Leonardo da Vinci's personal life
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Little is known about the personal life of Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519), painter and archetypal Renaissance Man. He appears to have been secretive about his most intimate relationships. However, much research and speculation has been invested in these apsects of his life, because of the fascination exerted by his artistic and scientific genius, and his apparent personal magnetism.[1]
Description and analysis of Leonardo's character, personal desires and intimate behaviour has been based upon a number of sources: records concerning him, his biographies, his own written journals, his paintings, his drawings, his associates and speculations that were made concerning him by contemporaries.
These demonstrate a man who appears to have benefitted from his family nuture, who worked with others cooperatively in apprenticeship and encouragingly as a master and who provided well for the needs of those for whom he had responsibility. He had mutally beneficial relationships with several powerful patrons including the Medici, Ludovico Sforza, Cesare Borgia in whose service he spent the years of 1502 and 1503 and King Francis I of France. He had working relationships with two other notable scientists, Luca Pacioli and Marcantonio della Torre and was also a close friend of Niccolò Machiavelli.
His most intimate and long-lasting relationship with a woman appears to have been his friendship with Isabella d'Este whose portrait he drew while on a journey which took him through Mantua.
When examining Leonardo's relationships much speculation has been made concerning the nature of his relationships with his pupils, Salai and Melzi. Since the 16th century it has been claimed that there was a strongly erotic element to his relationship with Salai. This is supported by a number of erotic drawings depicting the youth. Melzi claimed that Leonardo's feelings for him were of a passionate nature. That Leonardo deeply loved both the young men, encouraging their gifts and indulging their whims, is beyond question. They appear to have been the two most significant emotional attachments of his life.
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[edit] Leonardo's sexuality interpreted
[edit] Homosexual
In 1476, while living in the workshop of Verrocchio, Leonardo was accused anonymously of sodomy with a 17 year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a youth already known to the authorities for his sexual escapades with men. After two months of investigation he was acquitted, ostensibly because no witnesses stepped forward though others claim it was due to his father's respected position.[2] For some time afterwards, Leonardo and the others were kept under observation by Florence's Officers of the Night—a Renaissance organization charged with suppressing the practice of sodomy, as shown by surviving legal records of the Podestà and the Officers of the Night.
[edit] Frigid
Leonardo stated:- "the act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions".[3]
This was interpreted by Sigmund Freud, in an analysis of the artist, as an indication of "frigidity". However, Freud's analysis fails to take into account the extent to which Leonardo's own "sensuous disposition" and attraction to a "pretty face" might have overcome any feelings of disgust.
[edit] Nympholeptic
According to Annand Taylor, Leonardo hated the act of procreation. "But he had a great tenderness for the mystery of birth. As a Renaissance pagan he is nympholept, ravished by a vision of immortal beauty; like any mediæval monk and schoolman he is charmed by the mystical vision of virginity. He hates the act of procreation, but he loves the child. As an artist he solved his problem by a dream of parthenogenesis, or by bridal with a god, which, while remote and miraculous, yet casually admitted to the imagination the haunting sensuousness that could not be entirely laid, in a subtle and etherealized and perhaps perverted way that pleased him."[4]
[edit] Pederast
Leonardo's alleged love of boys was to become a topic of discussion, speculation and literature as early as the 16th century and was fictionalised in "Il Libro dei Sogni" (The Book of Dreams), an imaginary dialogue on l'amore masculino (male love) written by the contemporary art critic and theorist Gian Paolo Lomazzo, an acquaintance of Francesco Melzi. Leonardo appears as one of the protagonists in the book and declares, "Know that male love is exclusively the product of virtue which, joining men together with the diverse affections of friendship, makes it so that from a tender age they would enter into the manly one as more stalwart friends."
In the dialogue, the interlocutor inquires of Leonardo about his relations with his assistant, il Salaino, "Did you play the game from behind which the Florentines love so much?"
Leonardo answers, "And how many times! Keep in mind that he was a beautiful young man, especially at about fifteen."[5]
[edit] Pupils and companions
[edit] Salaino
Leonardo had a long-lasting affectionate relationship with Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno,[6] who he referred to as his pupil or servant. Gian Giacomo, who entered Leonardo's household in 1490 at the age of 10, was nicknamed Salai or il Salaino ("The Little Unclean One" i.e., the devil). He was described by Giorgio Vasari as "a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair, in which Leonardo greatly delighted." Leonardo’s notebooks during their early years contain pictures of the handsome, curly-haired adolescent and young man.
The relationship was not an easy one. A year later Leonardo made a list of the boy’s misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton." 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. Nevertheless, il Salaino remained Leonardo's companion, servant, and assistant for the next thirty years, and at Leonardo's death, he was bequeathed the Mona Lisa, a valuable piece even then, as it is valued in Salai's own will at £200,000.
Though Salai was always introduced as Leonardo's "pupil", his painted works have always been considered inferior to those of other pupils of Leonardo such as Boltraffio. He is credited with a nude portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, known as Monna Vanna, painted in 1515 under the name of Andrea Salai.[1] .
Gian Paolo Lomazzo's portrayal of Leonardo's relationship with Salai as homosexual or pederastic has gained wide acceptance in part because of the homoerotic nature of Leonardo's painting John the Baptist for which Salai appears to have been the model. The eroticism of this painting has been explored by critics such as Martin Kemp and James Saslow.[7]
Several drawings by Leonardo are highly erotic depictions of the same young man. Il Salaino's name also appears (crossed out) on the back of an erotic drawing (ca. 1513) by the artist, The Incarnate Angel, at one time in the collection of Queen Victoria. It is seen as a humorous and revealing take on his major work, St. John the Baptist.
Another erotic work, found on the verso of a foglio in the Atlantic Codex, depicts il Salaino's behind, towards which march several penises on two legs.[8] Some of Leonardo's other works on erotic topics, including drawings of heterosexual human sexual intercourse, were destroyed by a priest who found them after his death[citation needed].
[edit] Francesco Melzi
In 1506, Leonardo met Count Francesco Melzi, the 15 year old son of a Lombard aristocrat. Melzi himself, in a letter, described Leonardo's feelings towards him as a sviscerato et ardentissimo amore ("deeply felt and most ardent love").[9] Salai eventually accepted Melzi's continued presence and the three undertook journeys throughout Italy.
Melzi became Leonardo's life companion, and is considered to have been his favourite student. He was with Leonardo at Clos Luce at the time of his death.[10]
[edit] See also
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Cultural depictions of Leonardo da Vinci
- Leonardo da Vinci - scientist and inventor
- Pederasty
- Historical pederastic couples
- Bacchus (Leonardo)
- St. John the Baptist (Leonardo)
[edit] References
- ^ Vasari
- ^ Saslow, Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society, 1986, p.197
- ^ As quoted by Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke, bd VIII, 1909–1913
- ^ Annand Taylor, Rachel, Leonardo the Florentine: A Study in Personality, pp.493, Richards Press, 1927.
- ^ E quante volte! Considera che egli era uno bellissimo giovane, e massime ne' 15 anni. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, "Il Libro dei Sogni;" (1563) in Scritti sulle arti; Centro DI, Firenze, 1989; vol 2, dialogue 5
- ^ Oreno website (Italian)
- ^ Saslow, ibid., passim)
- ^ Augusto Marinoni, in "Io Leonardo", Mondadori, Milano 1974, pp.288,310
- ^ Crompton, Louis: Homosexuality and Civilization. NY, 2003. p.269
- ^ Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships epigraph, p. 148 & N120 p.298
