Leonardo da Vinci’s royal patron a man of arts and war

Welcomed with the words, “You will be free to think, dream and work,” Florentine artist Leonardo da Vinci delivered Italian Renassiance elegance to France.

Ingres La mort de Leonard de Vinci 1818 Paris, Petit Palais (c) PMVP / Pierrain Picture: Supplied

Welcomed with the words, “You will be free to think, dream and work,” Florentine artist Leonardo da Vinci delivered Italian Renassiance elegance to France when he settled into the modest Chateau du Clos Luce in the Loire Valley.

An invitation to the great Italian to pass his final days at the royal chateau was an early initiative of King Francis I after his coronation 500 years ago, on January 25, 1515.

For da Vinci, then living at the Vatican Belvedere Palace in Rome, the young king’s offer of a generous pension lured him across the Alps. Travelling by donkey, he carried trunks full of notebooks, paintings of St Anne and an incomplete St John the Baptist, and his favourite, the Mona Lisa, northwest to the Loire.

At du Clos Luce, da Vinci apparently did little painting, instead ­experimenting with architectural and engineering projects.

It is also believed da Vinci contributed to the design of Francis’ grand hunting lodge, Chateau Chambord, considered the first example of symmetrical Renaissance architecture in France. Francis I, da Vinci’s final patron, was born on September 12, 1494, at Chateau de Cognac in the southwestern town of Cognac, to Charles, Count of Angouleme, who died in 1496, and Louise of Savoy. He became heir apparent in 1498, when his cousin Louis XII became king.

Louise moved her children, Francis and his older sister Marguerite de Navarre, to Louis XII’s court. Francis grew up as the ward of Louis XII, whose three sons were stillborn, leaving two surviving daughters. Against the wishes of wife Anne, Louis XII betrothed his eldest daughter Claude, born in 1499, to Francis. They married in 1514, after Anne’s death.

When Louis XII died on January 1, 1515, Francis became king, with Louise acting as regent.

Nicknamed François au Grand Nez (Francis of the Large Nose), Francis was considered indulged by his mother and sister, to whom he remained close throughout his life.  Critics described his interests as women and hunting, although he had also enjoyed a more liberal education than his predecessors, as long-running wars between Italy and France introduced new ideas to France.

Francis first took his troops to battle, hoping to reclaim Milan in northern Italy from the Swiss, in August 1515 when he had 40 to 70 huge cannons hauled over a new-made road at Col d’Argentière. Surprising his enemies, Francis claimed victory in the brutal 28-hour Battle of Marignano in September to secure an “Eternal Peace” with the Swiss.

During peace negotiations, Francis met Pope Leo X in Bologna in December 1515. Also at the meeting was da Vinci, who Francis commissioned to make a mechanical lion that could walk forward, then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.

Apparently fascinated by the artist, and likely advised by his sister Marguerite, Francis invited da Vinci, with his young apprentice Count Francesco Melzi, to join the royal court. Francis frequently visited da Vinci at du Clos Luce, then also inhabited by Marguerite and linked by tunnel to Francis’ royal residence, Chateau d’Amboise, about 500m away.

As arthritis crippled his right hand, da Vinci organised stage sets for royal carnivals and possibly contributed to plans by Italian architect Domenico da Cortona, already in the king’s service, for the Chateau Chambord. But work on the 440-room chateau, featuring a double helix staircase design attributed to da Vinci, did not start until after the artist’s death on May 2, 1519.

Francis apparently shed tears when told of da Vinci’s death, ­inspiring paintings that show the artist dying while cradled in the king’s arms. In reality, Francis was likely at least one day’s ride away when da Vinci died.

Francis had taken ownership of the Mona Lisa. The work, described as a favourite of the king, graced the walls of Francis’ grand Apartments des Bains (Royal Baths), at his favourite chateau at Fontainebleau in the 1530s. The luxurious six-room suite consisted of a bathing room and two steam rooms, with three rooms for dressing, relaxing and gaming, all decorated with erotic and mythologically-themed murals and statues of nude nymphs and satyrs.

After helping to finance Giovanni da Verrazzano’s expedition to North America in 1524, when Newfoundland was claimed for the French crown, in 1534 Francis sent Jacques Cartier to explore the St Lawrence River in Quebec.

Despite a reign marred by war, imprisonment and the 1545 massacre of 3000 men, women and children as Vaudois Protestants at Merindol and surrounding villages, before his death in 1547, Francis had acquired works by Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael and ­expanded the royal library.

He had also transformed the Louvre from a gloomy medieval fortress into a Renaissance palace.

marea [e-mail]