Da Vinci: Epitome of the Renaissance Man

Leonardo da Vinci was born right at the beginning of the renaissance; perhaps that contributes to his becoming a true renaissance man. He was the illegitimate child of a notary and a peasant girl but nonetheless grew up comfortably in his father’s house reading scholarly texts and learning to paint. He was talented enough to be apprenticed to an artist at 15, and his artistic career took off from there. His paintings, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper among them, have been greatly admired for centuries. However, this renaissance man’s interests expanded past the creative arts. In fact, his broad interest and study across disciplines contributed to the impressive quality of his paintings.

Shakespeare notes the amazing potential of humankind in Hamlet, writing, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals.” Shakespeare could almost have been referring to da Vinci in this passage; da Vinci certainly demonstrated how infinite in faculty a human could be, and he certainly expressed his appreciation of the form and action of humans. He extensively studied anatomy, even dissecting corpses to examine how nerves and muscles work. He was also fascinated by physics and the natural world, filling dozens of notebooks with his observations of the natural world and ideas for inventions. There is incredible precision in da Vinci’s works because the artist incorporated his knowledge of the sciences into every detail.

In his Oration on the Dignity of Man, Pico della Mirandola discusses how part of what makes humans such high and noble beings is their ability to shape themselves into whoever they want to be. Raised an artist to eventually become a true renaissance man, a welder of the arts and sciences when many would have declared them separate entities, da Vinci certainly carved his own identity. There was so much he wanted to learn, he seldom finished the projects he started, but he was overall content with his accomplishments. This wide scope of genius and dedication to connecting the arts and sciences continue to serve as a testament to the versatility of human achievement.