The Renaissance

other countries of northern Europe were
breaking away from the church.

Leo also provided for his family, work-
ing to secure them leadership of wealthy
cities in Italy. He named his cousin Giulio
as the archbishop of Florence and fought
an all-out war against the city of Urbino
in order to replace the Duke of Urbino
with Leo’s nephew Lorenzo. His actions
angered many Roman cardinals, and even
inspired a failed plot to assassinate him.
Leo responded by having several cardinals
poisoned and by blackmailing others. In
1517, he made a clean sweep of the college
of cardinals, appointing thirty-one new
members, many of whom he appointed
simply to secure money or political influ-
ence.

At the same time, the greed and cor-
ruption of Leo’s administration was in-
spiring a movement for reform in Ger-
many. Martin Luther, a German monk and
scholar, was denying the authority of the
church and spreading his ideas rapidly
and effectively through the new medium
of printing. Leo excommunicated Luther
in 1521 and had him summoned to the
Diet of Worms, but Leo’s orders and
instructions to Luther to recant his writ-
ings met with defiance. Shortly after
this, the pope died of a sudden attack
of malaria. His term as pope is remem-
bered for its generous patronage of the
arts but also for disastrous management
that allowed the Protestant Reformation
to gain widespread support, permanently
dividing the Christian community of
Europe.

SEEALSO: Alexander VI; Francis I; Raphael

Leonardo da Vinci ...........................

(1452–1519)

Painter, engineer, scientist, and inventor
who mastered many fields of study and

has become a world-renowned figure of

the Renaissance. Da Vinci’s artworks had a

profound influence on the painters of his

time; his many inventions—including the

helicopter, bicycle, and parachute—were

inspired by a lifelong investigation into the

properties of motion, force, and gravity.

He is still regarded as the archetypal Re-

naissance Man, an individual of profound

creative genius and wide-ranging scientific

curiosity.

Born near the town of Vinci, west of

Florence, Leonardo was the illegitimate son

of a notary and a peasant woman. He

showed a talent for drawing and composi-

tion very early in his life and, at the age of

fifteen, was sent to Florence as an appren-

tice in the workshop of Andrea del Verroc-

chio. He met the leading painters of the

Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece the “Mona

Lisa” is one of the world’s most famous

works of art. NEWYORKPUBLICLIBRARYPIC-

TURECOLLECTION.

Leonardo da Vinci