Leonardo da Vinci: Thinker, Researcher, and Poet

Academy), the painting in which Leonardo "showed his hand" to the world for the first time. The master had, it is said, painted the main figures with effort, diligence, and faithfulness, and left all the rest, it is believed, to the pupil. Into this, "Leonardo worked an angel who carried some clothes, and although he was so youthful, he executed it in such a way that Leonardo's angel was of much better quality than the figures of Andrea: which became the reason," Vasari Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), the famous biographer of Renaissance artists. tells us, "that Andrea never wanted to touch colors again, because he was incensed that a child understood more of it than he himself." Despite the contrary assertion of Morelli Giovanni Morelli, a 19th-century art critic known for his method of identifying artists by small details like earlobes or fingernails., most connoisseurs nowadays attribute the angel holding the garments to Leonardo; indeed, following Bayersdorfer, many also wish to recognize the brush of the great pupil in the landscape and in all other parts of the painting where oil paints cover the tempera: as if the style of Verrocchio the painter were already firmly established for us today! The only certain data regarding the young Leonardo were found by Gustavo Uzielli in the "Red Book" (Libro Rosso), the record book of the "Company of Painters" (Compagnia de’ Pittori). Two entries therein prove that in 1472 Leonardo was already a master himself, though likely not a very busy or well-paid one, for he had remained in debt for his membership fee and his share of the sacrificial candles for the day of Saint Luke, the patron saint of the guild; indeed, he probably continued to work in Verrocchio's workshop thereafter; in 1476 he even lived with him. In this year, the "Officers of the Night and the Monasteries" (Ufficiali di Notte e de’ Monasteri), a kind of Florentine vice squad, found in their "drum" (tamburo A wooden box used for anonymous denunciations in Renaissance Florence.), the mailbox for depositing secret accusations, a charge against four young people, among them Leonardo da Vinci, "who lives with Andrea del Verrocchio," stating that they maintained illicit relations with a worthless young fellow. They were summoned on April 8th and