Knowledge Hub

I gathered my notes on anatomy, light and landscape as material for a series of treatises, so that painting could be taught as a science built on the study of nature.

My science works by observation: I try to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in the utmost detail, rather than leading with experiments or theory.

In Milan I painted the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception: four figures in a wild landscape of rock and water, finished in two versions.

For Ludovico Sforza I designed an equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza larger than Donatello's Gattamelata or Verrocchio's Colleoni, completed the model and planned the casting in detail.

In 1502 I made a town plan of Imola that won me the post of Cesare Borgia's chief military engineer and architect, then a map of the Chiana Valley for his strategic position.

I drew machines the way I drew bodies, producing the first form of the modern technical drawing and a perfected exploded view that shows internal components; my engineering studies fill over 5,000 pages.