "Former featured article"

Recently this article was tagged as a "former featured article" and I would like to know, after heving seen the meager and indefensible arguments adduced to strip this article of its former status, why the discussion on taking this action was not announced to the regular editors, and how it can be challenged. The main criticism, "too many lists," is clearly spurious. And if the article was a featured article before, how and when did it decay?! Haiduc 01:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

This article was designated as "Brilliant prose" in September of 2003. This was before the FA process. At that time anybody could just add any article that they thought was good — by the standards of the time — there was no set criteria and no organized community review. It inherited its FA status when the FA process was established. Since then standards have continued to evolve. In December of 2004, this article was nominated for removal, and It lost its featured status the following month (see[1]). Someone just got around to adding a mention of that fact to the talk page. The article has improved quite a bit since 2004. You can always nominate it for FA now. Paul August ☎ 02:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] What's happened to the images?

Maybe it's just my computer but most of the images that have been used for quite some time in this article seem to have disappeared. For instance, the red chalk protrait that is at the head of the article shows only the text description. I'm not aware of any dispute with the underlying images' copyrights. Is there something I'm missing or are there simply a lot of broken links? Ande B.

All the images look fine to me. Paul August ☎ 23:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I can actually see several images that weren't showing up before. But this makes me think that the problem is on my end. I appreciate your reality check. Ande B. 01:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Leonardo's self Portrait

Recently I heard an explanation for the Leonardo self portrait that I thought was very highly likely.

The explanation was that Leonardo did the drawing specifically so that Raphael could use it for his central portrait as Plato in 'The School of Athens', and that Leonardo did not draw himself as he was, but deliberately aged his appearance, in the same way as a forensic artist might age an image.

This would certainly explain why both the drawing and the supposed portrait in 'The School of Athens' are much older than Leonardo actually was.

I think I may have heard it on a BBC program. Does anyone have an idea what the program was?

--Amandajm 15:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Reasons for his popularity

To be sure, the examples we have of his work and ideas are quite unique and very interesting for a person of his time, but the man is just mythologised far too much... The comment about him being one of the greatest painters of all time for instance! Something of a massive exaggeration seeing as we have relatively few examples of this aspect of his work, and when compared to his contemporaries, his paintings are not really that astounding. The technical aspects are probably the most interesting facet. We need an objective look at the Leonardo cult to try and understand just WHAT makes the man such a popular and enduring historical figure. I don't mean the content of his (then) unpublished coded notebooks, the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, or any other such artefacts, but why and when was he rediscovered? What brought him to the fore of public consciousness? These social aspects of his fame should be addressed somewhere. OzoneO 15:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Leonardo was a towering figure to his contemporaries. I don't think his reputation is just an accumulation of mythologising by later generations although I hope I'm not misinterpreting what you're saying. Rennaisance artists who were a little younger than him like Raphael and Michelangelo both considered him to be a supreme genius. As noted in this article, Raphael painted Leonardo in the guise of Plato in "The School of Athens." Vasari (although not exactly a contemporary) praised Leonardo in the highest terms. Vasari describes Leonardo practically as if he were a demigod.
He was notorious for leaving projects uncompleted and it's true that relatively few works remain (just 15 paintings if one counts finished, unfinished, autograph, and partly autograph works). One reason why he's such an enduring figure despite this is probably because of the legacy of ideas he left behind, empirical observation and first hand investigation being the most important of these.
I think his paintings surpass his contemporaries by leaps and bounds. The Renaissance painters who might be comparable to him, Like Raphael or Titian, were in their primes half a generation after Leonardo, which I think is significant.

[edit] da Vinci and Michelangelo

Although I really have no source for this at hand and it would seem to contradict something already written in the article, I was under the impression that some feud existed between da Vinci and Michelangelo. Does this sound like anything supported by da Vinci scholarship? A.G. Pinkwater 01:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think there was, yes. Augustulus 01:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Social status

I have heard from experts that since da Vinci was an illegitamate child that he was a social outcast. I also heard that da Vinci received little formal education and was shunned by his father for this. This article gives the impression that he was an elitist in the Vinci aristocracy.

L.'s father was a notary - a lawyer - as had been his grandfather etc for four generations. In other words, the professional classes, not the aristocracy. His mother was possibly a barmaid, but so far as I know this is uncertain. He was illegitimate, but bastard children were common enough in that time and place. (For that matter, my own ancestry from late C.18/early C.19 Somerset shows that not one but two of my maternal ancestors weren't married at the time their first children were born - sounds very modern, and I wonder if there were calls for a strengthening of the moral fibre and a return to traditional values). So he wasn't a social outcast. L. was acknowldeged by his father and baptised in his presence. L's father married soon after L's birth (but not L.'s mother the barmaid - a wife of higher social status, as indeed his own status as a successful notary was quite high). L. was sent to live first with his mother, then taken into his father's (actually grandfather's) household at Vinci sometime before he was five - he shows up on tax records there as "illegitimate son of Piero". So he wasn't shunned by his father, either. He was given what education was avauilable in a small town like Vinci - reading, writing, maths, Latin - but not to the standard that would have been available to a member of the aristocracy. Which, of course, he wasn't. In short, he was an accepted member of the social stratum to which his father belonged - small-town middle-class. The article is misleading in saying that L. was given the best education that Florence could offer - his father apprenticed him to Verrocchio, which was bound to be an education in its own right, but that sentence gives the misleading impresion that he was sent to school or had tutors. They did things differently back then - Piero was giving his son a very good start in life, but giving him an education was strictly a by-product. PiCo 08:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sleeping Habits

I am looking for a way to add in a piece about his reportedly unique sleeping habits. I feel it does not fit in his personal life section because that seems to be only about his romantic and sexual life. Some reports have it that he catnapped for fifteen minutes every four hours, for a total of one and a half hours of sleep a day. This he did to make time for all his activities. Studies on this method of sleep have shown it to have some merit. However I don't know where to put this without ruining the continuity of the article.

[edit] Leonardo's culinary arts

there's a whole huge subject in Leonardo's life missing in this article: his life as a cook, entretainer and gourmet. Leonardo invented things like spaghetti, the sandwich (meat sandwich) and dozens of both useful and not kitchen artiluges, like the pepper grinder and the fire extintion shower thingies... and a raddish cutter that was later used as a war machine. He was a marzipan artist and a gourmet cheff.. worked in a restaurant and was in charge of another. Will investigate further and extend this --Lacrymology 12:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, find some references. I just finished Leonardo: The First Scientist and never heard anything about this. He was in charge of setting up entertainment for some high nobles at one point, for example his solar system display. But nothing you say is in that book that I remember... — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 22:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I know I don't have any constatable facts right now. But there's Leonardo's Culinary Notebooks, which explain a lot about Leonardo's culinary experiments, and it SHOULD be well known that his first work for a noble was for Ludovico Sforza, and he was something like his entretainment and fortifications master and he remodelated his kitchens and whatnot. --Lacrymology 15:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
The Romanoff Codex is the culinary arts book Leonardo wrote (from the spanish wikipedia). --Lacrymology 15:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vegetarian

i deleted the vegetarian theory. there´s an explanation why there´s only wine and bread on da vinci´s painting in the article. tom regan ist certainly not a reliable source in qualifiyng people as veggies. Iwantedthedudebutitwasgone 16:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

but he was a vegetarian. He regarded killing animals as bad as killing people, and said that when the human race evolved, we would not eat animals the same way we don't eat humans. --Lacrymology 17:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
hello lacrymology,
there is not one single source for this. citation:
Unfortunately, there is a quote attributed to da Vinci that has been in several books and magazine articles as well as on vegetarian web sites which has been falsely attributed. It is as follows: "I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." The original source of the error was from a generally excellent anthology of writings from a number of historical and contemporary writers, philosophers, scientists, and other prominent individuals entitled, The Extended Circle: A Commonplace book of Animal Rights (1985), by Jon Wynne-Tyson. The quote above was from a fiction novel (which did put into da Vinci’s mouth some actual quotes) by Dimitri Merejkowski entitled, The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci ( translated from the Russian in 1928). The attributions for the quote above and an actual da Vinci quote were inadvertently swapped in the book. The Merejkowski quote is not to be found in Richter or in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1956, first published 1939. we´re talking about an urban legend here. Iwantedthedudebutitwasgone 17:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I've realized I was being quite inconsistent. The notebooks I'm studying to create Leonardo's cookery section has his opinion in various dishes, including some with meats. --Lacrymology 17:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

According to the website http://www.ivu.org/history/davinci/hurwitz.html :

Jean Paul Richter was the first person in history to decipher Leonardo’s notebooks. In his epochal The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (3rd Edition 1970, first published in 1883), he wrote:
"We are led to believe that Leonardo himself was a vegetarian from the following interesting passage in the first of Andrea Corsali’s letters to Giuliano de’ Medici: ‘Alcuni gentili chiamati Guzzarati non si cibano dicosa alcuna che tenga sangue, ne fra essi loro consentono che si noccia adalcuna cosa animata, come it nostro Leonardo da Vinci.’"

Although there is a quote floating around which has been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, that was actually of a fictional portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci and not of Leonardo himself, it does appear that he was still a vegetarian according to Jean Paul Richter's translation of his notebook. It is also possible that he spent part of his life as a meat eater and part of his life as a vegetarian, so if his reviews of meat based dishes were from his time as a meat eater, it would not contradict Leonardo da Vinci spending at least part of his life as a meat eater.

The revision [2] of the article states:

It is apparent from the works of Leonardo and his early biographers that he was a man of high integrity and very sensitive to moral issues. His respect for life led him to being a vegetarian for at least part of his life. The term "vegan" would fit him well, as he even entertained the notion that taking milk from cows amounts to stealing. Under the heading, "Of the beasts from whom cheese is made," he answers, "the milk will be taken from the tiny children." [3]. Vasari reports a story that as a young man in Florence he often bought caged birds just to release them from captivity. He was also a respected judge on matters of beauty and elegance, particularly in the creation of pageants.

and:

It is known that Leonardo da Vinci embraced vegetarianism at a young age, and remained so for the entire duration of his life.

I would say that the assertion that he was a vegetarian for at least part of his life has a greater chance of being true than the assertion that he became a vegetarian at a young age and remained so for the rest of his life. [3] is the reference for the latter assertion which does not say that he has been a vegetarian since a young age except as a quote which is explicitly stated as being from a work of fiction instead of being an authentic quote. I think the latter assertion should be removed. Q0 02:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

Why is he described as a "Roman Catholic" polymath. Everyone on the peninsula was Catholic. I don't think this is a good way to define him, i.e. it doesn't set him apart from his contemporaries who were all Catholic as well.

Leonardo was a baptized, but non-practicing, Roman Catholic. According to the source provided (Sherwin B. Nuland, Leonardo da Vinci [A Penguin Life], Lipper/Viking/Penguin Putnam Inc.: New York City, NY [2000], pp. 99-100): "Finally, being old, he lay sick for many months. When he found himself near death he made every effort to acquaint himself with the doctrine of Catholic ritual." Notwithstanding his belief in God and in the existence of the soul, it was a ritual -- and indeed an entire formalized religion -- from which he had in general kept himself separated, "holding lightly by other men's beliefs, seeing philosophy above Christianity..." He is set apart from his contemporaries by not practicing the Roman Catholic faith as much, or more, than he is by being baptized into it. 69.47.163.176 04:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

This article seems to attract an unusually high level of vandalism. Why is that? garik 21:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably "The Da Vinci Code" is responsible for some of that. ADyuaa 20:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense. What does semi-protection mean, however? I thought it meant that unregistered users couldn't edit this page, but we seem to get loads of unregistered users vandalising it. What am I misunderstanding? garik 16:58, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bridge by Turkish Government

The completion date for the bridge mentioned in the Engineering section, being built by the Turkish government, has passed. Is there any new information on that?ADyuaa 20:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Gallery?

It would be nice to have a gallery of Leonardo da Vinci's works. Shinobu 00:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Adoration of The Magi

I heard that this painting was not done by Da Vinci completely. Apparently the green pencil drawing underneath it is Da Vinci's but the painting on top is was added on after his death by an anonymous painter. I think people should know about this in case they think it is Leonardo's work.

Thanks Ecyrblim 09:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)Bryce

[edit] Did he do any paintings?

Reading this article, you could easily get the impression that he never did.PiCo 12:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Architect?

Why has Leonardo been recorded as an architect? I have heard that none of his architectural designs have actually worked or been built? Visionsofthelastdays 19:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

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