There are two key differences that distinguish Leonardo’s version of Vitruvian Man from those done around the same time by his two friends, Francesco di Giorgio and Giacomo Andrea. In both scientific precision and artistic distinction, Leonardo’s is in an entirely different realm (fig. 44). Rarely on display, because prolonged exposure to light wou

Leonardo may have gone to work with Borgia at the behest of Machiavelli and Florence’s leaders as a gesture of goodwill, similar to the way he had been dispatched twenty years earlier to Milan as a diplomatic gesture to Ludovico Sforza. Or he may have been sent as a way for Florence to have an agent embedded with Borgia’s forces. Maybe it was both.

Even though it was typical of him, we still should marvel that he would decide that before sculpting a horse he had to dissect one. Once again his compulsion to engage in anatomical investigations for his art eventually led him to pursue the science for its own sake. We can see this process unfold as he worked on the horse: careful measurements and

Avec du particulier, du pulsionnel, Léonard de Vinci a su créer des œuvres dans lesquelles nous nous reconnaissons ; avec de l’intime, il a su créer de l’universel.