Leonardo da Vinci was born into a time and
place extraordinarily supportive of his wondrous talent. The mid-1400s
saw the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy, supported by the
art-loving Medici family currently in power: People were coming
to appreciate Greek and Roman art in new ways; and great advances
in scientific instruments and mathematics led to an interest in
perspective in painting. Painters like Leonardo were interested
in achieving a beauty on par with the ancients, and at the same
time they were trying to surpass them in accuracy and realism.
During Leonardo's time artists still worked under the
guild system: a young boy would serve as an apprentice to an accomplished artist,
and would eventually take on his own apprentices. When Leonardo
became an apprentice in Verrocchio's workshop, his experience was
similar to that of an experience in any other trade, from tailoring
to carpentry. Paintings were not the passionate expression of
a single artist's mind. They were collaborations, painted according
to the specifications of a patron. Paintings were the product
of a studio, not of an artist. However, Leonardo helped to change
the role of the artist: he himself became famous as an individual
painter, a celebrity in his own right. He made being an artist a
profession, and not just a trade.
Art was not the only aspect of culture that saw increased
activity during the Italian Renaissance. Politics also buzzed
with energy, both negative and positive. The Italian states were
all independent, and were constantly involved in shifting alliances,
allowing for little stability but much intrigue. Many of the Roman
Catholic Church's most vile popes date from this period; Florence,
where Leonardo lived, was the capital of the state of Tuscany, which
was sometimes allied with the pope and sometimes not. Milan, another
city where Leonardo spent a great deal of time, was the capital
of Lombardy, which was repeatedly invaded by the French.
As the various Italian states vied for power, so, too,
did the Church. As far as art is concerned, the Church funded
a great deal of work, and there was a clear distinction between
art that was "pious" and art that was "profane"; thus it dictated
much of what art portrayed and didn't portray. Leonardo often
received commissions to do work for monks, and if his work did not
meet the exact pedagogical specifications of the monks, he was
asked to change it. The Inquisition, which was a program to seek
out and execute non-believers, was initiated during Leonardo's
lifetime.
