I was about 16 when I first heard his name.
My sister, Mary, told me about an Italian artist she learned about from her friend’s mother who was a painter.
He lived about 500 years ago during a period known as the Renaissance, she said, and he was not only a great painter but also a scientist who studied many subjects and an inventor who conceived ideas centuries before their time.
I was intrigued.
So I went to the Oceanside Library and read entries about him in Britannica and other encyclopedias. I discovered that he’d painted that famous portrait of a woman who I recognized from many parodies of her (Mona Lisa), as well as that other well-known painting of Jesus and his disciples sitting at a dinner table (The Last Supper).
I also learned that he studied firsthand everything from human anatomy to the flight of birds to engineering to botany to geology. He also recorded his observations and findings in extensive notebooks, filled with his writings and sketches of his diverse interests: flowing water, horses, flowers, a perpetual motion machine, drapery, a fetus in the womb, human muscles, and the ideally proportioned male (Vitruvian Man). There were also drawings of his ideas that included modern inventions such as the helicopter, armored tank, parachute and machine gun. Wow!
Thus began my lifelong fascination with Leonardo da Vinci.
Then, less than a year after I’d graduated from high school, my sister told me that a rare showing of Leonardo’s notebooks was coming to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Of course, I attended the exhibit. Because this was my firsts interaction with art of old at a major museum, because I got to see these original drawings by this amazingly multifaceted man, because of the large crowd that the exhibit drew, it was an experience obviously etched in my memory.
At the exhibit, I bought a book on Leonardo’s anatomical drawings, the first of many other books, articles and magazines I’ve since read about him and his life’s work in art, science and engineering.
I also recall that after that experience, I vowed that one day I would go to Italy to see his paintings.
A travel guide book I’m reading to prep for my trip to Italy that will include a visit to the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan to view Leonardo’s mural The Last Supper.
Well, I’m happy to announce that, just a few decades later, that day will finally arrive later this year. My flight is booked along with two weeks full of hotel and AirBnB stays in several cities including Florence and Milan, where Leonardo lived and worked and some of his paintings are on display. All this, coincidentally, when Italy is celebrating the Renaissance man with special exhibits and events throughout this year that marks the 500 anniversary of his death in 1519.
Meanwhile, I’ll spend the next few months getting ready for this trip of a lifetime, anticipating the museums, duomos, restaurants, cafes, piazzas, markets, ancient ruins, mountains, lakes, canals and vineyards I’ll visit. I’ll also prepare to write stories about my travels (accompanied by my photos) that at least one publication contacted me to produce.
For now, though, let’s just say I’m pretty damn excited!