Hernán Cortés

Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" from Zuma (1975) refers specifically to Cortés, Montezuma and the Spanish conquest of South America. With the genius and legacy of Leonardo da Vinci having captivated authors and scholars generations after his death, the following examples of "Da Vinci fiction" can be found in culture and literature. In Mexico today he is condemned as a modern-day damnatio memoriae, with only one statue – but half a million descendants, and one of the most remarkable stories in history. his tank. It is extremely difficult to characterize this particular conquistador – his unspeakable atrocities, the brilliant military strategies, his desperate maneuvers to keep the ruinous plantation economy out of Mexico, the rewards for his Tlaxcalteca allies along with the rehabilitation of the nobility (including a castle for Moctezuma's heirs in Spain that still stands), his respect for Indians as worthy adversaries and family members. While most of Leonardo's inventions were not realized, many were technologically feasible as it was demonstrated recently, e.g. He left his many mestizo and white children well cared for in his will, along with every one of their mothers. In January 2005, researchers discovered the hidden laboratory used by Leonardo da Vinci for studies of flight and other pioneering scientific work in previously sealed rooms at a monastery next to the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata, in the heart of Florence.[6].

Like Columbus, he died a wealthy but embittered man; he had not become the great Caesar of Charles V's Western Empire. They remained obscure until the 19th century, and were not directly of value to the development of science and technology. Cortés died in Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville province, in 1547. Technological historian Lewis Mumford suggests that Leonardo kept notebooks as a private journal, intentionally censoring his work from those who might irresponsibly use it (the tank, for instance). But the Castilian bureaucrats began to arrive, undoing all his work, and he left with his eldest and favorite son, La Malinche's child Martín Cortés, to find China, eventually returning to Europe to fight in Italy with the same son. Why Leonardo did not publish or otherwise distribute the contents of his notebooks remains a mystery to those who believe that Leonardo wanted to make his observations public knowledge. He served a term as Governor-General of "New Spain of the Ocean Sea" (as Juan de Grijalva had named Mexico before Cortés ever saw it), bringing stability and surprising civil rights to the country. In his years in the Vatican, he planned an industrial use of solar power, by employing concave mirrors to heat water.

When Cortés returned to New Spain from Honduras, barely alive, he was greeted with joy by a desperate, lawless population. Other inventions include a submarine, a cog-wheeled device that has been interpreted as the first mechanical calculator, and a car powered by a spring mechanism. (Perhaps he could no longer bear to see him limp from his disfigured feet.). even though he later held war to be the worst of human activities. He became paranoid as well, having Cuauhtémoc hanged over the strong objections of his men. Owing to his sometime employment as a military engineer, his notebooks also contain several designs for military machines: machine guns, an armoured tank powered by humans or horses, cluster bombs, etc. He took off on a senseless, death-defying expedition through Guatemala to Honduras to punish a fellow Spaniard who had betrayed him, and with his departure all shadow of personal authority left Mexico. It was never built, but Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway.

He never forgave himself and seems to have gone somewhat mad. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus known as the Golden Horn. Cortés famously put Cuauhtémoc's feet to the fire to find the gold lost on La Noche Triste, but notarized testimony at his many subsequent trials (for murdering his legal wife, etc.) has abundant testimony from friends and enemies alike that this crime ruined Cortés. In 1502 Leonardo da Vinci produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Sultan Beyazid II of Constantinople. The last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc, surrendered to Cortés on August 13, 1521. On January 3, 1496 he unsuccessfully tested a flying machine he had constructed. In the end, almost the entire city of Tenochtitlán was destroyed and some 120,000 to 240,000 Aztecs killed. Fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, Leonardo produced detailed studies of the flight of birds, and plans for several flying machines, including a helicopter powered by four men (which would not have worked since the body of the craft would have rotated) and a light hang-glider which could have flown.

Cortés genuinely wanted to spare the beautiful city, but with so many Mexica attacking them from the roofs, they were forced to pull houses down street by street. It is not known if an attempt was made to build the device. Still, they fought on long after a European city would have surrendered. The design, which has come to be called Leonardo's robot, was probably made around the year 1495 but was rediscovered only in the 1950s. Cortés's Indian allies suffered as well, with an estimated 40% mortality, but the effect on morale in Tenochtitlán, as they began to starve as well, must have been horrendous. His study of human anatomy led also to the design of the first known robot in recorded history. The siege of Tenochtitlán began at a time when smallpox struck with a vengeance. Because he actively searched for bodily deformed people to paint them, he is also considered to be the beginner of caricature.

They hid the pretty ones in the bushes, sleeping with them during the night, and setting them free in the morning (or marrying them, now that their husbands had been devoured). It is important to note that he was not only interested in structure but also in function, so he was anatomist and physiologist at the same time. Spanish foot soldiers helped kill Indians for their allies to "dress out", but also rescued many of the women Cortés planned to brand on the face as slaves. He not only studied the anatomy of human, but also of other beings. The Tlaxcaltecas subsisted on the flesh of their massacred enemies while the "Christians" looked the other way, living on dogs and corn. He was a master of topographic anatomy. Still, this phase of the campaign was arduous and brutal. He often drew muscles and tendons of the cervical muscles and of the shoulder.

The Mexica-Aztecs had been dominating other Aztec city-states for over a century, demanding ever more sacrificial victims and other tribute. He was one of the firsts who drew the fetus in the intrauterine position (he wished to learn about "the miracle of pregnancy"). Indian porters brought all the supplies stripped from the original fleet over the mountains from the coast, while Cortés and his allies secured all the towns around the Tenochtitlán lake system. He drew many images of the lungs, mesentery, urinary tract, sex organs, and even coitus. Cortés ordered his master shipwright, Martín López, a Basque who was arguably his most critical survivor, to build 12 brigantines for a siege of the city. He was also able to represent exceptionally well the human skull and cross-sections of the brain (transversal, sagittal, and frontal). (A third died, apparently leaving behind her infant by Cortés, the mysterious second "María" named in his will.) This major Aztec victory is still remembered as "La Noche Triste", the Night of Sorrow. He also studied the inclination of pelvis and sacrum and stressed that sacrum was not uniform, but composed of five vertebrae.

The women survivors included La Malinche, ten conquistadors, Alvarado's lover and two of Moctezuma's daughters in Cortés's harem. Leonardo drew many images of the human skeleton, and was the first to describe the double S form of the backbone. Over 400 Spaniards and some 2,000 Indian allies were killed, but Cortés, Alvarado and the most skilled of the men managed to fight their way out of Tenochtitlán and escape. However, his book was published only in 1580 (long after his death) under the heading Treatise on painting. The gap in the causeway, removed to prevent their escape, was so filled with bodies the fugitives just ran across. Together with Marcantonio, he prepared to publish a theoretical work on anatomy and made more than 200 drawings. Surely the offering of the heart of such a warrior would win back their god of war, Huitzilopochtli. In 30 years, Leonardo dissected 30 male and female corpses of different ages.

Cortés only survived because the Mexica-Aztecs wanted him alive to sacrifice to their god of war. From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre (1481 to 1511). The fighting was ferocious, and many of the Spaniards were hindered by having loaded themselves down with as much gold as they could carry. Later he dissected also in Milano in the hospital Maggiore and in Rome in the hospital Santo Spirito (the first mainland Italian hospital). On the night of July 1, 1520, Cortés decided to try to break out by muffling the horses' hooves and carrying boards to fill in one of the causeways (which had been opened to prevent escape), but a woman saw them and alerted the city. As he became successful as an artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Moctezuma was jeered and stones were thrown at him injuring him badly, and Moctezuma died a few days later. Leonardo started to discover the anatomy of the human body at the time he was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio, as his teacher insisted that all his pupils learn anatomy.

Cortés ordered Moctezuma to speak to his people from a palace balcony and persuade them to let the Spanish return to the coast in peace. As did most people at the time, he believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and that the Moon reflects the sun's light due to its being covered by water. Cuitláhuac ordered his soldiers to besiege the palace housing the Spaniards and Moctezuma. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist. When Cortés returned to the palace, however, he found that Alvarado and his men had massacred the Aztec nobility and the survivors had elected a new emperor, Cuitláhuac. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. Years later, when asked what the new land was like, Cortés crumpled up a piece of parchment, then spread it out: "Like this," he said. His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations.

The arduous trek back over the Sierra Madre Oriental began. This is explainable by the fact that it is easier to pull a quill pen than to push it; by using mirror-writing, the left-handed writer is able to pull the pen from right to left. (Narváez lost an eye, but worse awaited this great loser of the conquest in Florida.). He was left-handed and used mirror writing throughout his life. When Cortés told the defeated soldiers about the city of gold, Tenochtitlán, they agreed to join him. These notes were made and maintained through Leonardo's travels through Europe, during which he made continual observations of the world around him. He left Tenochtitlán in the care of his trusted lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado, marched to the coast, and defeated the Cuban expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez. Perhaps even more impressive than his artistic work are his studies in science and engineering, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and science.

At the worst possible moment, news from the coast reached Cortés that a much larger party of Spaniards had been sent by Velázquez to arrest Cortés for insubordination. Chiaroscuro is the technique of modelling and defining forms through contrasts of light and shadow. After some weeks in Tenochtitlán, knowing their leader was in chains and having to feed not just a band of Spaniards but thousands of their Tlaxcalteca allies, the strain began to weigh on the city. It is characterized by subtle transitions between colour areas, creating an atmospheric haze or smoky effect. Cortés then seized Moctezuma in his own palace and made him his prisoner as insurance against Aztec revolt, and demanded an enormous ransom of gold, which was duly delivered. One of them, a colour shading technique called sfumato, used a series of custom-made glazes by Leonardo. All his demands were met. Leonardo pioneered new painting techniques in many of his pieces.

Christopher be set up in their place. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties. He also demanded that the two large idols be removed from the main temple pyramid in the city, the human blood scrubbed off, and shrines to the Virgin Mary and St. After returning to Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, The Battle of Anghiari; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. Cortés asked for more gifts of gold as a vassal of Charles V. (In 1999 a pair of full-scale statues based on his plans were cast, one erected in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the other in Milan [5].) The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design. Moctezuma had the palace of his father Axayacatl prepared to house the Spanish and their Indian allies. Because of war with France, the project was never finished.

The two halves of the planet had found one another. In Milan he spent 17 years making plans and models for a monumental seven metre (24 ft) high horse statue in bronze called "Gran Cavallo". Moctezuma welcomed Cortés to Tenochtitlán on the Great Causeway into the "Venice of the West," probably the largest city on earth, and many people mark this moment – when two high civilizations met after 40,000 years of isolation – as the true discovery of the New World. None of his sculptures have survived. How could God allow heathens such splendor? The expedition arrived in the Mexica-Aztec capital on November 8, 1519. Of his paintings, only seventeen survived. Surely it was the most magnificent city in the world. After extensive, ambitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan.

When the Spaniards saw the island city of Tenochtitlán for the first time, from the ring of volcanoes around the Valley of Mexico, they asked each other if they were dreaming. For example, in 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece The Adoration of the Magi. Terror was one of his many powerful tools, though much of his military genius can be ascribed to La Malinche, who had her own motives for revenge. Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished. Cortés then sent a message ahead to Moctezuma that the lords of Cholula had treated him with disrespect and had to be punished, but if Moctezuma treated him with respect and gifts of gold, the Aztecs need not fear his wrath. The name Mona Lisa is not the one given to the piece of art at the time, nor was it known by this title until much later. Although he did not know if this was true or not, Cortés ordered a preventive strike to serve as a lesson: the Spaniards seized and killed the local nobles, set fire to the city and killed an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 of the inhabitants. It is well known that Leonardo made extensive use of many tricks in this painting, including the so-called Golden Ratio.

After Cortés arrived in Cholula, the second largest city of the Empire, La Malinche relayed a rumor that the locals planned to murder the Spaniards in their sleep. Thousands of people see it each year in the Louvre, perhaps drawing their own interpretation on what is known as the Mona Lisa's most infamous and enigmatic feature - her smile. He also purchased cotton armour, seeing how much more effective than chainmail it was against Indian arrows. He most likely kept it with him at all times, and did not travel without it. The Tlaxcaltecas agreed; Cortés then continued his march with some 2,000 Tlaxcalteca warriors and perhaps as many more porters. Though there is significant debate whether Leonardo himself painted the Mona Lisa, or whether it was the work of his students, it is known that it was probably his favourite piece. Otherwise, Cortés threatened, he would kill everyone in their entire nation. Leonardo is well known for his artistry and paintings, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan) 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), 1503-1506.

Cortés's "lord" was Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to whom he made his case by letters, over the head of Velázquez, who, in turn, was trying to make a case over the head of Diego Colón, son of Christopher Columbus and thus Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Melzi was his principal heir and executor, but Salai was not forgotten: he received half of Leonardo's vineyard. Cortés said that if the men of Tlaxcala would accept Christianity, become his allies and vassals to his lord, he would forgive their disrespect and overthrow their nemesis, Emperor Moctezuma. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. The Tlaxcaltecas attacked his troops, but Spanish crossbows, broadswords, battle axes, horses, war dogs and firearms quickly won the battle. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. Cortés arrived at Tlaxcala, a small independent state within the empire's sphere of influence. Leonardo da Vinci died at Clos Lucé, France, on 2nd May, 1519.

Cortés then led his band inland towards the fabled Tenochtitlán. Francis became a close friend. He ordered all his fleet scuttled (not burned as legend has it), except for one small ship with which to communicate with Spain, effectively stranding the expedition in Mexico and ending all thoughts of loyalty to the Governor of Cuba. In 1518 Salai left Leonardo and returned to Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel. While some of the expedition wanted to get such gold as they could quickly by trade or theft and then return to Cuba, Cortés had seen the results of this sort of plunder and had plans to build a working empire of his own. The King granted Leonardo and his entourage generous pensions: the surviving document lists 1000 écus for the artist, 400 for Melzi (named "apprentice") and 100 for Salai (named "servant"). (One-Reed was, in this particular 52-year "century", 1519, adding to the extraordinary luck of this conquistador.) Aided by the advice of his native translator, La Malinche, he took full advantage of the Quetzalcoatl myth, inflicting Moctezuma with what writer Octavio Paz described as "sacred vertigo". In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé (also called "Cloux") next to the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise.

Cortés learned that he was suspected of being Quetzalcoatl or an emissary of Quetzalcoatl, a legendary man-god who was predicted to one day return to reclaim his city in a One-Reed year on the cyclical calendar. In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between the French king and Pope Leo X in Bologna, where he must have first met the King. It had the opposite effect, of course. However, he was probably of pivotal importance in the relocation of David (in Florence), one of Michelangelo's masterpieces, against the artist's will. Soon ambassadors from the Mexica/Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II arrived with additional gifts, apparently hoping to keep him at a distance by satisfying him with gold. From 1513 to 1516, he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time, though he did not have much contact with these artists. He learned that the land was ruled by the great lord in the city of Tenochtitlán. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French.

The local Totonac from Cempoala greeted him with gifts of food, feathers, gold – and women, who always had to be baptized before the eager Spanish soldiers were allowed to let them "fix supper for them" ("grind their corn"). In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer; with Cesare he travelled throughout Italy. By establishing a municipality, he could "reluctantly" proceed to claim land for king Charles V of Spain by popular mandate of the city magistrates he had appointed, his friends. He left with Salai and his friend Luca Pacioli (the first man to describe double-entry bookkeeping) for Mantua, moving on after 2 months to Venice (where he was hired as a military engineer), then briefly returning to Florence at the end of April 1500. After short stops in Yucatán where there was little gold but the priceless gift of two translators, one "La Malinche" later made legendary even if not quite an Aztec princess sold into Mayan slavery, another a shipwrecked Spaniard who had also learned a Mayan dialect during seven years of slavery, Cortés landed his party in a location he named Veracruz ("True Cross") on March 4. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time, until one morning when he found French archers using his life-size clay model of the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. In 1519 Cortés fled Cuba with 11 ships, 500 men, and 15 horses. When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza [4].

He was forbidden to colonize, but calling upon what law he had studied and his famous powers of persuasion, he tricked Governor Velázquez into inserting a clause about emergency measures that might have to be taken without prior authorization, "in the true interests of the realm." At the last minute, the Governor sensing that Cortés was too ambitious for his own good, changed his mind. It was here that seventy tons of bronze that had been set aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue (see below) were cast into weapons for the Duke in an attempt to save Milan from the French under Charles VIII in 1495. Cortés eagerly sold or mortgaged all his lands to buy ships and supplies and arranged with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, another distant relative and his father-in-law, to lead an expedition, officially to explore and trade with the rumored new lands to the west. From around 1482 to 1499, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan [3], employed Leonardo and permitted him to operate his own workshop complete with apprentices. Expeditions to Yucatán by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in 1517 and Juan de Grijalva in 1518 had returned to Cuba with small amounts of gold, and tales of a more distant land where gold was said to be abundant. He was also a respected judge on matters of beauty and elegance, particularly in the creation of pageants. The brutality of the Cuba campaign and the subsequent extinction of the Indian population from disease, overwork and despair would later influence Cortés's more careful treatment of the Mexicans as Captain-General of New Spain, making possible, ironically, the survival of so many "genotypically" full-blooded Indians, Indian tribes, and Indian languages in Mexico today. Vasari reports a story that as a young man in Florence he often bought caged birds just to release them from captivity.

This was the encomienda that had worked so well in the conquest of the Canaries (eliminating the indigenous Guanches) but would prove devastating in the New World. Under the heading, "Of the beasts from whom cheese is made," he answers, "the milk will be taken from the tiny children." [2]). He took part in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba and was granted a large estate of land and Indian slaves for his efforts. His respect for life led him to being a vegetarian at least part of his life (although the term 'vegan' would fit him well, as he even entertained the notion that taking milk from cows amounts to stealing. Due to several setbacks, Cortés did not arrive in the New World until 1506. 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. He had a choice between seeking fame and glory in a war in Italy, or trying his luck in the Spanish colonies of the New World. Leonardo had many other friends who are now figures renowned in their fields, or for their influence on history; these included Niccolò Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia and Franchinus Gaffurius.

Cortés took classes at Salamanca but bitterly disappointed his parents by returning home in 1501 at age 17, rather than studying law like his grandfather. Melzi, however, became Leonardo's pupil and life companion. Through his mother, he was second cousin to Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca empire of modern-day Peru (not to be confused with another Francisco Pizarro who joined Cortés in conquering the Aztecs). Though Salai was always introduced as Leonardo's "pupil", he never produced any work of artistic merit. Cortés was born in Medellín, (Extremadura), in the Kingdom of Castile in Spain, the only child of Martín Cortés and Catalina Pizarro Altamirano. Salai eventually accepted Melzi's continued presence and the three undertook journeys throughout Italy. . In 1506, Leonardo met Count Francesco Melzi, the 15 year old son of a Lombard aristocrat.

Hernán Cortés, marqués del Valle de Oaxaca (1485–December 2, 1547) (who was known as Hernando or Fernando Cortés during his lifetime and signed all his letters Fernán Cortés) was the conquistador who conquered Mexico for Spain. Some believe this can be explained by Leonardo's role as a mentor and teacher, which required male assistants to aid him in his work, and that his appreciation of androgynous beauty was due solely to his fascination with the workings of both sexes of the human body. The Rain God cries over Mexico by László Passuth. Gian entered Leonardo's household around 1488 at the age of 10, becoming his servant and assistant for the next thirty years. Prescott ISBN 0375758038. One of his lovers is thought to have been Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno (nicknamed Salai (Little Devil)). History of the Conquest of Mexico. by William H. It has therefore been widely assumed that he was a homosexual.

Cortés and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire by Jon Manchip White (1971) ISBN 0786702710. Though he kept his private life particularly secret, it is known that he surrounded himself with handsome young men throughout his life, and his art reflects an appreciation of androgynous beauty (and in at least one instance, sexuality). Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas (1993) ISBN 0671511041. There is no evidence that Leonardo was ever intimately involved with any woman, nor in a close friendship with one. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel Leon-Portilla ISBN 0807055018. Rocke reports that in a fictional dialogue on l'amore masculino (male love) written by the contemporary art critic and theorist Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Leonardo appears as one of the protagonists and declares, "Know that male love is exclusively the product of virtue which, joining men together with the diverse affections of friendship, makes it so that from a tender age they would enter into the manly one as more stalwart friends." In the dialogue, the interlocutor inquires of Leonardo about his relations with his assistant, Salai, "Did you play the game from behind which the Florentines love so much?". Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain – available as The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico: 1517-1521 ISBN 030681319X. Modern critics contend that Leonardo's love of boys was well-known even in the sixteenth century.

Hernan Cortés, Letters – available as Letters from Mexico translated by Anthony Pagden (1986) ISBN 0300090943. For some time afterwards, Leonardo and the others were kept under observation by Florence's Officers of the Night - a kind of Renaissance vice squad, charged with suppressing the practice of sodomy, which a majority of male Florentines engaged in, as shown by surviving legal records of the Podestà and the Officers of the Night. After two months in jail, he was acquitted because no witnesses stepped forward. In 1476, he was accused anonymously, along with three other men, of sodomy with a 17 year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, who was a notorious male prostitute. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence.

In this role, Leonardo also worked with Lorenzo di Credi and Pietro Perugino. His early sketches were of such quality that his father soon showed them to the painter Andrea del Verrocchio, who subsequently took on the fourteen-year old Leonardo as an apprentice. Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence, where he started drawing and painting. Leonardo signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo").

Leonardo was born before modern naming conventions developed in Europe; his name "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", simply means "Leonardo, son of [Mes]ser Piero, from Vinci". It has been suggested, albeit on scanty evidence [1], that she was a Middle Eastern slave owned by Piero. Leonardo was born in Anchiano, near Vinci, Italy, the illegitimate child of Ser Piero da Vinci, a young notary, and Caterina, most likely a peasant girl. .

Renaissance humanism saw no mutually exclusive polarities between sciences and arts. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering. He is also known for designing many inventions that anticipated modern technology, although few of these designs were constructed in his lifetime. Leonardo is famous for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa.

He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, anatomist, inventor, engineer, sculptor, geometer, and painter. ISBN 8809038916 (hardback). Giunti.

Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Scientist, Inventor. Simona Cremante (2005). ISBN 0-140-29681-6. Penguin.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Flights of the mind. Charles Nicholl (2005). Dépot légal 4° trimestre 1965. Somogy.

Léonard de Vinci, L'homme et son oeuvre. Fred Bérence (1965). ISBN 3822817341 (hardback). Taschen.

Leonardo Da Vinci: The Complete Paintings and Drawings. Frank Zollner & Johannes Nathan (2003). A reprint of the original 1883 edition. 2 volumes.

ISBN 0486225720 and ISBN 0486225739 (paperback). Dover. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Jean Paul Richter (1970).

ISBN 0806513500 (paperback). Carol Publishing Group. The 100. Hart (1992).

Michael H. ISBN 0385323816 (paperback). Delacorte Press. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day.

Gelb (1998). Michael J. The cartoon The Tick features Leonardo in Leonardo DaVinci and his Fightin' Genius Time Commandos! (Season 2, Episode 17, 1995). Peter Barnes's Leonardo's Last Supper centres on Leonardo being "resurrected" in a filthy charnel house after being prematurely declared dead.

The movie Hudson Hawk starring Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello revolves around Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. The movie Ever After from 1998 starring Drew Barrymore and Patrick Godfrey as Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was named after Leonardo da Vinci. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code revolves around a conspiracy based on elements of Leonardo's Last Supper and other works, claiming that he belonged to the Priory of Sion (a sect generally regarded as fictitious).

The Dargaud cartoon character Léonard by Turk and De Groot. Terry Pratchett's character Leonard of Quirm is a pastiche of Leonardo. In the mainstream DC Universe, according to "Secret Origins" #27, Leonardo is an ancestor of the famed Freemason Cagliostro, as well as Zatara and Zatanna who are both magicians (in the Magic (illusion) and Magic (paranormal) senses) and Superheroes. DC Comics's Vertigo division published a twelve-issue miniseries about Leonardo and his apprentice Salai, entitled "Chiaroscuro: The Private Life of Leonardo da Vinci.".

The DC Comics Elseworlds story Black Masterpiece, in Batman Annual #18 shows Leonardo's apprentice becoming a Renaissance Batman, using the Master's devices in his war on Florentine crime. Dann has his genius protagonist actually create his flying machine. The novel The Memory Cathedral by Jack Dann is a fictional account of a "lost year" in the life of Leonardo. The novel Pasquale's Angel by Paul McAuley, set in an alternate universe Florence, portrays Leonardo as "the Great Engineer", creating a premature industrial revolution (see clockpunk).

Theodore Mathieson's short story "Leonardo Da Vinci: Detective" portrays him using his genius to solve a murder during his time in France. Leonardo also appears as a character in several Doctor Who novels. The Doctor goes back in time to visit Leonardo's workshop and claims to be an old acquaintance of the artist. The 1979 Doctor Who story City of Death features a theft of the Mona Lisa.

Da Vinci (NCC-81623), a Saber-class vessel, named for the artist. (Starfleet Corps of Engineers) novels, the main starship of the series is called the U.S.S. Also, in the S.C.E. Actor James Daly played Flint / Leonardo in Star Trek: The Original Series, while John Rhys-Davies portrayed Leonardo in Star Trek Voyager.

Leonardo appears again in the Star Trek universe, in the series Star Trek Voyager, where his workshop is created as a holographic simulation. Leonardo's abilities and knowledge are thus attributed to centuries of scientific and artistic study. In the Star Trek: Original Series episode "Requiem for Methuselah", Leonardo da Vinci is revealed to be one of many aliases to "Flint", an immortal man born in the year 3834 BC. Bacchus (1515) – Louvre, Paris, France.

1514) – Louvre, Paris, France. John the Baptist (c. St. 1510) – Louvre, Paris, France.

Anne (c. The Virgin and Child with St. Leda and the Swan (1508) - (Only copies survive – best-known example in Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy). The Madonna of the Rocks or The Virgin of the Rocks (1508) – National Gallery, London, UK.

Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503-1505/1506) – Louvre, Paris, France. 1499-1500) – National Gallery, London, UK. John the Baptist (c. Anne and St.

The Virgin and Child with St. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy. Last Supper (1498) – Convent of Sta. La belle Ferronière (1495-1498) – Louvre, Paris, France.