Leonardo died 500 years ago on May 2 in the Loire Valley town of Amboise, where he was the prestigious guest of French King Francis I for the last three years of his life. The Florentine master brought with him three of his favorite paintings: the Mona Lisa, the Virgin…
Nearly 200 Yellow Vests on Saturday staged a protest in Amboise, where French President Emmanuel Macron is due on Thursday, May 2, along with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci with the town under virtual lockdown. Activists from…
The French are serious about their wine, and none more so than the stalwarts of the Confrérie des Entonneurs Rabelaisiens--loosely translated, a brotherhood of winemakers who channel the great humanist and storyteller Rabelais. The people of the Loire Valley city of Chinon refer to the 16th-century satirist who gave us…
A major exhibition dedicated to the scientific genius of Leonardo da Vinci opened in Rome on March 13, part of festivities to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of the artist and inventor. The show at the Scuderie del Quirinale palace is entitled "La Scienza Prima della Scienza" (Science…
Experts could not confirm that Leonardo had a hand in the drawing, but say it is from his workshop Experts say the so-called "Nude Mona Lisa" was created at Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, the French news agency AFP reported on March 13. The drawing is kept at the Chateau de…
The French and Italian culture ministers met in Rome on February 28 to take a new look at a 2017 accord under which four Italian museums agreed to lend Da Vinci works -- including the iconic Vitruvian Man drawing -- to the Louvre in October. Bilateral relations had already soured…
Unable to attend school because he was an illegitmate child, Leonardo is one of the world's most famous self-taught geniuses. He actually wore his lack of schooling as a badge of honor -- calling himself an uomo senza lettere, a man without letters. His Italian was laced with the local…
Like many left-handed people of Leonardo's era, he habitually wrote backwards. A by-product of being excluded from a normal education because he was an illegitimate child is that no one discouraged Leonardo from preferring his south paw. Contrary to the widespread belief that the practice was a way for lefties…