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Applying for service in a letter to Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo described himself as an experienced architect, military engineer, and hydraulic engineer; indeed, he was concerned with architectural matters all his life. But his effectiveness was essentially limited to the role of an adviser. Only once - in the competition for the cupola of the Milan cathedral (1487-90) - did he actually consider personal participation, but he gave up this idea when the model he had submitted was returned to him. In other instances, his claim to being a practicing architect was based on sketches for representative secular buildings: for the palace of a Milanese nobleman (about 1490), for the villa of the French governor in Milan (1507-08), and for the Medici residence in Florence (1515). Finally, there was his big project for the palace and garden of Romorantin in France (1517-19).
But what really characterizes and immortalized Leonardo's architectural studies is their comprehensiveness; they range far afield and embrace every type of building problem of his time and even involve urban planning. Furthermore, he wanted to collect his writings on this theme in a theory of architecture. This treatise on architecture - the initial lines of which are in Codex B in the Institut de France in Paris, a model book of the types of sacred and profane buildings - was to deal with the entire field of architecture as well as with the theories of forms and construction and was to include such items as urbanism, sacred and profane buildings, and a compendium of important individual elements (for example, domes, steps, portals, and windows).
Leonardo's architectural projects were of two kinds. The first were practical, completing or renovating extant buildings and working as a military architect; the second were theoretical and included schemes for ideal cities and plans for many types of building.
Leonardo's inventiveness as a military architect was given full expression when he was in service with Cesare Borgia in 1502-03. His mission to Piombino on behalf of the Florentine government appears to have stimulated some remarkable schemes for fortified structures, ranging from projects for specific locations to great, ideal schemes for impregnable fortresses.
In the fullness and richness of their ideas, Leonardo's architectural studies offer an unusually wide-ranging insight into the architectural achievements of his epoch. For almost 20 years he was associated with Bramante at the court of Milan and again met him in Rome in 1513-14; he was closely associated with other distinguished architects, such as Francesco di Giorgio, Giuliano da Sangallo, Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, and Luca Fancelli. Thus, he was brought in closest touch with all of the most-significant building undertakings of the time.
Summary of works by Leonardo |
Paintings |
early work | in the 1480s | in the 1490s | late work | copies |
Studies to paintings |
Battle of Anghiari | studies (1) | studies (2) | heads | various |
Other studies |
anatomy | nature | engineering | maps | architecture | sculpture |
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