On April 15, 1452, in a tiny hill town in Italy, a baby boy was born. His father was a well-to-do businessman, Ser Piero. His mother, Caterina, was a poor young peasant girl. We don’t even know her last name. Their baby was named Leonardo. Because the town he came from was called Vinci, he was known as Leonardo da Vinci. That means Leonardo from Vinci.
Leonardo’s parents weren’t married. His father was ashamed of the baby and left him with his mother. Ser Piero married another woman, someone more respectable, and started a new family. He moved nearby to the busy city of Florence. Caterina did not want to keep her baby, either. She cared for him for only a year or two. Then she, too, married someone else and began a new family.
So what was to become of little Leonardo?
Ser Piero’s answer was to leave the baby with his parents. But Leonardo’s grandparents were old—his grandfather was eighty-five at the time. At their age, what did they want with a toddler? Still, they took him in. They fed him, clothed him, and gave him a home. But little else. No one loved the little boy. The only person who showed interest in him was an uncle named Francesco.
Francesco was a farmer and he loved the beautiful countryside around Vinci. He would take long walks in the hills, which were covered with olive trees.
Leonardo would go with him. It was there on these walks that Leonardo grew to love the natural world. The rolling shapes of the hills. The silvery leaves of the olive trees. The flight of birds. And the soft misty sunlight.
Everywhere he went, Leonardo took a little notebook with him. He made drawings of anything that interested him. A plant. Ducks in a stream. Flowers. An insect. Some cows. Paper was very valuable, but Leonardo was lucky. Because of his father’s business, there was always a supply. It was one of the most important things Ser Piero ever gave his son.
Even when he was a young boy, Leonardo had an amazing talent for drawing. Drawings seemed to flow out of his fingers onto the paper. His rabbits and birds didn’t look like drawings. They looked alive.
He understood the beauty of nature. He also knew its dangers. When he was only four years old, a terrible hurricane struck the countryside. Farms were destroyed, and many people were killed. Then when he was ten, the Arno River flooded Florence. Leonardo watched the storm and saw the flood; he never forgot either. All his life, he drew pictures of moving water.
Water was a source of life for animals and plants. It was also a source of destruction. Leonardo wanted to understand both sides of this force and to control its power.
His father must have been aware of his son’s gift for drawing. All it would have taken was one look at one sketch. Ser Piero was a practical man. He knew Leonardo’s choices in life were limited. Because Ser Piero never married Caterina, Leonardo could not attend a university. He could not be a lawyer and businessman like his father. He could not become a doctor. But he could work in one of the art studios in Florence. Being an artist was a respectable trade. Ser Piero decided to take Leonardo to the city. There, he arranged for him to live and work with a famous artist. His name was Andrea del Verrocchio. This was certainly the best thing Ser Piero ever did for his son. It changed Leonardo’s life forever. |