Leonardo - Website

🖋️ Leonardo da Vinci: A Tuscan Tapestry of Light and Inquiry observing Nature and people in action.
A revised Blog Vignette by Peter H Bloecker (Retired)

Watch the SBS Film Leonarda da Vinci

Ahead of his time …

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Nestled in the folds of olive-silvered hills near Vinci, Tuscany, a boy traced bird wings in the dirt. His fingers, smudged with fig sap and curiosity, would one day redraw the contours of art, science, and imagination. Leonardo da Vinci’s story began in Anchiano—amid the scent of sun-warmed thyme and cicada hum.

🎨 Apprenticeship in Florence: Where Light Met Hand
At fifteen, Leonardo entered the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. Marble dust settled into the creases of his palms as he carved alongside masters, each chisel stroke an invitation to precision and grace. The studio swelled with the aroma of linseed oil and plaster, the quiet scratch of charcoal on canvas. It was here he painted a single angel—luminescent, gentle—he watched and observed, fascinated by nature. Eager to learn.

🌿 Nature as Archive and Oracle
Tuscan summers taught him anatomy in the curvature of leaves, flight from swallows chasing the horizon. He studied vines as vascular systems and dragonflies as engineers of air. The bitter tang of olive oil on rustic bread became a meditation; Tuscany fed him not just meals, but metaphors. He was not only curious, he asked why and how, and no one would stop him.

🕊️ The Smile and the Silence
Returning to Florence in 1499, Leonardo sketched quietly. The Mona Lisa emerged—half-smile and half-riddle. Quill dipped, parchment stretched, he whispered:

“If light is my language, what does her silence say?” No one will ever know.

Behind her, Tuscan hills roll into mist—the landscape not just backdrop, but biography. An illegimite child born to become one of the most known artists ever.

📚 Legacy Etched in Dust and Ink
Leonardo’s notebooks brimmed with mirrored script and impossible machines.

War machines as well.

Quills rasped through midnight, echoing the clang of the bell tower above. Beneath each drawing lay a man wrestling with awe: dissecting lilies, charting rivers, dreaming wings.

His reflection:

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”
In Tuscany, both spirit and hand flourished.

🪞 A Coda, Shared Across Generations over centuries
To visit Vinci or linger before Adoration of the Magi at the Uffizi is to brush the hem of a soul still searching. Leonardo was not merely painter, inventor, dreamer. He was to become a bridge—between idea, thought and form, shadow and light, silence and revelation. A devine and talented artsist.

Homosexual as well.

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This is a first draft version only.

Published by Author & Blogger Peter H Bloecker (Retired)

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Post 2

Master of the Renaissance
SBS/Demand

My second post on Leonardo

Part Two

God

Nature means God

The Leonardo da Vinci series now showing on SBS is a two‑part, four‑hour documentary from Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon. It traces the life of the 15th‑century polymath against the vivid backdrop of Renaissance Italy — a time of artistic flowering, political intrigue, and scientific curiosity.

Episode One – “The Disciple of Experience” focuses on Leonardo’s early years in a Tuscan village, his move to Florence to apprentice as an artist and craftsman, and his immersion in the city’s creative ferment. It follows him to Milan, where he enters the court of Duke Ludovico Sforza, begins writing treatises, and paints The Last Supper. Along the way, the film draws on his prolific notebooks, contemporary accounts, and modern scholarship to illuminate both his celebrated artworks and his restless investigations into anatomy, engineering, and the natural world.

You can stream the premiere episode free in Australia on SBS On Demand, with the second part completing the portrait of a mind that seemed centuries ahead of its time.

1500 and so much ahead of his time!

Mind blowing indeed …