Read Online 101 Things You Didn't Know About Da Vinci by Shana Priwer - Free Book Online

could have signed up for painting classes with the Great Leonardo? Even if you were alive during the Renaissance, you would have had a tough time. Leonardo never established a formal school or workshop. However, he did instruct plenty of students and apprentices over the years. During Leonardo's years in Milan at the court of Sforza, he probably had a number of apprentices and pupils. He even wrote training guides specifically for these students, and these documents were later collected in book form as A Treatise on Painting .
    Leonardo was a hands-on teacher and also collaborated on a number of works with his students during this period, some of which still have questionable attributions. Several of his students' works have even been incorrectly attributed to Leonardo himself. This collaborative style makes it hard to place blame for mistakes, and also makes it hard to give credit where credit is due.
    Da Vinci's pupils during this Milan period included Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (his earliest pupil); Bernardino de'Conti; Giacomo Caprotti (nicknamed Salai); Giovanni Agostino da Lodi; Andrea Solario; Ambrogio de Predis; Francesco Napoletano; and Marco d'Oggiono. While Leonardo was in Milan in the early 1500s, Bernadino de'Conti and Salai continued as his apprentices. He also had a new crop of assistants, including Bernardino Luini, Cesare de Sesto, Giampetrino, and Francesco Melzi. (Melzi later became his personal companion, artistic heir, and likely lover.) Some of these pupils eventually succeeded in their own right, painting famous works such as La Belle Ferronniere, Lucrezia Crivelli , and the Madonna Litta .
    Leonardo reportedly chose some of his assistants for their good looks rather than their artistic abilities (Francesco Melzi and Salai in particular). Melzi, unlike Salai, did produce a few paintings during his many years with Leonardo, so we know that the relationship was at least slightly more than personal!
    The commission to paint The Virgin of the Rocks , one of the master's early major works, was actually given to both Leonardo and his assistant, Ambrogio de Predis, in 1483. Ambrogio served as a court painter to Ludovico Sforza and hosted Leonardo in his home when Leonardo first came to Milan, The two collaborated on paintings throughout the 1490s, and The Virgin of the Rocks is the best known of these collaborations. In this work, Leonardo painted the central picture, while de Predis painted two side panels showing angels playing musical instruments. Two versions were eventually completed, thanks to the resulting lawsuit (see number 36 for the complete story on this work). Although in the later version the angel kneeling behind the infant Jesus is undoubtedly Leonardo's work, he most likely did not finish it. The Madonna and landscape aren't as good technically, suggesting that a student probably painted them.
    One of Leonardo's students from Milan, Andrea Solario (1460–1524), made his own style by mixing elements of Leonardo's work with the contemporary Lombard and Venetian schools of painting. His bright colors, fantastical landscapes, and harmonious groupings of figures emulate Leonardo, while some of his naturalistic details echo the Lombard and Flemish traditions. Leonardo probably used another one of his Milan students, Boltraffio, as a test bed for his teaching, and it seems to have paid off. Boltraffio's training is visible in many of his works, including his 1495 painting The Virgin and the Child , which he may have based on Leonardo's sketches.
    Later in Leonardo's life, during his final years in Rome (around 1509–1516), he continued to have many students. In fact, Leonardo's students copied his final painting, St. John the Baptist , many times. Since many of Leonardo's original works are now lost, in many cases, only copies done by his pupils allow us to see the true scope of his work. Though Leonardo's students spent much time copying the master's works, few of them ever transcended his