Da Vinci was one of the great creative minds of the Italian Renaissance
hugely influential as an artist and sculptor but also immensely talented as an
engineer scientist and inventor. Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 near the Tuscan town of
Vinci the illegitimate son of a
local lawyer. He was apprenticed to the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio
in Florence and in 1478 became an
independent master. In about 1483 he moved to Milan
to work for the ruling Sforza family as an engineer sculptor painter and
architect. From 1495 to 1497he produced a mural of The Last Supper in the refectory
of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie Milan. Da Vinci was in Milan
until the city was invaded by the French in1499 and the Sforza family forced to
flee. He may have visited Venice
before returning to Florence. During
his time in Florence he painted
several portraits but the only one that survives is the famous Mona Lisa (1503-1506.
In 1506 Da Vinci returned to Milan remaining
there until 1513. This was followed by three years based in Rome.
In 1517 at the invitation of the French king Francis I Leonardo moved to the Chateau
of Cloux near Amboise in France
where he died on 2 May 1519.
The fame of Da Vinci’s surviving paintings has meant that he has been regarded primarily
as an artist but the thousands of surviving pages of his notebooks reveal the
most eclectic and brilliant of minds. He wrote and drew on subjects including geology
anatomy (which he studied in order to paint the human form more accurately)
flight gravity and optics often flitting from subject to subject on a single
page and writing in left-handed mirror script. He invented the bicycle airplane
helicopter and parachute some 500 years ahead of their time. His painting was
scientific based on a deep understanding of the working of the human body and
the physics of light and shade. His science was expressed through art and his
drawings and diagrams show what he meant and how he understood the world to
work.
Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, architect and poet and one of the
great artists of the Italian Renaissance. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born
on 6 March 1475 in Caprese
near Florence (Italy)
where his father was the local magistrate. A few weeks after his birth, the
family moved to Florence. In 1488,
Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. He then lived
in the household of Lorenzo de' Medici, the leading patron of the arts in Florence.
After the Medici were expelled from Florence,
Michelangelo travelled to Bologna
and then, in 1496, to Rome. His
primary works were sculpture in these early years. His 'Pietà' (1497) made his
name and he returned to Florence a
famous sculptor. Here he produced his 'David' (1501-1504).In 1505, Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo back to Rome and commissioned him to design Julius' own tomb. Due to quarrels between Julius and Michelangelo, and the many other demands on the artist's time, the project was never completed, although Michelangelo did produce a sculpture of Moses for the tomb.
Michelangelo's next major commission was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (1508-1512). It was recognised at once as a great work of art and from then on Michelangelo was regarded as Italy's greatest living artist.
The new pope, Leo X, then commissioned Michelangelo to rebuild the façade of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The scheme was eventually abandoned, but it marks the beginning of Michelangelo's activity as an architect. Michelangelo also designed monuments to Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici in the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo.
In 1534, Michelangelo returned to Rome where he was commissioned to paint 'The Last Judgement' on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel (1537-1541). From 1546 he was increasingly active as an architect, in particular on the great church of St Peter's. He died in Rome on 18 February 1564
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