Why is Leonardo da Vinci buried in Amboise France
Chapel of St. Hubert, Château Royal d'Amboise
Leonardo da Vinci spent his last years not in his own country, Italy, but in France. They were very happy years, the happiest of his life, not that you would know it from the red chalk drawing of an old man with a furrowed brow, long beard and sad, distant gaze.
Portrait of a man in red chalk, Royal Library of Turin
Scholars and experts, such as Professor Martin Kemp, say there is no proof the unflattering portrait is of him. It’s suggested that it’s of Leonardo’s father who lived until he was eighty. Some say he told Melzi, his devoted pupil, secretary, assistant and acolyte, it’s a drawing he made of his father. Many art experts think the drawing dates not from when Leonardo was in Amboise but from the 1490s, when Leonardo was in his mid-forties.
Portrait of Leonardo: Francesco Melzi
Melzi drew a portrait of Leonardo in Château Clos Lucé not long before his master died. He did have a long beard but is far more handsome with fine features.
Château du Clos Lucé
When François I appointed Leonardo Premier Painter, Engineer and Architect to the King, Leonardo moved from Italy to Amboise and never expressed any desire to see his home country again. When he died 2 May 1519, he asked to be buried in the ancient church in the grounds of the Royal Château Amboise used exclusively by the royal family. The church was destroyed during the French Revolution, so Leonardo’s grave was lost for a hundred and fifty years. His new grave is in the Chapel of St. Hubert.
Leonardo da Vinci’s grave in the Chapel of St. Hubert
Put in charge of pageants, Leonardo masterminded elaborate court celebrations, magnificent spectacular extravaganzas with special effects. One celebrated the baptism of the King’s son, the Dauphin François, one commemorated the King’s victory at the Battle of Marignano and another, at Clos Lucé, was created to thank François for his kindness and generosity. He was also probably behind the astonishing elaborate mock battle held in Amboise town in April 1518. Six hundred men led by François defended a model town against six hundred men led by the duke of Bourbon. It was so like real warfare that some participants were killed.
Francois did not get his money’s worth from Leonardo the painter whose days of glory in that particular medium were over. He did his last painting five years before he arrived in Amboise. If the King, who owned a tapestry copy of The Last Supper, hoped Leonardo would produce another Last Supper he was sorely disappointed.
He did however run an art school. François, who paid the salaries of a small army of artists, urged his Court painters to study under Leonardo. Leonardo knew one artist, Jean Perréal, very well. When Perréal and Leonardo lived in Italy, he showed Leonardo his chalk drawings. Chalks were unknown in Italy.
Perréal, who was working in Amboise when Leonardo arrived, headed a stable of Court Painters. He was with the Royal Household until he retired in 1528. Perréal aka Jean de Paris was the same age as Leonardo. Extremely talented, highly respected, he painted portraits of Charles VIII, his wife Anne of Brittany and a portrait of Anne’s second husband, Louis XII. He sent his star pupil, Jean Clouet, to Leonardo’s studio in Château Clos Lucé to learn from him.
Leonardo learned the French technique of ‘dry painting’ with coloured chalks on coloured paper from Jean Perréal. Now, Leonardo taught Jean Clouet the Italian technique of using parallel diagonal strokes and cross hatching to define light and shadow. Faces were built up by producing darker planes to give structure to the nose and cheek bones to suggest a third dimension and illusion of depth. Before Clouet, French portraits were two dimensional, artists drew an outline then filled it in. This was the reverse, modelling from the face outwards. Clouet was the first artist in France to use Leonardo’s technique of building up volume within the face.
When he joined the Royal Household, Clouet’s wages were the same as stable boys. The admiration François had for Leonardo raised the status of artists in France. By the time Clouet retired he drew the same salary as the head surgeon.
By calling, Leonardo was more of an inventor, an engineer and architect than he was a painter. At least on paper. Knowing this, François asked him to design a new town from scratch. The king so loved the Loire Valley, he decided he would move the capital of France from Paris to his mother’s home town, Romorantin.
Remains of the original Château Romorantin
For the next two years, Leonardo’s energy was channelled into town planning. His plans ran to seven hundred pages. However, August 1518 was exceptionally hot. The region was infested with the malarial mosquito. Malaria, an infectious disease is carried by parasites. There was no treatment. A hundred and fifty died in one week in and around Romorantin. Entire families were wiped out. When the death toll extended toward Blois all work stopped. The population was close to panic fearing Plague. Half moved away.
Bitterly disappointed, François asked Leonardo to help him with his latest passion, Château Chambord. His design for a double-helix staircase is one of its main features.
Château de Chambord
Leonardo spent any spare time he had left arranging and editing notebooks filled with his scientific studies and treatises on painting and anatomy.
Thanks to his faithful assistant and friend, Melzi, who prepared the papers for publication, we know so much about Leonardo. More than an artist, engineer, anatomist or architect, Leonardo da Vinci was a visionary.
Post by Pamela, photography by Mark
Leonardo da Vinci
The Amboise Connection
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