Fritjof Capra by The Science of Leonardo: Inside the Mind of the Great Genius of the Renaissance

have written well.” 6

    Figure 3-1: Ravine with waterbirds, c. 1483, Windsor Collection, Landscapes, Plants, and Water Studies, folio 3r

    Leonardo showed great artistic talent early in his youth; his synthesis of art and science was also foreshadowed early on. This is vividly illustrated in a story related by Vasari. When Piero da Vinci was asked by a peasant to have a “buckler” (a small wooden shield) decorated with a painting in Florence, he did not give the shield to a Florentine artist but instead asked his son to paint something on it. Leonardo decided to paint a terrifying monster.
    “To do what he wanted,” writes Vasari, “Leonardo carried into a room of his own, which no one ever entered except himself, a number of lizards, crickets, serpents, butterflies, locusts, bats, and various strange creatures of this nature. From all these he took and assembled different parts to create a fearsome and horrible monster…. He depicted the creature emerging from a dark cleft of a rock, belching forth venom from its open throat, fire from its eyes, and smoke from its nostrils in so macabre a fashion that the effect was altogether monstrous and horrible. Leonardo took so long over the work that the stench of the dead animals in his room became unbearable, although he himself failed to notice because of his great love of painting.”
    When Ser Piero came to see the finished painting, “Leonardo went back into the room, put the buckler on an easel in the light, and shaded the window. Then he asked Piero to come in and see it. When his eyes fell on it, Piero was completely taken by surprise and gave a sudden start, not realizing that he was looking at the buckler and that the form he saw was, in fact, painted on it. As he backed away, Leonardo stopped him and said: ‘This work certainly serves its purpose. It has produced the right reaction, so now you can take it away.’”
    The story illustrates several of the qualities that became essential elements of Leonardo’s genius. The painting is an expression of the boy’s
fantasia
, but it is based on his careful observation of natural forms. The result is a picture that is both fantastic and strikingly real, and this effect is greatly enhanced by the artist’s flair for the theatrical when he presents his work. Moreover, Vasari’s description of the youth working for long hours, undisturbed by the stench of rotting corpses, eerily anticipates the anatomical dissections Leonardo would vividly describe some forty years later. 7
    APPRENTICESHIP IN FLORENCE
    At the age of twelve, Leonardo’s life changed dramatically. His grandfather died, and his uncle Francesco got married. As a result, Leonardo left Vinci to live with his father in Florence. A few years later he began his apprenticeship with the renowned artist and craftsman Verrocchio. Ser Piero, in the meantime, had remarried after his first wife died in childbirth. The exact sequence of Leonardo’s movements at this time of his life is uncertain. He may have stayed in the country with his grandmother a couple of years longer, or he may have joined Verrocchio’s workshop at the age of twelve. Most historians believe, however, that he began his apprenticeship at about age fifteen.
    Florence in the 1460s had no more than 150,000 inhabitants, but in its economic power and cultural importance it was on a par with Europe’s great capitals. 8 It had trading posts in the major regions of the known world, and its wealth attracted scores of artists and intellectuals, who made it the focal point of the emerging humanist movement. The Florentines were proud of their city’s importance, its liberty and republican government, the beauty of its monuments, and especially of the fact that Florence had left its chaotic medieval past behind and embodied the spirit of a new era.
    Throughout the 1300s, Florence had been the scene of many deadly feuds; succeeding factions had fought openly in the streets, and the wealthy families had