Depicting his seminal years in Milan from an entirely new perspectivethat of the Sforza courta thought-provoking and original book explores the artists mind as he slowly develops the groundbreaking techniques that will produce the High Renaissance and change the course of European art.
The traditional view of Leonardo da Vincis career is that he enjoyed a promising start in Florence and then moved to Milan to become the celebrated court artist of Duke Ludovico Sforza. Young Leonardo proves all of this wrong. It reveals how the struggling painter was repeatedly snubbed by the prevailing trends of Florentine style before escaping to Milan empty-handed. But Milan offered little more; Sforzas patronage was lukewarm, to say the least, and all the major commissions went to artists whose names are now forgotten.
How did the amateur become one of the all-time greatest masters? Slowly, meticulously, disastrously. Focusing on an often neglected period in Leonardos life, here is a fascinating window into the artists mind as he develops the techniques that will transform Western art forever. Because before there could be a Last Supper, a Mona Lisa, a St. Anne, there had to be a young Leonardo.
