Italian Renaissance Painting: The Sixteenth Century

Professor David Rosand

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Some basic dates:

1472: member of the Guild of St. Luke, Florence
1482: to Milan
1499: flees Milan (December), via Mantua, Venice, to Florence
1500: Florence
1506: returns to Milan
1507: back to Florence
1508: back to Milan
1513: leaves Milan; by December in Rome
1514-15: Rome
1516-17: to France
1519: dies (May 2)

Reading Assignments

Required:

Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. 1: "Life of Leonardo DA Vinci," pp. 252-71 (R) (L)*
Wölfflin, Classic Art, chap. I, "Antecedents," pp. 3-20, chap. II: "Leonardo (1452-1519), pp. 21-38 (R) (L)
Gombrich, Norm and Form, "Leonardo's Method for Boring out Compositions, " pp. 58-63 and notes (R)
Rosand, The Meaning of the Mark: Leonardo and Titian, chap. I: "On Drawing a Line," pp. 11-48 (R) (L)

Also recommended:

Kemp, ed., Leonardo on Painting, esp. Part V: "The Painter's Practice" (R) (L)
Gombrich, The Heritage of Apelles, "Leonardo DA Vinci's Method of Analysis and Permutation" ("The Form of Movement in Water and Air" and "The Grotesque Heads") (R)
Kenneth Clark, Leonardo DA Vinci: An Account of His Development as an Artist, (1939), rev. ed. 1959 and many reprints): still the finest general account of Leonardo the painter
Martin Kemp, Leonardo DA Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man, (1981): an excellent account of the larger intellectual context and achievement
Leo Steinberg, "Leonardo's Last Supper," The Art Quarterly, 36, (1973), pp. 297-410: the most sustained and challenging analysis of the painting and its complex structure, recommended for the hardy

*(R) = book on reserve in Avery Library
(L) = book available for purchase at Labyrinth Books