Talk:Leonardo da Vinci

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Plagiarism

This article has been pulled, republished almost word for word, then submitted to social networking sites (digg, netscape, etc.) : from the site "stupidbeaver.com/tech/leonardo-da-vinci-inventions".

Does Wikipedia allow this? Snackycakes 02:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is meant for just that kind of use. Haiduc 02:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, did some investigation into the Wikipedia copyright (or copyleft) terms - Wikipedia says you can use its text as long as you credit the original authors, which can be satisfied with a link back to the original article. This site doesn't do that. So...not exactly that kind of use. Snackycakes 06:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm...Read the end.. "Thanks wikipedia for short Leonardo Da Vinci informations!!!" I see only short informations about Leonardo at the beginning..

PROBLEMS CONCERNING ITALIAN CULTURE

Definitively there are problems concerning Leonardo as well. First was not Italian, because Italy did not exist, and then more problems concerning Italian Culture on Wikipedia

PLEASE SEE THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/modernitaly Wikipedia Complaint

Regards Luca Benattiluca 13:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

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)

Burial

He 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)

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)

about 90% of the sexuality section does not belong. Whether or not someone wrote a book/play/whatever that depcted him as X/Y/Z really has nothing to do with him in actuality.Ernham 18:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Leonardo was not a homosexual, this is more slander of another artist of the past. Why are people allowed to change history --Margrave1206 05:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you accusing the man of being a heterosexual? One of the most brilliant artists of the Renaissance? Not fair. Haiduc 05:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Margrave1206, but Leonardo's homosexuality is well-established and is included in all the biographies and scholarly studies. Nevertheless, the homosexuality subsection is too long; in fact,the entire 'personal life' section is largely irrelevant. Who really wants or needs to know about Leo's dining habits, his fingerprints, and his sleep patterns? Out of all these bits of trivia, his homosexuality is worth a mention - but only insofar as impacts on his art. For example, he used male models for female angels, apparently having a particular (anonymous) young man in mind as the epitome of beauty - the face appears repeatedly. That sort of thing is worth mentioning - but the sodomy allegation, the relationship with his long-time companion and presumed lover, all this sort of thing is just salacious gossip. (Incidentally, why is there no discussion of Leonardo as artist? Not a single instance of the word sfumato could I find, nor anything about his impact on the course of the High Renaissance, or his relationship with the intellectual currents of the day, or his thoughts on the comparative virtues of scultuer and painting, etc etc etc.)PiCo 09:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: fingerprints, very much worth mentioning as they have been the final touch of proof that some works previously not attributed have been recognised and vice versa.--Alf ^melmac 10:02, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

A news Guardian) item related is here --Alf ^melmac 10:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

If a fingerprint has been used to establish the authenticity of a particular painting (or tow paintings, or a dozen), it's worth noting in the articles on those paintings. But essentially, it's a fact of the "gee-whiz" variety - not the sort of thing you find in a serious encyclopedia. PiCo 11:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Gallego

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

Vinci is a place. You can visit it conveniently if you happen to be travelling by road from Florence to Pisa. You can visit the house of his mother and Piero's olive orchard. Some of the trees are ancient and may have been producing when Leonardo was a boy. da Vinci just means "from Vinci". The root of the word Vinci is Latin for "victory"

--Amandajm 08:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

"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)

Maybe "created a theoretical model" would be appropriate description for what he did. Quadzilla99 02:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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.

"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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

There definantly was, Leonardo once asked Michelangelo to explain a passage of Dante's to a group of onlookers, and he exploded with insults. Syphon8 02:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

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)

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.

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)

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)

Why does the section on Vegetarianism contain the mind-boggling addition "He was also a respected judge on matters of beauty and elegance, particularly in the creation of pageants." What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Does vegetarianism necessarily make one fab-u-lous and vice versa? Eamoniski 06:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

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)

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)

January 19, 2007 - It seems a Mr. Clark has vandalized the article, by putting his name on the photo, saying Da Vinci was born in kaui, and the Mr. Clark is responsible for some of the paintings... I'm not a registered user, and don't know the best way to revert the article (I'm also not sure what else was tampered with).

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)

Gallery?

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

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

Adoration

There is a real possibility that someone did some more work to the painting at some later date, because it was tempting to try and complete it. But no, the painting is Leonardo.

--Amandajm 08:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

Paintings?

Yeah, he did paintings.... I spose its waiting for me to get around to it...

--Amandajm 08:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

Dear Diary

Does anybody know who in 1994 paid over US$30 million for the diaries? H.R.Hughes 07:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

What is Bill Gates. 65.94.41.252 23:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

so what was hes really to you

hes like a god he desind things that we now have he knew how the helocopter worked hes mabe it so why was he boren then and not now —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.226.26.204 (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC). Michaelangelo is better!: Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia. I'd like to thank you for your contribution to the September that never ended. Snackycakes 00:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

his helicopter

could someone explain how the crank works? felinoel 09:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

the mona lisa might have started out to be painted as a man then changed into woman form for his lover.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.254.108.181 (talk • contribs) 23:11, 20 February 2007.

And then again it might not, what would be a reliable cite that says it is?--Alf ^melmac 23:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

A slightly different emphasis

On looking at this article and discovering that it had lost its "featured" status, I have been working on trying to get it back.

My observation is that there was a radical imbalance. Leonardo's Early Biography was completely lacking. There is a list of paintings but no discussion of him as an artist. If you want to know about that- you have to link to a particular painting- while what is needed here is an overview and a statement of the huge impact that he had, as an artist.

Science and engineering is well covered. These things are of tremendous interest to us in the 21st century, but it is as a painter that he achieved renown. His very real scientific achievements had far less recognised impact.

The other area of his life which was very well covered was his sexuality. It amazes me that so private a matter can be sourced with about eight books, while, as for his mother- we don't even know for sure what her nationality was.

In fact, there was so much well-sourced information on Leonardo's sex life that it now has its very own article. Since it falls under that group of articles that are concerned with Pederasty, that's where you'll find it:- Pederastic relationships - Leonardo and Salaino. It is linked to this article, in both directions, you'll be pleased to know, and I have sorted out the link on the page Historical pederastic couples, for those people who want more on that subject.

Last request, if you have anymore in-detail information on Leonardo and his boys, could you drop it on that page instead of this one.

--Amandajm 03:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Amandajm, if you're setting out to overhaul the article, I'd suggest the first paragraph should be a backgrounder - an explanation of the intellectual and artistic currents of the Italian Early Renaissance in general, the place of Florence in this, the attitudes of the Church to the new schoalrship and the new art, etc etc. Only after that should we start on Leo himself. PiCo 03:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The spiral is always the same. First comes the matter of fact contribution of a balanced treatment of a man's love life - always an important part of an artist's life. But when that is counterintuitive, as is Leonardo's, a remarkable and much admired man who also seems to have committed one of the most heinous crimes (as modern people would have it), the love of boys, systematically for the entire course of his life, immediately the defenders of the status quo jump on it with both feet and declare that "there is no proof." So the weary editor starts contributing more and more supporting information, until the weight of the evidence horrifies into stunned silence the "anthropomorphizers" who want to turn everyone everywhen into some version of the modern American suburban male. Then, after a decent interval, saner heads start questioning the all-too-real imbalance. Well and good. But please be sure that you do not slip into the all too comfortable, and not a little snide, "we can't be sure". I'll believe that when the same catch phrase is appended to every article about plausibly heterosexual personages as well. Then it will be acceptable. But as long as we "can't be sure" only when the personages had homoerotic interests, then we can be sure that something else is at work.

In what regards the recent creation of the "Pederastic relationships..." article, it strikes me as misnomer since it is really about LdV first and foremost. I think that we can title it along the lines of "Personal relationships of LdV" or some such, as long as the gist of the material is included in this article so that it does not appear to be a POV fork. Haiduc 05:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Overhaul

Yes, it needs some general stuff. I'll do it! Thanks PiCo!

--Amandajm 04:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Verrocchio's David

V's David is actually the young Leo? This is the first I've heard of it! If there really is a story to this effect, it needs to be sourced (a reference). Even then, I have grave doubts about the direction this para is going: the prose reads like Walter Pater minus some of the purple, and really, does the grin on this statue tell us anything about the young Leonardo? PiCo 05:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, yeah, I'll save the descriptive stuff for Leo's paintings.... then you can tear into it as being.... what's the horrible term they use here on wiki?

But as for the David being Leonardo, yes, that story, which I suspect may be a verbal tradition because I can't find it in Vasari, has a remarkable degree of general acceptance. The likeness of the model to the Archangel Michael in "Tobias and the Angels" has led to a conclusion that Leonardo also modelled for that as well. This is to be expected. Artists used the people that were to hand. The professional "artists model" came about much later with Art Schools. We know from Vasari that Leonardo scoured the streets looking for people to paint as Christ and Judas. Anyway, I'll cite sources! --Amandajm 00:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Getting this straight

This edit requires discussion. If we are going to remove categories referring to sexuality, then the LGBT stuff should go as well, since LdV was certainly less LGBT than he was a pederast. But if LGBT stays, why not be precise and keep the one that best describes him? By the way, I am sorry that this comes up again and again. I too find it wearisome. It seems to be highly volatile information because it does not suit the purpose of a number of interests, leading to the repeated deletions here and elsewhere. It would be good to clarify matters, at least for this article. Haiduc 14:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with what you've done with that paragraph. We'll undoubtedly still get to hear about it, but such is life! I've been doing other things today, trying to organise some pics that sum up the rude comments about the Sistine Chapel restorations, and when I come back, there's been about 50 edits to this page, mostly vandalism and reversals, from what I've seen. How is this problem cambatted? is it possible to get the article to a reasonable state and then lock it? --Amandajm 17:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Amanda: If you want to see controversial, try the articles dealing with the bible! But anyway, the way to go about editing is to begin by creating totally new sections to del with areas of the main subject that so far aren't represented in the article. Adding is far less likely to step on toes than subtracting. Other editors will judge the quality of your work and you'll gain acceptance as one of the team. Then when you've established your credibility, try re-organising existing material - amalgamate material that deals with the same subject but might appear in different sections, shorten paragraphs and improve syntax, and so on - but always trying not to delete more than is essential, and trying also to retain wikilinks. Finally, suggest deletion of any material you think is irrelevant or otherwise doesn't belong - this is where you'll probably find you have to compromise the most. As I said befoer, I have no books and no access to books, and so can't help you with drafting, but I do want to see Leo improved and I'll certainly help with editing. PiCo 01:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Background - Florence in the quattrocento

Political, Religious, Philosophic, Artistic

It's happening, --Amandajm 17:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

His hand?

There's some program on ABC right now alleging that Leonardo da Vinci had a messed up hand (sorry, I didn't catch the medical term, something about malformed, misshapen, or webbed fingers). They had a self-portrait of his hand and some handwriting samples to "prove" it. If this can be verified (I suspect it can, it was mentioned on a special on ABC!) then it should probably go into the article. --Cyde Weys 03:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Cyde, but my opinion is that this sort of thing should not be in the article, as it's trivial - Leonardo is famous for what he achieved, not for his hands. PiCo 05:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

RE: Merge?

See Leonardo da Vinci - scientist and inventor

Pleeease just give me more than an hour to get the page underway bbefore trying to merge something that will be massively long with something that is already over the limit! See all my reasons written in detail, at the above discussion page!

--Amandajm 06:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Grammar/writing style

I'm glad to see the large number of active contributers to the page. However, more so than any other Wikipedia page I've visited, this page on Da Vinci is in definite need of grammatical help, and a bit of tightening on the style and content of various sections. I'm making these suggestions because I do not have access to editing privileges. Thanks in advance to anyone who follows up on this.

Re: grammar

A period is missing in the 2nd paragraph of "Leonardo's Florence," after the listing of the two architects. Commas are missing in many places, including, e.g., the next paragraph: "In 1479, the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina who worked exclusively in oils, travelled north on his way to Venice where an older painter, Giovanni Bellini adopted the media of oil painting, quickly making it the preferred method in Venice." Three commas are missing, one after "Messina," one after "Venice," and one after "Bellini." Continuing on in the next paragraph, "Leonardo’s political contemporary was Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico) who was three years older and his popular brother Giuliano, slain in the Pazzi Conspiracy." There should be a comma after the first parens and after "older," and the final dependent clause should be "who was slain..." in order to match the description of the first brother (tho' it's debatable if that sentence is worth keeping at all, since it doesn't really seem relevant to the section. It contains important information, but is introduced as if the topic is "Leonardo's political contemporaries" instead of highlighting how the Medici's contributed to his success in Florence).

(Reply, the main thing that Lorenzo did for Leonardo was to realise his polital value and send him on a political errand to Milan. My personal thought is that both Lorenzo and Giuliano were men that lived by charm. If Vasari is to be taken literally Leonardo was so personable that people found him irresistible... I can't imagine that Lorenzo would have enjoyed the competition. However, he was infinitely diplomatic in all he did.... so he made the best possible use of Leonardo's skills, and in doing so deprived us of the Magi pic, which would possibly have been the masterpiece of Leonardo's youth. As for the grammar, the second "who was" is entirely optional. --Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

Many such grammatical errors exist in the entry, and it would be much appreciated if someone with a keen eye for grammar went through and cleaned them up.

Re: writing style:

In the 6th paragraph of the section "Training," the verb tenses takes an unexpected shift to the present tense, when other paragraphs are in past tense. (the 5th is in present tense, and its first sentence should also be switched to past, if not completely rewritten, since it is too simplistic a sentence and does not flow well from the last pgph)

(Reply, I will note this and check tenses--Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

(Checked, The difference for the change from past to present tense is that in each case the description is of an existent work. The work upon which Leonardo collaborated is the Baptism. The piece of sculpture which has current and continuing significance in our understanding of Leonardo is Verrocchio's David. These are not accidental grammatical errors. they are grammatically and Art historically correct statements. --Amandajm 11:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

The "Leonardo's Florence" section begins:

"Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchio’s master, the great Donatello, died. Uccello was a very old man, Piero della Francesca, Luca della Robbia and Fra Filippo Lippi were in their sixties."

The second sentence is completely disconnected from the logic of the first. It seems irrelevant in the context. Who are the people named, and how do they fit into Leonardo's apprenticeship, the stated topic?

(Reply, the paragraph is not about Leonardo's apprenticeship. It's about who was and who wasn't alive in or passing through Florence or influencing Florence during his early years there. If you don't know who they were, every one of them is highlighted in blue, indicating that if you click on their name, you will immediately have a biography in front of you.--Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)) Also in that section: the final paragraph has nothing to do with Da Vinci's Florence, and should probably be removed.

(Reply, It's for people who think Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were contemporaries and don't realise they belonged to different generations. Yeah, it's a simplistic notion to make such an obvious matter clear, but reader-age 12 is a good one to aim for. --Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

In the "Assistants and pupils" section:

"The "Little Devil" had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions, and spent a fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of shoes. [paragraph break] Nevertheless, Leonardo’s notebooks during their early years contain many pictures of a handsome, curly-haired adolescent. Il Salaino remained his companion, servant, and assistant for the next thirty years."

Not sure why "nevertheless" is used. Despite the fact that Il Salaino stole various items from Da Vinci, his notebooks contained sketches of beautiful young men? The logic is questionable here.

(reply"Nevertheless" Leonardo kept the little thief in his company, despite the boy's bad habits. It's not beautiful young "men", it's one young man in particular, Salaino. I didn't writ it, but it seems clear enough to me.--Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)) There are many other sentences that do not logically follow or are written in a very simplistic, stodgy tone. These examples are merely given to illustrate my point. (reply, "stodgy"! did you really say stodgy? --Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

In short, it would be profitable, in my opinion, to clean up the writing style of the page and free it of technical errors in addition to continuing the discussion of what should be added (indeed, the fact that a myriad details should be added is eminently obvious). Thanks, and I hope others have the same concerns about the writing.

(Reply, I don't think a myriad details should be added. The article is over the limit, lengthwise, which is why three other articles have been carved off it already.--Amandajm 11:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)) JCalahan 03:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

(Facetious post removed by poster and replaced with more sensible explanations --Amandajm 23:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

Seriously, now--

I think I've found the missing commas.

What that sub-section is about, is not Leonardo's training. It's about the people with whom Leonardo would have engaged on various levels, and an indication of the sort of relationships that might have formed, given the ages of the individuals.

Donatello was recently dead. Leonardo would have been surrounded by talk of him in the workshop. The elderly artists who are mentioned each left an indelible mark on the art of Florence, particularly Piero, who spent mmost of his time in Urbino or Arezzo. I'm not going to spell it all out. Anyone who wants all the details can look up all the different individuals named.

As for the last paragraph, I am continually aware of what happens to the stuff that we write. It gets used for school projects. We have to presume that the majority of wiki users know very little.

There is a case here for stating things directly and simply where possible. Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael are often quoted as the giants of the Renaissance. Their lives overlapped. But they were different generations. I think that the statement clarifies this. Because in a paragraph about Leonardo's contemporaries, somebody will say, "Hey, they forgot to mention Michelangelo!" and wonder why.

--Amandajm 10:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Immortal style

"at times even getting into scrapes with the law over his alleged erotic flings with males."

How reassuring to see Jackie Collins is now contributing to Wikipedia. Engleham 11:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Leonardo

(to Melancholia i)

First of all, what beautiful pix you take!

Secondly, with regards to Leonardo, I have just reverted your edits to the intro, and also to the bit about there being "only two incidents of his childhhood that he recalled"

This latter may seem impossible or unlikely to some people, so twice this sentence has been "diluted" by other editors. But, no, this is what my source book says, and what is always quoted as being the case. Whether Leonardo had reasons to block all other childhood memories, we will never know.

As for the intro:- I have made a small adjustment to the use of the word "infinite". It now reads:-

Leonardo has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time, and the man with the most diversely prodigious talent ever to have lived.

Your edit:- Leonardo has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" due to his great curiousity and inventiveness. He is considered to be one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance, and having some of the most diversly prodigious talents of his time.

Four points:-

• Leonardo "is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time".

No need for the qualifying "of the Italian Renaissance". "of all time" is correct.

• Leonardo "is widely considered ....to be the man with the most diversely prodigious talent ever to have lived".

No qualifying "of his time" is necessary.

• If we were writing here about Raphael it would bbe correct to say "He is considered to be one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance,"

If we were writing about Alberti it would be correct to say "having some of the most diversly prodigious talents of his time."

But when writing about the talents of Leonardo da Vinci, no qualifiers are necessary. We are talking about the man who changed the way that every succeeding artist perceived light and shade, who was the greatest anatomist for 1000 years, who invented the parallel linkage and the rotating governor 300 years before James Watt, who drew topographic maps with an accuracy not equalled until the 19th century, whose portable bridge became a standard military design and whose bobbin winder was used in every cloth factory from Hong Kong to Manchester.

• When you are about to make changes to the introduction of an article that has been rated as having Top Importance, and when it is clear that the article has been extensively worked on, for a week or so, by one particular person, then it is best to negotiate changes of meaning by leaving a message on the message page or contacting the person who is doing the writing directly on their talk page so they get the message straight away.

On the other hand, corrections to spelling, typos, links that are not working and all mmy annoying doubble letters are always welcome. So are suggestions for improvements.

--Amandajm 04:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello! I'm glad we share an interest in such a facinating figure as da Vinci. I was not trying to water down the intro (the grammatical mistake I made was bad though), so much as to reduce the dehumanizing nature that the intro leaves on the reader. I think it's important to remind ourselves that da Vinci was a man with a clear historical context, not a complete anomaly. Was he incredible? Certainly, but we should not throw about ideas that he was the "greatest" of anything. I also was unsure of whether general statements like "of all time" are very encyclopedic. Lastly, he wrote of only two instances of his childhood, he surely remembered more. Melancholia i 07:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Re dehumanising

There is no statement that Leonardo "was the greatest", or "one of the greatest"

The point that is being made here is that these are the things that are generally considered about Leonardo- Not that he was a great artist, or a great Renaissance artist but that he was one of the "all time greatest artists".

It is not encyclopedic to say "Leonardo was the greatest painter of all times", but to say that he is widely considered as one of them is perfectly accurate.

As for the rest of the sentence, it previously claimed that he was believed to have been the "most intelligent" person to have lived. "Diversely prodigiously talented" was mine. Why? because so far there doesn't seem to have been anyone else to achieve to such an extraordinary degree in such a diversity of fields.

Whatismore, this would be the case if he had never picked up a paintbrush, if we knew him only from his journals, and if Vasari's lives did not tell us that he had exceptional musical talent, was an excellent athlete and was so charming that his mere presence enlivened any meeting.

You write : "I think it's important to remind ourselves that da Vinci was a man with a clear historical context, not a complete anomaly. Was he incredible? Certainly,...."

Not an anomaly? Just "incredible"!

Yes, he had a clear historical context. And he went far beyond the bounds of his context. It was his curiosity about the world around him, and his extraordiary powers of invention that took him there.

But to say that he was a "Renaissance man" because of his curiosity and invention is wrong. Lorenzo de' Medici was a "Renaissance Man", in the figurative sense, because of education and ability. So was Alberti. So was Julius II, So was Federico Montefeltro. But Leonardo was in a different category. He simply was one of the most "incredible" (to use your word) human beings that has lived.

Of course he was an anomaly! His formal education, employment and opportunities do not add up to Leonardo da Vinci, any more than life in a Nazarene carpenter's shop adds up to Jesus or a couple of years in a market-town grammar school and part-ownership of a theatrical company adds up to William Shakespeare. Vasari knew that.

I have given Leonardo's historical context is terms of the more remarkable of the people that he knew, and/or who had influence on him like Donatello whose influence through Verrocchio was unavoidable. The thing that is so extraordinary about Leonardo is that he seems to be the sum of all those parts, and then more.

I can't be bothered trying to justify here what I have written, when it's perfectly plain to you that thhe man is "incredible", you have said so! I'm busy on several articles, I have people demanding that I write others and I've got very little time to do it in.

If you want to talk further, then please do it on the article's page so that other people can respond to you.

--Amandajm 09:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

On Leonardo's genius

I've created a new section, just in case anyone continues to think that it is inappropriate to say that he is "generally considered"..... --Amandajm 10:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Typo

Please fix the a typo: ceate should be create

"...In a letter to Ludovico il Moro he claimed to be able to ceate all sorts o..."

Fixed. Rettetast 22:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Spam Protection filter

I was trying to update the picture of the last supper to a better one and after doing save page i got the spam protection filter because there is a link to davincisketches.com, This link has been there for a while, im not sure how long. I did not delete it and make my edit because i was unsure if this site should get deleted or taken off the black list.

Urdna 03:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Where was he born???

the introduction second paragraph states "He was born and raised in Vinci, Italy," but the biography section it says "Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, a village near the town of Vinci." being a casual user of wiki i didnt want to edit it

    please correct me if your opion is diffrent from my own i wish to learn form all 04:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)fight for love

First, you really do need to register and get yourself a user-name. Then when you leave comments, sign with four tildes (the curved line immediately before the numeral 1 on your keyboard). Second, your question: Leonardo was born in Anchiano, but is normally described as having been born in Vinci, which is slightly larger. He grew up in Vinci till the age of 5. I think you're right to tell us you're confused, and perhaps one of the active editors would like to straighten this out. 02:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Got the message, but I can't fix it because of the limited memory on this blinking computer. Can someone change it in the introduction, second paragraph, to "in the region of Vinci". Anchiano, mentioned in the biography, is more of a hamlet than a village, just a few scattered farmhouses set on slopes of olive trees on the outskirts of the town of Vinci. The one doesn't really make the other wrong- just as one might say "I was born in London, at Hammersmith" or "I live in Sydney at Wooloomoolloo". It is really not so confusing. --Amandajm 01:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The infobox and da Vinci's nationality

Nationality is a modern concept, and I think it needs to be changed for this page. da Vinci is from an Italian people, but what little I know about Italy then tells me Florence would've been a closer description? Or Milan, or thereabout? Xiner (talk, email) 20:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

leonardeschi

I request that, in addition to a paragraph on Leonardo's (very few) "pupils," a section on the so-called "leonardeschi" be included. These artists, including Zenale and Giampietrino, for example, were very numerous, and, perhaps more than the handful of young artists directly associated with Leonardo, represent the Florentine's influence, or presumed influence. Thanks for considering my suggestion. P.S., is it possible to avoid the tilde in Wiki programming? It is not on all keyboards, and so must be sought out, highlighted, and copied, and pasted, in order to be used in web page addresses, or--as for the Wiki signature--Wiki pages; thanks! StellaMT 14:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)Star, Milan

This article is already over the limit, lengthwise. I acknowledge the need and think that a separate article is the way to go.

--Amandajm 00:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

can someone with perms fix a link?

under External Links, "Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci" is currently a link to http://www.visi.com/~reuteler/leonardo.html. this needs to be updated to http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org but the article is locked. theres a 301 redirect from the old to the new page so you can verify that fact. & i am the page owner. thanks.

(never mind, fixed it myself)

Christ carrying the Cross

The paragraph about this painting has been deleted for several reasons -

• It was inserted between two paragraphs that followed each other in meaning, interrupting the linking of info with unrelated info.
• Only a very few major works are discussed in this article. The others are just listed, and have their own articles.
• A work that has only a recent and insecure attribution doesn't belong in an article that attempts to described very concisely the artist's style and development. The info may be interesting, but it's the wrong place to present it.

Suggestion- write an article about the pic or start a page entitled Leonardo da Vinci - attributed works.

--Amandajm 00:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Abusive edits by anti-pederasty editors

It would be helpful if other editors could relate to this activity, since the information deleted is clearly discomforting to people unfamiliar with the topic and uninterested in informing themselves, as User:CARAVAGGISTI makes amply clear. If, sir, you are not interested in discussing pederasty it may be that your editing efforts would be better employed on other articles since the present one does touch on that subject. And your deletion of properly sourced material with which you are not familiar and about which you refuse to inform yourself is simply inappropriate and abusive. Haiduc 18:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Insertion of Pederasty Links

I am concerned about one of the editors of Wikipedia, Haiduc, who seems to focus on pederasty as a topic, and convincing us that:

1) That in Leonardo's day, pederasty was widely practiced by men in all walks of life. 2) Certainly he wishes to convince us that two of the prominent artistic luminaries of the Renaissance, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, were pederasts. 3) Specifically to make the imputation for Da Vinci to stick, he has to prove that both or either Salaino and Melzi were under-age lovers.

Unfortunately, the first statement above is not true. Pederasty was not "widely" practiced in Renaissance Italy. It was not "openly" accepted. Like today, it can occur in all walks of life. Like today, the most egregious narratives of these activities, for example in Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, are typically those of wealthy and ruling families. However, even among those persons it was not widely practiced. No further evidence is needed other than the severe proscriptions that were pursued against homosexuals in that time. Are we suppose that because the partner was an underage child, that it was less frowned upon? Haiduc quotes one source for that line, but a review of a vast number of biographies of the time, would not support that statement. Is it a statement for which I can find a refuting quote? Likely not, but all the evidence of persecution of homosexuals, and one only need to look at Leonardo himself, and perhaps il Sodoma, would convince one that any statement of "widely practiced" is non-factual.

Unfortunately for Haiduc, there is no non-literary proof that Michelangelo was a pederast. He is quick to use a single line of a poem to indict Michelangelo as the lover of a 16 year old. Need I remind him, that in 1560 Venice, when the painter Irene di Spilimbergo died at the age of 21, an effusive volume of poetic elogies published two years later contained 279 Italian and 102 latin poems, some penned or attributed to contemporary cultural luminaries including Lodovico Dolce, Torquato Tasso, Titian, Girolamo Muzio, Luigi Tanzillo, Giuseppe Bettusi, and Benedetto Varchi. And these eulogies spoke extensively, as was common in that time, of the love and physical beauty of Irene. This does not mean they all bedded her. The only documentary or second hand evidence that we have for Michelangelo in his late adult years is that he was not a pederast.

Finally, in terms of Melzi, the evidence that Leonardo and him were lovers would be highly inferential, if not absent. Melzi is said to have loved the master; but such phrasing was very common in the time, and did not need to reflect carnality. There is one essayist who fowards such claims, but it is not openly defended in other biographies. I have no idea if Salaino and Leonardo had intimate relationships, I would not have been surprised. There are documentary accusations that Leonardo engaged in homosexual relationships, thus I could easily believe that is true. However, homosexuality is not pederasty, and since there is no proof of the latter, I would argue that it has no place but in speculative comments in an article about pederasty, since it does not inform us about Leonardo.

Also to note, that this note of pederasty was inserted into this document when I challenged its presence in the article on Melzi. I specifically challenged Haiduc to obtain validation of such a claim by gaining the acceptance of editors of this article. I am going to delete it now and will again, unless we can get a series of former editors of this Leonardo article to agree with his pederasty comments. I find that Haiduc, by inserting links to Pederasty in mainstream artists, wishes to make it seem as if pederasty is and was "widely" accepted. This is an agenda, not a statement of fact. Also please do not identify me as a anti-pederasty author, I am just human. CARAVAGGISTI 19:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Until you provide specific citations from bona fide scholarly works supporting your contentions, your sweeping generalizations about pederasty in Renaissance Florence are without merit. I have provided references supporting my edits. Please do the same or desist from this very articulate voicing of your personal opinion. Haiduc 22:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Haiduc, this is utter nonsense. There is no, I repeat, no evidence that Leonardo and Melzi had a sexual relationship. I will not find published evidence to back this up, because no one till you and the one author you quote said it was otherwise.

For the Melzi link to Leonardo, you quote

Crompton, Louis: Homosexuality and Civilization. NY, 2003. p.269 Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships epigraph, p. 148 & N120 p.298

Why, pray tell, can't you quote the same from:

• Jean Paul Richter (1970). The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Dover. ISBN 0-486-22572-0 and ISBN 0-486-22573-9 (paperback). 2 volumes. A reprint of the original 1883 edition.
• Frank Zollner & Johannes Nathan (2003). Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings and Drawings. Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-1734-1 (hardback).
• Fred Bérence (1965). Léonard de Vinci, L'homme et son oeuvre. Somogy. Dépot légal 4° trimestre 1965.
• Charles Nicholl (2005). Leonardo da Vinci, The Flights of the mind. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-029681-6.
• Simona Cremante (2005). Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Scientist, Inventor. Giunti. ISBN 88-09-03891-6 (hardback).
• John N. Lupia, "The Secret Revealed: How to Look at Italian Renaissance Painting," Medieval and Renaissance Times, Vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer, 1994): 6-17. (ISSN 1075–2110)
• Sherwin B. Nuland, "Leonardo Da Vinci." 176 P. Phoenix Press. 2001. ISBN 0-7538-1269-X
• Michael H. Hart (1992). The 100. Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8065-1350-0 (paperback).

Again, given the level of persecution of homosexuals in general, and of Leonardo in specific, during the renaissance, can I get you to agree that pederasty was not widely practiced? I can assure you from reading Vasari, that this was not a common practice among Renaissance artists, or else, Vasari generally suppressed commentary on this (though he did bring up homosexuality when discussing il Sodoma). This alone, should convince anyone, that on the basis of that sample of 2-300 men, pederasty was not widely practiced.

Out goes that comment again, I recommend that administrators get involved in this dispute and lock the text. CARAVAGGISTI 23:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Added dispute tag to Personal Life section

There is a NAMBLA-type individual who has been running amuck around Wikipedia, adding as many unsubstantiated references to pederasty to as many articles as he can find. The Leonardo article has been a victim of this editor. The "sources" this editor has provided are extremely dubious: 1) many of them are in foreign languages; and 2) most of them have no online links and (with the exception of the Michael Rocke book) are extremely obscure books; they can't be verified. J.R. Hercules 22:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

moved from my user_talk

I strongly disagree with the single source statement in the Leonardo Da Vinci article:

"His love affairs with young males reflect the cultural milieu in which he lived, where pederasty was widely practiced by men in all walks of life."

I have as little hope of finding a statement that refutes this as to finding a statement that refutes the following:

"Eating children alive reflects the cultural mileu in which he lived, where child eating was widely practiced by men in all walks of life".

If I were able to find a single source that quoted the latter phrase, would it have the same validity as the former one. Pederasty was no widely practiced in Florence and Rome in the 1500-1600s. In fact there is abundant evidence that homosexuality (including I presume pederasty) was persecuted in Florence in that time. Leonardo, Caravaggio, and il Sodoma were accused of homosexuality and had to defend themselves from the charges.

I strongly dispute the whether we should consider Leonardo a pederast. He was publicly accused as a 24 year old with having a relationship with a 17 year old. He was accused of sodomy, not pederasty. There is no proof he had sexual relationships with children in his life. I do not doubt homosexuality, I just do not have any proof of pederasty.

I believe the comments and links to Pederasty in both the entry of Leonardo and Michelangelo should be kept in a discussion page, under speculation, or moved to a more speculative section. I am being asked by Haiduc, who seems to have an interest as is noted by his entries in Francesco Melzi and Michelangelo, not to speak of Leonardo, of adding Pederasty links and to make this sound commonplace in the time. The standard of proof for that latter idea should be higher than that of proving that it was not commonplace. I will not be able to find much literature that tries to prove untrue a wild notion. My review of the lives of hundreds of artists of Renaissance and baroque Italy underscore that pederasty was not widely practiced. If that alone does not serve as proof, then I don't know what will? a survey? CARAVAGGISTI 00:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If there is no source for these assertions that we can attribute it to, then it would be OK to remove the material. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a statement in the article that "Melzi himself" considered the relationship passionate. What is the source of this statement? What is meant by passionate? Does it necessarily mean physical?

--Amandajm 00:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh No!

There was an edit conflict, and somehow the entire page seems to have been deleted! Or is it just that I can't access it? Help! Somebody! How do we get the discussion back?

--Amandajm 01:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Whew!

It's back! --Amandajm 01:16, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Agendas/Hidden Agendas

I'm going to be quite overt about my Agenda here.

• When I started contributing in a major way to this article, there was a great mass of info about Leonardo's sex life, and no info at all about his paintings.
• The balance was, to my way of thinking, entirely wrong. Unless Leonardo was Casanova or Don Juan, (two individuals whose fame rests chiefly upon their sexual prowess) then the emphasis on his sexuality was unwarranted.
• So I created a new article where such matters can be thrashed out.
• I really don't care much what anyone thinks about Leonardo's sex life. I just want you to all go away and do it somewere else.
• Reason- This article is accessed by every kid on planet Earth that has an assignment to do on Leonardo. While on one hand Wikipedia is not censored, on the other hand, any discussion of his sex life is speculative but when each side starts to score points, it grows out of all proportion and starts to include graphic descriptions of porno pictures and the like.
• The topic of Leonardo is so large that it already as separate pages for all his major works and another separate page for science and inventions. Another page is required to deal with his pupils and imitators. I ave no doubt that although the page is planned to be about his painterly influence, it will immediately turn into a slanging match out his sexuality.

Pleeeease go and have your dispute at Leonardo da Vinci's relationships and leave this page to discuss those aspects of his life that we actually know about.

--Amandajm 01:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fair, with one caveat. As per Wikipedia:Content forking, we need a short summary of Leonardo da Vinci's relationships in this article. As for your concern about childres's access, note that Wikipedia is not censored. Just take a look at the articles about Man, Woman, and the female sexual organs anatomy. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Amanda, this article is not about Leonardo's works, it is a short biography on all the aspects of his life. There is nothing in his life that is dishonorable or that diminishes his stature. As for your discomfort with discussions about his sexuality, I am sorry it makes you unhappy. I also want to concentrate my attentions elsewhere. But we had agreed to separate the bulk of it, and to leave a short abstract here. Now you have gone overboard in removing material based on respected recent scholarship. That is unacceptable and distorts the summary of his relationships by decontextualizing it and casting it in 21st century terms, which are inappropriate and misleading. Please put the Rocke material back. Thank you. Haiduc 12:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Any statement that says that in his time pederasty was widely practiced by men of all ranks is not "respected recent scholarship". It is baloney. Leonardo was persecuted for sodomy by an official entity meant to stamp out homosexuality. Il Sodoma was persecuted and lambasted by Vasari for such behavior. How can the subset of homosexual activities that was actively and openly persecuted have been widely practiced. There are many entries in Wikipedia that document the persecution of homosexuals in Catholic countries.

Since there is a pattern of intimation of this activity in numerous entries in Wikipedia, since you seem to want to call those who disagree with the facts: persons with a "anti-pederasty agenda", it seems evident to me that this is not a fact that you are inserting into the text, but baloney that support your agenda to make pederasty seem commonplace, specially among elite persons in Renaissance history.

I admit that being called an "anti-pederast" in the western world is a label I am proud to uphold; pederasty in some form or other is illegal in most western countries, and additionally considered unethical by professional societies such as physician groups. However, let us not lose fact that the concern here is that:

1) Pederasty was NOT widely practiced.

2) No one can be sure that the relationship between Leonardo and Salaino, if it existed, was pederasty; because we can not date the physical relationship.

3) The evidence that Leonardo and Melzi had a physical relationship is zip. None. There is a reason why such inferences are not found in the mainstream texts of Leonardo, and there has never been a reason to insert denials of this.

Before you re-insert these ideas into this entry, I would request that you propose some other outside authorities to substantiate your claim. Also you need to address why such claims are not included in the major authoritative texts on Leonardo's life.

CARAVAGGISTI 15:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope you will forgive me if I do not engage your polemics here, it is simply not the place for it. But to set a couple of facts straight, pederasty is legal pretty much everywhere homosexuality is legal and the age of consent is somewhere in the middle teenage years. Thus most of Europe falls into that category, as do a number of American states, and indeed most other countries. Yes, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, some American states and a handful of other countries have to various extents shut that door, but that is beside the point. As for pederasty in Renaissance Florence, homosexual relations between males "flourished at all levels of Florentine society" and "vast numbers of local males engaged in sexual relations with other males" and the relationships typically were between men and boys. (Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships pp14-15).

As for what Michelangelo or Leonardo did in bed with their boys, that is not the point. We are told by sexologists that it is not necessary for love relations between men and boys to be consummated in order to be pederastic - it suffices for them to have an erotic element, be it one sided (not that it always is one-sided either). In the glbtq article on Michelangelo we are informed that "desire for adolescent boys" was "frequent" and "commonly acknowledged" and that discussions of Michelangelo's sexuality hinges on his desires as reflected in his art and poetry, and that "it hardly matters whether Michelangelo ever engaged in a genital relationship with another person."

Though your style leaves a bit to be desired, I actually welcome your contributions since all such challenges serve to strengthen and "purify" the articles. Please continue to criticize but be sure to bring in good, solid, scholarly evidence since that is what matters here. Haiduc 00:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Pederasty to me means all that is illegal. All else falls within age of consent. But more to the point, you seem to be arguing these irrelevant points because you have an agenda.

Check your source, any idea whether that might have an agenda? Vast numbers of local males????? I seem to be speaking to vast curtain of confusion.

1) you still demonstrates that you confuse pederasty with homosexuality.

2) sexologist tell me nothing, except what they think. The glbtq is often an unreferenced source. You believe what you believe. I want this encyclopedia to be about facts. The main Mirriam-Webster definition and most of the other definitions at large [4] do not agree with yours. You seem to be sugar-coating illegal activity in a trolling fashion in an encyclopedia open to children, by setting up innocent definitions that link towards more troublesome sites. It is like saying character assasination is a form of murder, therefore not all murder is bad. I redefine murder in order to make the above statement true. Pederasty is illegal. Theupper age boundaries of pederasty vary. It is illegal in this country to proposition children; what I am worried about is that if you are attempting to use links in Leonardo and Michelangelo in order to guide children, who can access these entries even on school or library computers, towards websites of extolling this type of behavior, then it would be illegal. This is specially trued because you seem to be using false inferences and definitions.

3) Factually, you speak gobbledygook. As I stated before, when Irene di Spilimbergo died at the age of 21 in Venice in the 1500s, an effusive volume of poetic elogies published two years after her death by Dionigio Atanagi and containing 279 Italian and 102 latin poems, some anonymous, and others either penned or attributed to contemporary cultural luminaries including Lodovico Dolce, Torquato Tasso, Titian, Girolamo Muzio, Luigi Tanzillo, Giuseppe Bettusi, and Benedetto Varchi. They extoll her beauty and her person, and I would not consider heterosexually erotic. To say that Michelangelo engaged in pederasty because of the poetry he wrote baffles the intelligence. It would make a rapist out of Shakespeare and out of most modern poets.

While your last statement seem to show a sense of cordiality, it does not detract from the fact that your actions before this seem highly agenda driven, and often sinister in motivation. The more you argue these points, the more sense I have that this is not only a point of facts, which I can marshal, but it appears that I (and others) find you someone who insinuates a subject (pederasty) which as defined by Miriam-Webster constitutes illegal behavior, and wants to create a sense or aura of historical acceptance to it, and make entirely innocent topics link to far more questionable ones. I do not want to spend time that can otherwise be dedicated by me to articles about artists, to edit your pederasty articles. But do not falsify history or definitions in order to link art articles to pederasty. CARAVAGGISTI 00:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to your interpretation of pederasty. But the definition of pederasty that we use here is that provided by sexologists and historians and anthropologists. It is different from yours. What you are talking about is called child abuse or perhaps pedophilia, and you are right to be incensed about it, and they both have their articles. And no, we do not take our definitions from dictionaries, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, we take our definitions from scholarship.

As for factual matters, you are substituting vehemence and personal conviction for careful research. I refuted your claims about the alleged "rarity" of Florentine pederasty with two scholarly sources, and you did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge that but blew it off as of no importance.

It is that which makes this exchange a waste of time for you, as well as for me. If all you are going to do is jump up and down and proclaim that you are right because you are right, and ignore scholarly sources, and demonize homosexual pederasty, which as I pointed out before is legal pretty much everywhere, then I'd have to say that this is not the place to do it. You are concerned for children? So am I, especially for gay kids hounded to suicide by homophobes. It might do them a world of good to discover that men such as these loved other males. And you and others want to cover it up because their love does not quite fit our modern mores? And that is meant to help children?! Bravo.

I am not the one who has identified Leonardo and Michelangelo as likely to have been inspired by homosexual desire, I am not the one who has documented their affection for youths. Others have done it and I have included their views here, with proper citations. I suggest that we limit this discussion to that, and that we both have the integrity to acknowledge valid material even when it contradicts our expectations. We are not there yet. Haiduc 21:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Pederasty is illegal. You (and your so-called scholars) redefine the common definition of pederasty. Are you claiming, the dictionaries Mirriam Webster and others do not have scholars defining their words?????

Your sources is an obscure book called forbidden friendships and a non-scholarly internet encyclopedia of gay and lesbian life. I would not call that scholarly sources. I am not ignoring scholarly sources, because, as others have pointed out, these are not scholarly sources.

I can quote you scholarly sources from the life of Leonardo and others in Renaissance Florence, from Vasari speaking of il Sodoma, from the Roman trial of Caravaggio, that implicate that homosexuality was not widely accepted, and was persecuted in that time. I think it would be evident to all, that if a activity like homosexuality is persecuted, with homosexuals often castrated and branded, it is unlikely to be "widely practiced", specially in its version wherein a man and a boy have sex, which I still insist is the commonly understood definition of pederasty. If you want to argue that latter point, then call up Mirriam.

Wikipedia is not the place to try to pan off man-boy sex as the protection against young homosexuals from commiting sucide. I know of far better trained professionals and physicians who could protect these children. Those physicians would view your statements as having some sinister implications.

The only reason you pursue this agenda on Wikipedia is because it allows some anonymity to your activities, and you can cloak it under the banner of scholarship. It is neither, and thus I am non-plussed by pseudoscholarly antics. Again, if you keep on trying to do this, I will persist in setting the record straight. Ultimately I am confident that scholarship will win out.CARAVAGGISTI 23:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I repudiate your comments and your attitude, and I will ask others to voice their opinions of your behavior

You have given me no alternative but to denounce your tirade as a virulent homophobic attack, both against me personally and against the material I am documenting. I find your attitude abusive and non-collegial, totally beyond the pale of Wikipedia culture as I understand it. You have been dismissive of the academic arguments I have brought to bear, and have accused me - putting words in my mouth as it were - of promoting illegal behaviors. I have never done such a thing, nor would I countenance it under any form, here or elsewhere. Let us find out what others here think of your behavior, editors with whom you are not in cahoots. Haiduc 00:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

On the one hand, Michael Rocke is a respected scholar (he's at the Harvard Institute of Italian Renaissance Studies) and Forbidden Friendshops was well-received in the academic press (see reviews in The English Historical Review, Speculum, Journal of the History of Sexuality and Renaissance Quarterly). On the other hand, his statistics are contestable (see some of the same reviews). SmaleDuffin 20:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci's relationships

I have editted the present article so that it now makes a simple and irrefutable statement. I think that it is all that is necessary here. Given the existence of a main article where the matter can run into 20 pages.

--Amandajm 01:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I am only slightly uncomfortable with the statement as written; but I am comfortable with not having this article link to historical ped. couples as before. The discomfort is due to the fact that since we have clear evidence that speculation has existed since the 16th century for a relationshiop with Salaini, but not with Melzi. Melzi insinuated himself into the insinuation only in this century, perhaps decade. Alas, I made my point, and I will let others fight this out. Ultimately I agree with the sense that the emphasis should remain on Leonardo the artist.CARAVAGGISTI 03:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Structure of the Biography section

How can be entering apprenticeship in 1467 and leaving it in 1466??????????????????????? please fix this.

anonymous 03-01-07

Can I suggest a new look at the Biography section. At the moment the headings are:

   * 1.1 Early life
   * 1.2 Training
   * 1.3 Leonardo's Florence
   * 1.4 Professional life
   * 1.5 Assistants and pupils
   * 1.6 Personal life

In other words, it's chronological in the first two sections, then becomes thematic. Biographies are almost invariably best done chronologically, with anything that can't be fitted into the chronological framework made into a completely separate section.PiCo 03:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Biography

OK! I'll do something about it.

--Amandajm 10:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

"Beyond dispute"

I rewrote part of the section about Leonardo's private life and left a hidden statement to say that the material included was beyond dispute, as indeed it was. Haiduc then changed it back to include the disputed material 'but left my statement that said that it was "beyond dispute". This is really extremely careless editting. If you are going to add that which you know is contentious, please adjust the material around it, so that contention does not signify a lie. Leonardo's homosexuality is plainly not beyond dispute and in Haiduc's readjustment, the whole of my edit should have been removed, not just part of it!

Please make your arguments regarding Leonardo's sexuality to the other page. Leonardo da Vinci's relationships.

--Amandajm 10:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Virgin of the Rocks Vandalized?

I think that the halos have been added on, or that someone posted an altered image with out knowing. In my art history class, my professor pointed out that this was one of the first paintings that did not have any halos. I just felt that it was an important thing to make note of, and I hope I do not sound like a pretentious art student.

Droppingeaves 01:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't sound in the least pretentious. And Wikipedia is a good place to access specific info.

• There are two versions of the painting, one in National Gallery, London, one in the Louvre, Paris.
• The commission for the painting required haloes. One version has them, the other doesn't.
• Haloes are generally added later because if they are gold, they require a separate technique to the oil paint or tempera or fresco of an old painting.
• Three people worked on the commission, Leonardo and the de Predis brothers. One brother, who was deaf, is thought to have been a gilder (who worked in gold). Leonardo went off and left the painting for the de Predis to finish. Later, when the final payment was made, Leonardo let the remaining de Predis brother and the widow of the gilder have the whole amount. The halo and the gilded cross of reeds in the hand of John the Baptist were probably added by the de Predis because the Fraternity who ordered the painting expected it. There are also some other little touches of gold in the London version, very discretely done.

--Amandajm 13:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

You & your professor should read Halo (religious iconography) - no haloes had been common in northern Europe for 50 or more years. It is early for Italy though. Johnbod 03:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Vegetarianism is not a "FACT"

If you go to wikiquote, it clears up that Leonardo was NOT a vegetarian, nor did he write the quote about the murder of animals. It was in a fictional book amongst other things attributed to him, but that he didn't say. Could someone PLEASE take that out?

Me 11:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I looked at wikiquote and it does not say that Leonardo da Vinci was not a vegetarian. It only says that one quote of him supporting vegetarianism was misattributed. If that quote was the only evidence of him being a vegetarian, then it would be sufficient to remove the information on that basis, but there are more references to Leonardo da Vinci being a vegetarian than simply that one quote. Also, I have seen people say that the references to Leonardo da Vinci's vegetarianism are trivia. I don't think a short description of it is trivia. I also don't see why a whole article can exist about the vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler, but there can't even be a paragraph about the vegetarianism of Leonardo da Vinci. Q0 15:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Addition by Ultimantorca "Originating in observation but developed under belief"

Google popped a single hit on "Originating in observation but developed under belief" [5]

Excerpts from:

Mary D. Garrard

Leonardo da Vinci: Female Portraits, Female Nature

from Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, New York, 1992, pp. 58-86:

So... Is this copying from the web, copying from the book, or what? Too tired right now to go read the WP: rules, could someone please evaluate this potential copyvio? Shenme 09:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's just that phrase, it's fair use - tho it would be good to reference it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PiCo (talk • contribs) 04:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC). Later: Having now taken the trouble to look at the article, it's clear to me that this paragraph is not integrated into the section: the section is about Leo's journals in general, this is about one specific drawing. It should go. PiCo 06:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• • I've moved it. It really doesn't belong there. It's too detailed, speculative, disrupts the flow and so on.

--Amandajm 12:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

New section, "The Legend of Leonardo"?

Just a suggestion which others might like to discuss: How about a section on critical appraisals of L over the centuries, from Vasari to the modern day? After all, this is a man who is a cultural icon, not only for those of us who come from a Western cultural background, but increasingly for the entire world, a man comparable to such giants as Shakespeare and Beethoven. How did he come to get this acclaim? What, exactly, was it that made him a magnet for superlatives? Vasari and other contemporary critics all said L was pretty good, but why? And did they see him as "the greatest", or just as primus inter pares? And what about subsequent ages - what did Pater say, and why? What about Berenson? And what about the modern view, which is downright apologetic about L's putative divine status? Duchamp's Mona Lisa with a moustache? (definitely a critical comment). This section would replace the current collection of quotations, and provide an overview of critical appraisals down the centuries. It would also be a place to find a home for this tiresome discussion of L's sexual preferences - a line on Freud's book. Is it a good idea? PiCo 05:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

New page, other page

I think the proposal is interesting. But I think it ought to be a separate page as it could go on forever. I'm loathe to make this page longer as it loads very slowly on some browsers already bbecause it is long and has a lot of pictorial content. As I've said before, the article is in constant use and needs to be as accessible as possible.

There is already a page entitled Leonardo da Vinci in popular culture. Perhaps the sort of overview of critical appraisal that you have in mind should go there. Or in a new article of your own devising. --Amandajm 06:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Amanda. I understand your wish to keep the article from growing too long. But this is essentially a proposal for a re-write of a current section, which is no more than a collection of quotes. As it is, these quotes jump abruptly from the 16th century to the 19th, leaving out some two and a half centuries. But more importantly, a collection of quotes is non-encyclopediac. Encyclopedias should mix facts (biography, major achievements, etc) with appraisal. These quotes by themselves don't give an appraisal of the reasons for L's fame, merely a record of that fame. The question is not what Vasari said, but why he said it. PiCo 06:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just reread the article. The appraisal of Leonardo as a painter and as a scientist is present within those sections. The section about his painting describes his fame and the reasons for it, talking about those things which make his works unique, imitated, admired and discussed.

I think that the reason for his fame is made apparent from the introduction, and supported by the entire content of the article. The purpose of the quotations is to support the statement in the intro that Leonardo is "generally regarded" as one of the world's greatest painters and the most diversely talented person to have lived.

What you are suggesting seems to me to be simply going in a circle. We've said he's considered this and that, we've said why he's considered this and that, we've supported that he really is considered this and that. What now?

What do you actually want? You say "an appraisal of the reasons for his fame". Do you really want an appraisal of the reasons? I can't be bothered appraising the reasons. It would be a doctoral paper on the changing attitudes to art in general and to Leonardo in particular over four and a half centuries! I think that the quotations are sufficient to indicate that, historically, his fame was enormous and it never waned.

Yes, I'll find some quotations from the 17th and 18th centuries. They'll undoubtedly say the same sorts of things as the others.

--Amandajm 13:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Amanda, what I want is a discussion of why these people thought so highly of L. "One of the greatest painters" says Castilione - but why did Castilione think this? ""The dawn of modern art" says Fuseli - but what did Fuseli take as the defining features of modern art, features L presumably defined? "Ahead of his own century" says Taine - what did Taine see in L that he didn't see in L's contemporaries? "Life-communicating values" says Berenson - what does this mean (frankly, Berenson has quite lost me there). "Disquieting" says Bortolon - what is it about L that disquiets Bortolon? In other words, the series of quotes are lovely prose, but tell us nothing other than that L is admired. Why is he admired? Because he made paintings that looked so realistic? Was it always so - did he never suffer an eclipse in critical acclaim? What I'm after is what in the field of historical studies would be called historiography - the history of the history. All fame is a social and cultural construct - before feminism, Virgina Woolfe wasn't nearly such a towering figure as she is today. Inevitably, after a period of adulation, there comes a time of reaction and revision. Shakespeare in the 17th century lacked art and had never read Aristotle; Caravaggio was a histrionic nobody until less than a century ago; and Marcel Duchamp put a moustache on the Mona Lisa. What's the history of L's critics? PiCo 07:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

PiCo, your question "Why was he admired?" and all the other questions you've asked along the way cannot be answered in detail without a huge amount of research which I don't have the resources, the time or the inclination to do. What I can say is that Castiglione and Taine and Bortolon's opinions appear to be still current in the minds of a lot of people. Whatever it was that disquieted Bortolon seems to be still widely perceived.

The historiography would be a great thing, particularly as a new page, because the current one is so long that there is not really room enough for a thorough dicussion of known paintings and the question of attribution, the works of followers etc.

In the meantime, I think that the quotations indicate not just that Leonardo was admired but that he has occupied a uniquely elevated position in the minds of a considerable number of art historical writers. That through changes in fashion, society and culture, it appears, from the quotations, that admiration for L was sustained. (Yes, yes, I know... I haven't filled in the gap in history).

My suggestion to you is, research and write the stuff yourself. And either put it on the page that I have just rejigged (I've left a couple of section stubs but not enough to cover what you propose) or create a separate article. --Amandajm 12:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move

PiCo, you use the term "cultural icon" and I think that this is the issue. I'm now planning, unless there are objections, on moving the page that's currently titled Leonardo da Vinci in popular culture to Leonardo da Vinci as a cultural icon. This allows us to put the Duchamps, the Dan Browns and the Ninja Turtles in historical perspective with the Raphaels, the Vasaris and the Freuds. It means that the history of the way in which Leonardo has been perceived can be explored, and changing trends examined in detail, as you have proposed.

I'll do something similar to what I did at the scientist and inventor page- I'll rough in some sections and subsections as stubs and see how it shapes up. Yeahh! --Amandajm 22:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Changed my mind! The page has already been moved and is now called Cultural depictions of Leonardo da Vinci in order to account for high culture. If "culture" is taken in a broad sense, then it can also cover biography, art history etc.

--Amandajm 00:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci's personal life

Here are some of the stubs that need filling out -

• Childhood prodigy
• Diverse interests
• Lefthandedness
• Musical ability
• Personal charm
• Fastidiousness
• Love of nature
• Vegetarianism
• Attitude to Death

--Amandajm 03:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Rhombicuboctahedron

In the text with it's corresponding image, the rhombicuboctahedron has a dash "-" in it, and if this were removed, it would link to the article "Rhombicuboctahedron" Just another guy trying to be a Chemical Engineer, Nanobiotechnologist, and Mathematician 06:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Fun Facts About Leonardo

Leonardo wasn't only an artist. He was more a scientist than an artist. Leonardo painted all his paintings meerly for the scientific benefits. Leonardo barely ever finished any of his projects. He specialized in designing weapons and torture devices. His parents were not married when his mother gave birth to him, so he was treated as a peice of trash by the people of Vinci. Da Vinci was not his last name, but it was. Da Vinci was the last name of every one in that small town in which Leonardo grew up. everyone had this last name, Da Vinci. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.19.29.106 (talk) 15:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

No. Many people didn't use a last name at all. If there were two little "Leonardos" in Anchiano (which there probably wasn't) he would have been called Leonardo della Caterina. Luckily for him, his father gave him the name Leonardo di Ser Piero so that when he moved to Vinci, he wasn't regarded as a bastard. The da Vinci would not have been necessary until he moved to Florence where there were more "Leonardos".

Some artists never got a surname. The great Piero della Francesca spent his entire life identified as the illegitimate son of Francesca.

--Amandajm 05:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Please correct the birth line

The line about his birth is horrible - please use:

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, at Anchiano, near the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley around the Arno River in the Province of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant. Little is known about his early life, which has been the subject of historical conjecture by Vasari and others, and particularly speculative interpretations were made by writers of the Romantic period and Sigmund Freud.

Done.--SmallPotatoes 14:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Freud had a say. So did eveyone else. Why does Freud's opinion rank so very highly that it is given a place in the very brief biography? There is a page dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci's personal life. Freud can go there and have his say, happily, for as many paragraphs as he likes!

"He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant." This info is contained within the intro and hadn't been repeated, because the article is very long, but it ought to stay.

--Amandajm 05:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Freud's opinion - I asked to be added because it is what Grove/The Oxford Companion to Western Art has to say in overview about his early life, I'm fine with missing that bit, but the town is located some province or other - which one is it if, as you say, it wasn't in the Province of Florence (Firenze) [I'm pretty sure it is there - as it also says on the Vinci, Italy page and on the top of the nav. panel on that page - also Florence then gets linked twice with no area - Florence is a city, capital of an area and a centre of influence but not a provincial area which is what is missing]. I hadn't noticed the personal life page where Freud is mentioned - apologies for that. Thanks for allowing the rest to stay, at least those words, tho' duplicated are now cited and the links to what were disambiguation pages have gone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.1.147.29 (talk) 09:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

This duplication stuff - it is the other way round isn't it? - the lead should not introduce material that isn't discussed in the article, so until what I suggested was put in, the lead was faulty by having this without further note. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.1.147.29 (talk) 09:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

The Times Atlas of World History suggests that the picture at the end of the 15 century is that a number of city states dominated the area of Italy - Republic of Florence, Republic of Venice, Republic of Siena, Republic of Genoa, Papal States, Naples and Sicily/Aragon, Milan/Hapsburgs, and Savoy. this Museum of Science article is relevant --Alf ^melmac 11:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)