Sublime

King Francis I was six feet tall, had broad shoulders, and displayed the charisma and courage that appealed to Leonardo. He loved leading his troops into battle. With his standard flying high, he would ride directly to the front lines. He was also, unlike Borgia and some of Leonardo’s previous patrons, a civilized and decent man. When Francis

Leonardo enjoyed the collegial and familial atmosphere in Verrocchio’s workshop so much that, when his apprenticeship ended in 1472, at the age of twenty, he decided to continue to work and live there. He remained on friendly terms with his father, who lived nearby with his second wife and still had no other children. When Leonardo registered as a

« l’homme le plus implacablement curieux de l’Histoire6 ».

Leonardo was a genius, one of the few people in history who indisputably deserved—or, to be more precise, earned—that appellation. Yet it is also true that he was a mere mortal.

Leonardo’s most serious longtime companion, who joined Leonardo’s household in 1490, was angelic looking but devilish in personality, and thus acquired the nickname Salai, the Little Devil. Vasari described him as “a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair in which Leonardo greatly delighted,” and he was the subject of many sexual

Francesco di Giorgio from Siena.8 Thirteen years older than Leonardo, he was another exemplar of an artisan who combined art, engineering, and architecture. He had begun as a painter, moved as a young man to Urbino to work as an architect, returned to Siena to run the underground aqueduct system, and was a sculptor in his spare time. He was also