Did you know Leonardo was an illegitimate child born during what scholars have called a ‘Golden Age’ for Bastards?
How did he fuel his curiosity? This was a man who believed ‘learning never exhausts the mind.’ That is to say he was always learning.
His early years were spent living on his father’s family estate in Vinci. During this period of his life, he was also influenced by his uncle, who had a love of nature and had a hand in rearing him during his formative years.
He had a very short formal schooling, he was largely an autodidact. He was hugely curious and gained inspiration from both nature and the world surrounding him. To paint persons as accurately as possible, he performed anatomical studies that also helped him to understand some of the mechanics behind many of his machines. da Vinci was never satisfied to look at something from one single angle. He turned and rotated, disassembled and dissected to get the utmost understanding of the problems he was wrestling with.
Additional articles on da Vinci here and here.
Listening time: 12 minutes
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