Knowledge
An Incredible Age
Leonardo da Vinci lived in exciting times. A thousand years had passed since the Roman Empire fell, a thousand years in which the people of Europe tended their farms, went to war, and guided every act by a deep religious faith. In the Middle Ages few besides priests could read, and books were rare treasures copied by hand.
Then, at about the time Leonardo was born, things began to change. Faith and tradition gave way to learning and curiosity. Explorers such as Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan sailed off on voyages of discovery. A growing class of merchants grew rich on trade, and more and more people left the countryside and went to work in cities. There they could buy books, thanks to Johann Gutenberg and his new printing press. Now ordinary people could read the great works of the ancient Greeks and Romans. As they became more educated, they started thinking for themselves and questioning old ideas, as Nicolaus Copernicus did when he suggested that the earth was not the centre of the universe. It was an age of great accomplishments, and one of its true glories was the birth of a new kind of art.
The most exciting place to be in those exciting times was Italy, where the new age began. The sunny peninsula shaped like a boot was not a unified country then. Though the whole area was often called Italy, it really consisted of a number of independent states. The most powerful were the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States(Rome), and the Republic of Florence. It was Florence — the richest state, though not the biggest — that was the centre of this artistic revolution. It was there that Brunelleschi worked out the science of perspective, Michelangelo sculpted the David, and Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa.
So many brilliant artists had arisen in Italy since the 13th century that a man by the name of Giorgio Vasari decided to write a book about them. When he published his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, in 1550, he became the first art historian. At the same time, he also gave a name to that exceptional period in history. He called it a rebirth. We still use that word today, in its French form. We call it the Renaissance.
In the spring of 1452 Antonio da Vinci, aged 80, took out a leather-bound volume. In it were recorded all the important events in the life of his family, going back to his grandfather’s time. Antonio opened the book to the last page. He had not written anything in it for 16 years, and he saw that there was room at the bottom for only one more entry. This is what he wrote:
1452: There was born to me a grandson, son of Ser Piero my son, on 15 April, a Saturday, at the third hour of the night. He bears the name Leonardo.
Baptism of Leonardo Da Vinci
Antonio then wrote about the priest who had baptized the child and all the witnesses present for the occasion. But there was one person he did not mention — Leonardo’s mother. Her name was Caterina, and she was a peasant. Though Ser Piero may have been very fond of Caterina, he did not marry her. After all, he was an important man, a leading citizen of Vinci. Like his grandfather and great grandfather before him, he had studied at the university to become a notary, someone who prepared contracts and other legal documents. He expected to marry a young woman with money who came from a good family, someone just like him. And indeed, a few months later Ser Piero married just such a girl, the 16 year old Albiera di Giovanni Amadori…..
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