50 Fun Facts About Leonardo Da Vinci

Which Paris museum refused to move the Mona Lisa even into its own 2019 Leonardo blockbuster?

The portrait was left in its usual gallery because of the demand from ordinary visitors.

The Last Supper shows the consternation just after Jesus has said what?

It is the most reproduced religious painting of all time.

Which of Leonardo's drawings, a study of human proportions, is a cultural icon in its own right?

It is owned by the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, which fought a legal battle over lending it to the Louvre in 2019.

Near which Tuscan hill town, about 35 km from Florence, was Leonardo born on 15 April 1452?

Local tradition puts the birth in the hamlet of Anchiano, private enough for an illegitimate child.

What was the profession of Leonardo's father, Ser Piero?

He fathered Leonardo out of wedlock with Caterina di Meo Lippi; both parents married other people the following year.

How many half-siblings did Leonardo eventually have from his father's four marriages and his mother's?

The last was born when he was 46; he had very little contact with any of them.

In his earliest memory, what bird did Leonardo recall opening his mouth with its tail in his cradle?

He recorded it in the Codex Atlanticus while writing about the flight of birds; Freud later made much of it.

In whose Florentine workshop did Leonardo train from around the age of 14?

The workshop taught everything from metallurgy and plaster casting to drawing and sculpture.

Per Vasari, what did Verrocchio do after seeing Leonardo's angel in The Baptism of Christ?

The claim is probably apocryphal, but the young angel and much of the landscape do show Leonardo's hand in oil.

Per Vasari, what did Leonardo paint on a shield that so terrified his father he sold it?

A Florentine dealer paid 100 ducats and sold it on to the Duke of Milan.

Which body, for artists and doctors of medicine, admitted Leonardo as a master in 1472?

He nonetheless kept collaborating and living with Verrocchio.

What is Leonardo's earliest known dated work, from 1473?

He is also said to have been the first to suggest making the Arno a navigable channel between Florence and Pisa.

What charge did the 24-year-old Leonardo and three others face in 1476, then dismissed?

One of the accused was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, which may explain the dismissal.

Which Milanese ruler did Leonardo serve from 1482 to 1499?

The letter mentioned almost as an afterthought that he could paint; he brought a silver lyre shaped like a horse's head.

What became of the bronze intended for Leonardo's giant equestrian monument, the Gran Cavallo, in 1494?

Ludovico gave the metal to his brother-in-law to defend Milan against Charles VIII; only the clay model was ever finished.

For the refectory of which Milan convent was The Last Supper commissioned?

The prior hounded Leonardo over his pace until the artist threatened to use him as the model for Judas.

Why did The Last Supper deteriorate so rapidly that it was called "completely ruined" within a century?

The surface proved subject to mould and flaking.

Who is the presumed sitter for Lady with an Ermine?

She was the lover of Ludovico Sforza; the head turned away from the torso was unusual when most portraits were still in rigid profile.

Which Divina proportione author fled Milan with Leonardo in 1500 and taught him mathematics?

Leonardo drew the skeletal regular solids that illustrate the book, published in 1509.

Which notorious son of Pope Alexander VI hired Leonardo as chief military engineer and architect in 1502?

Leonardo won the job with a remarkably modern town plan of Imola.

Which Florentine woman's portrait, begun in 1503, became Leonardo's most famous painting?

The portrait's Italian name, La Gioconda, means "the laughing one".

What is the smoky shading technique for which Leonardo's most famous portrait is renowned called?

The word means "Leonardo's smoke"; the subtly shadowed corners of mouth and eyes make the smile impossible to pin down.

Which mural did Leonardo paint in the Palazzo Vecchio in 1505 while a great rival got the opposite wall?

Michelangelo was given the Battle of Cascina; Leonardo's work deteriorated rapidly and is known today from a copy by Rubens.

What did Leonardo sit on a committee to decide in January 1504?

The two artists were rivals; a year later they were painting opposite walls of the same hall.

What does the nickname of Leonardo's assistant Salaì mean?

Leonardo called him a thief, a liar, stubborn and a glutton, yet kept him for thirty years.

Which pupil, the son of a Lombard aristocrat, became Leonardo's favourite student and principal heir?

He inherited the paintings, tools, library and the notebooks he spent decades trying to publish.

Which king invited Leonardo to France in 1516 and installed him at Clos Lucé near Amboise?

The king visited often, and Leonardo built him a mechanical lion that opened its chest to reveal lilies.

What did Leonardo's mechanical lion do when struck by a wand during a pageant for the French king?

The lily was the emblem of the French crown.

What ailment, confirmed by a 1517 visitor, may explain why Leonardo left his most famous portrait unfinished?

A drawing by Figino shows the elderly artist with his right arm wrapped in clothing.

According to Vasari, who held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died on 2 May 1519?

The story may be legend; sixty beggars carrying tapers followed his casket, as his will requested.

Roughly how many pages of notes and drawings did Leonardo leave?

They fuse art and natural philosophy, and were made daily throughout his life and travels.

Why are most of Leonardo's writings in mirror-image script?

He also used shorthand and symbols, and said in his notes that he meant to prepare them for publication.

Which Milanese library holds the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus?

The British Library holds the Codex Arundel and the Royal Library at Windsor has many of the anatomical drawings.

Who owns the Codex Leicester, the only privately held major scientific work by Leonardo?

It is displayed once a year in a different city around the world.

Roughly how many detailed anatomical drawings did Leonardo make toward a treatise on anatomy?

He dissected corpses at Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and collaborated with anatomist Marcantonio della Torre at Pavia.

What did Leonardo first state in 1493, not rediscovered until Amontons in 1699?

The work grew out of his study of perpetual motion, which he correctly concluded was impossible; he heads the list of "Men of Tribology".

Which two flying-craft designs appear in Leonardo's notebooks alongside the Codex on the Flight of Birds?

A 2003 Channel Four documentary built several of his designs, including a parachute and a giant crossbow.

What did Leonardo do with the caged birds he bought, according to Vasari?

It fits his love of animals and probable vegetarianism.

How much did Salvator Mundi, attributed wholly or partly to Leonardo, sell for at auction in 2017?

It set the record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.

Roughly how many major works are attributed to Leonardo, many of them unfinished?

Many others are lost, including his portrait of Isabella d'Este and the Battle of Anghiari.

Which pope's brother, Giuliano de' Medici, received Leonardo in Rome in 1513?

According to Vasari he decorated a lizard with quicksilver-dipped scales there; the pope cancelled a commission when he fussed over a new varnish.

What did an 1863 excavation at the Château d'Amboise chapel turn up, presumed to be Leonardo's remains?

The excavator kept the ring and a lock of hair; they went on show in Vinci on the 500th anniversary of his death.

Which sixteenth-century art historian's often-apocryphal Lives is the source of most Leonardo anecdotes?

Cellini did record Francis I calling Leonardo "a very great philosopher" twenty years after his death.

Which younger contemporary is the only artist said to rival Leonardo's contribution to European art?

The two later worked in the Vatican at the same time, when Leonardo lodged in the Belvedere Courtyard.

What was the name of Leonardo's mother, a woman from the lower class?

He was born out of wedlock to her and the notary Ser Piero da Vinci.

Which king did Leonardo travel to Hungary to meet on Sforza's behalf in 1485?

The king commissioned a Madonna from him.

Leonardo's Sala delle Asse decoration made the hall appear to be a pergola of how many mulberry trees?

The trompe-l'œil in the Sforza Castle has a labyrinth of leaves and knots across its ceiling.

In which city did Leonardo work as a military architect against naval attack after fleeing Milan in 1500?

He travelled with his assistant Salaì and the mathematician Luca Pacioli before returning to Florence.

Which unfinished altarpiece for the monks of San Donato a Scopeto measures about 250 by 250 cm?

Its preparatory drawings include a linear-perspective study of the ruined classical architecture behind the figures.

What monthly allowance did Leonardo receive while living in the Belvedere Courtyard in Rome from 1513?

Michelangelo and Raphael were both active in the Apostolic Palace at the time.