Sublime

While he was in Imola with Machiavelli and Borgia, Leonardo made what may be his greatest contribution to the art of war. It is a map of Imola, but not any ordinary map (fig. 87).18 It is a work of beauty, innovative style, and military utility. It combines, in his inimitable manner, art and science.

Creative endeavors had been divided since antiquity into two categories: the mechanical arts and the more exalted liberal arts. Painting had been classified as mechanical because it was a craft based on handiwork, like that of goldsmiths and tapestry weavers. Leonardo refuted this by arguing that painting is not only an art but also a science. In o

“The originality of the skull drawings of 1489 is so fundamentally different and superior to all other extant illustrations of the time that they are completely out of character with the age,” according to Francis Wells, a surgeon and an expert on the anatomical drawings.8 To the left of the face Leonardo drew each of the four types of human teeth,

Il va dans les années suivantes créer deux des plus célèbres tableaux de l’Histoire : La Cène et La Joconde. Pourtant, il se considère autant comme un artiste que comme un scientifique et un ingénieur.