Leonardo da Vinci: The Original Renaissance Man?

Famed for paintings such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci was a dedicated observer and a prolific journal writer. His notebooks reflect an insatiable appetite for learning, and a mind equally engaged by engineering and sculpture, hydraulics and oil paint, religious faith and human nature. By reading Leonardo’s writing and by examining his commissions—both complete and unfinished—we will explore how this single artist came to define our understanding of a “Renaissance man.” More recent scholarship will spark robust discussions of how best to understand the “afterlife” of an artist and his work and whether the moniker of Renaissance man is, in fact, apt. 3 hrs. sem.