Leonardo

= Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519= = = =//"Art is never finished, only abandoned."//=

====Leonardo da Vinci was truly a Renaissance Man - he was an accomplished painter, sculptor, poet, inventor and scientist. In addition to creating artistic masterpieces, Leonardo da Vinci also designed fortifications for castles and cities, studied human anatomy in remarkable detail, and sketched ideas for technologies like helicopters and tanks that would not be fully realized for another 500 years after his death. Yet he was never satisfied, claiming "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." Leonardo scribbled constantly in his journals, always writing backwards for reasons still unknown to scholars (although several theories have been presented). In museums today are more than 3,500 pages of the artists journals.====

Explore the various sections of the website provided below to discover more about this talented man of the Renaissance: []



**Vitruvian Man Activity: Do you have the perfect body?**
Leonardo da Vinci's //Vitruvian Man// is an example of the blend of art and science during the Renaissance. This image provides the perfect example of Leonardo's keen interest in proportion. In addition, this picture represents the cornerstone of Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopaedia Britannica online states, "Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a //cosmografia del minor mondo// (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe." It is also believed by some that Leonardo da Vinci symbolised the material existence by the square and the spiritual existence by the circle. Thus, he attempted to depict the correlation between these two aspects of human existence.
 * Background Information:** The //**Vitruvian Man**// is a famous drawing with accompanying notes by Leonardo da Vinci made around the year 1490 in one of his journals. It depicts a naked male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the **Canon of Proportions** or, less often, **Proportions of Man. It is on display in the** //**Gallerie dell' Accademia**// **in Venice, Italy.**

According to Leonardo's notes in the accompanying text (which are in mirror writing, as many of his notes were recorded), //Vitruvian Man// was made as a study of the proportions of the human body as described in a treatise by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.


 * Use the measurement details on your worksheet to determine whether or not YOU meet Leonardo da Vinci's standard of perfection!**


 * Here is the measurement information you'll need for the Vitruvian Man activity:**

====Were all of your findings exact proportions of total body height or face length? If yes, then you have perfect body. If you answered no to one, then you are not perfect, at least not according to da Vinci. ====