Fun facts about Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is one of my favorite artists, but it’s not just about art: what really fascinates me is his amazing personality. When I stand in front of his three paintings at the Uffizi Gallery and think about the amazing man who made them, I am even more astonished and full of wonder. For all the curious art lovers out there, I have collected some fun facts about Leonardo da Vinci!
Let’s discover a bit more about him and his charming personality.
Fun facts about Leonardo da Vinci
I could talk for hours about Leonardo da Vinci, his life and his works. Here in Florence, in the Uffizi Gallery, three paintings by this artist are kept, including Leonardo’s first painting, The Baptism of Christ.
But Leonardo was not only a painter: he was trained as a sculptor at the Verrocchio workshop, even if unfortunately no sculptures by the young Leonardo have come down to us. He was also an engineer, an inventor, an anatomist, an illustrator, and an accomplished musician and poet. He really had so many talents, and that’s what makes him a universal man.
A citizen of the world
Leonardo da Vinci was truly a citizen of the world. In his life he traveled a lot and lived in many different countries. He was born in the village of Vinci, in the Florence countryside, on April 15, 1452. He moved to Florence at the age of 17 to become an apprentice in the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, one of the most important painters and sculptors of the Renaissance.
Leonardo lived in Florence, Tuscany, until 1482, when he moved to Milan, which was part of another nation at the time. Then he lived in Mantua and Venice, returned to Florence in 1501 and left again in 1508. He returned to Milan, then lived a few years in Rome, in the Vatican State, and finally moved to France, to the court of King Francis I.
He died in France, on May 2, 1519, in the castle of Amboise. Actually, he was the first to imagine a Europe without borders.
Illegitimate son
Leonardo was the illegitimate son of an important and well respected notary, Ser Piero da Vinci, and of a peasant woman named Caterina. For this reason he was not raised by his parents, but instead by his paternal grandfather in the village of Vinci, in the Florentine countryside.
His father had many other children, Leonardo was the eldest of 16 step-brothers and sisters!
- Check what to do and see in Vinci!
Animal rights activist and vegetarian
Leonardo da Vinci has claimed more than once his love and respect for every living creature on earth. He believed that every animal should live free, and used to buy caged birds at the market of Florence just to set them free. Some of his contemporaries claimed that he didn’t eat anything that had blood, so we can assume he was vegetarian.
More than anything, he loved birds, because they can fly. He was obsessed by flight, and many of his flying machines are inspired by birds. He was a passionate birdwatcher, and wrote an important study titled Codex on the flight of birds.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mirror writing
In Leonardo’s time, left-handed people were often taught to write with their right hand. You know, the hand of the devil and stuff like that. Leonardo never went to school as a child. He was instead educated by his grandfather in a discontinuous and incomplete way.
So, being left-handed, he started writing from right to left, in the way that came most naturally to him. The result is his famous mirror writing, which can be read normally once reflected in a mirror.
He discovered the function of the heart
At the time of Leonardo da Vinci it was believed that the heart served only to warm the circulating blood. Following his anatomical studies, he instead understood its true function, namely that of pumping blood throughout the body.
Some anatomical structures that can be found in the heart, such as “Leonardo’s cord” were named after Leonardo in honor of his discoveries.
He hated superstition
Leonardo was absolutely skeptical of magicians, fortune tellers and others who did not follow the scientific method. He did not believe those things and saw that testing their theses did not work.
As when he criticized palmistry, proposing to check if, by chance, the lines of the palms of the hands resembled the dead in battle.
He was an elegant, handsome dandy
There is only one known portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, and it is the famous self-portrait with a long beard, when the artist was now elderly. We can imagine what he looked like when he was young thanks to the descriptions of some of his contemporaries. They tell of an incredibly handsome young man, with long blond curls and well-groomed and unconventional clothing that highlighted his physical qualities.
What a pity not to have any portrait of the young Leonardo!
He discovered the age of trees from their rings
He was also passionate about botany, and studied the vascular structures of plants and the relationship between plants and water for a long time. Until then it was believed that plants fed on earth. By carefully observing the trunks, he was the first to understand the relationship between the age and the rings of trees.
I hope you found those fun facts about Leonardo da Vinci interesting! If you want to know more about him also read:
