From 1503 until 1506 Leonardo was painting a portrait of the wife of the prominent Florentine citizen. The painting is known today as the Mona Lisa. The figure sits in a relaxed position, with hands quietly crossed, before one of Leonardo's richest and most mysterious landscape backgrounds, traversed by roads that lose themselves, bridges to nowhere, crags vanishing in the mists. This attitude of total calm became characteristic for High Renaissance portraits. The face has suffered in the course of time but nothing has spoiled the sad half smile that plays about the lips.
For a year or two Leonardo worked for the notorious Cesare Borgia, designing battle engines, siege devices and making maps. The Florentines commissioned Leonardo to paint the Battle of Anghiari on a wall of a newly constructed Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio. This painting depicted an event from 15-th century history. It was part of a general programme to celebrate the newly revived republic.
Leonardo's later life was a succession of trips between Florence, Milan and Rome. He painted little in his later years. At his death Leonardo's artistic influence was immense, but much of his scientific work had to await later rediscovery.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Leonardo da Vinci; Raphael; Immaculate Conception; magi; Verrocchio; Mona Lisa; Milan; Cesare Borgia; Rome
Notes
Baptism of Christ – «Крещение Христа»
Adoration of the Magi – «Поклонение волхвов»
Madonna of the Rocks – «Мадонна в гроте»
Madonna and Saint Anna – «Святая Анна с Марией и младенцем Христом»
Last Supper – «Тайная вечеря»
Mona Lisa – «Мона Лиза» («Джоконда»)
Battle ofAnghiari – «Битва при Ангиар»
Tasks
I. Read the text. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. When Leonardo began his career artists lived like princes.
2. In the Last Supper Leonardo has painted a higher reality, thus making a complete break with the Early Renaissance.
3. The Battle of Anghiari is the earliest and most famous Leonardo's picture.
4. In the Madonna and Saint Anna the figures are pictured in a strange rocky shadowy grotto.
5. The Madonna of the Rocks was designed in Florence in 1501 and completed many years later in Milan.
6. The Adoration of the Magi was Leonardo's last work.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. How did Leonardo fulfil the Renaissance ideal of the Universal Man?
3. What does Leonardo's reputation as an artist rest on? What happened to his other works of art? Why?
