Sistine Chapel ceiling - Wikipedia

In trying to complete this painting and make it stick to the wall that summer of 1505, Leonardo could feel the presence of a younger man looking over his shoulder, both literally and figuratively. Preparing to paint a competing mural in the room was the rising star of Florence’s art world, Michelangelo Buonarroti.

To build his cathedral dome—a self-supporting structure of close to four million bricks that is still the largest masonry dome in the world—Brunelleschi had to develop sophisticated mathematical modeling techniques and invent an array of hoists and other engineering tools.

When Milan’s authorities in 1487 were seeking ideas for building a lantern tower, known as a tiburio, atop their cathedral, Leonardo seized the opportunity to establish his credentials as an architect. That year he had completed his plans for an ideal city, but they had engendered little interest. The competition to design the tiburio was a chance

Heightening the significance of the commission was the fact that Leonardo would end up pitted against his personal and professional young rival, Michelangelo, who was chosen in early 1504 to paint the other large mural in the hall. Even though neither painting was finished—like Leonardo’s, Michelangelo’s work is known to us only through copies and

With the help of the writings of Alberti and the development of mathematical perspective, the social and intellectual standing of painters was rising, and a few were becoming sought-after names.

He probably had more of a hand in the Lansdowne, and saw it to completion, given that it has the more Leonardesque landscape and lustrous curls. At least five of the surviving versions of the painting include the little scene of Joseph building the baby walker. This indicates that these versions were being painted in Leonardo’s studio before he dec

There was another reason, one even more fundamental, that Leonardo did not complete the painting: he preferred the conception to the execution. As his father and others knew when they drew up the strict contract for his commission, Leonardo at twenty-nine was more easily distracted by the future than he was focused on the present. He was a genius u

However, some of the sketches were inspirations for a painting that he soon began on a related theme, the Adoration of the Magi (fig. 15). It was destined to remain unfinished, but it became the most influential unfinished painting in the history of art and, in the words of Kenneth Clark, “the most revolutionary and anti-classical picture of the fi