It just might be an apocryphal story, but the mastery Leonardo demonstrated early in his apprenticeship to Andrea del Verrocchio foretold the eminent career of one of the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 near Florence in the small Tuscan town of Vinci. The illegitimacy of his birth – the brief fling between his father and mother seems to have occurred while his father was betrothed to another woman – meant that Leonardo received little attention which resulted in a very basic and informal education. He learned the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic, but much of his learning occurred through his own efforts of observation and exploring the new ideas emerging in the Florentine milieu.
It was in 1466 that we first learn of Leonardo in Verrocchio’s studio as a garzone or errand boy. Leonardo’s star rose quickly as told by Vasari in his Lives. He writes about Leonardo:
“He was placed, then, as has been said, in his boyhood, at the instance of Ser Piero, to learn art with Andrea del Verrocchio, who was making a panel-picture of S. John baptizing Christ, when Leonardo painted an angel who was holding some garments; and although he was but a lad, Leonardo executed it in such a manner that his angel was much better than the figures of Andrea; which was the reason that Andrea would never again touch colour, in disdain that a child should know more than he.”
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere (New York: Macmillan, 1913), IV:92
The comparison is stunning. The hair of Verrocchio’s figures is limp and lifeless whereas the hair of Leonardo’s angel is vibrant and light. We rarely see such a contrast in style within one painting that so illustrates the unique hands of master and apprentice. Vasari has a tendency to mythologize the lives of his artists, but there seems to be some veracity in the tale of Verrocchio’s despondency in light of his young protégé. Walter Isaacson writes,
“Afterward Verrocchio never completed any new painting on his own. More to the point, a comparison between the parts of the Baptism of Christ that Leonardo painted with those done by Verrocchio shows why the older artist would have been ready to defer.”
Walter Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci, (Simon & Schuster, 2017), 52
It is not as though Verrocchio was not himself a great master. Vasari devotes a full ten pages to the master whose crowning achievement is probably the bronze statue of David standing on the head of Goliath. It is safe to say that Verrocchio was no slouch. And yet he was awed by the true talent and genius of the youth. In fact, it is likely that the statue of David was modeled on the young Leonardo, indicating an emerging admiration and affection for talented youth.
On Polymaths and Greek Emigres
The greatness of Da Vinci was not the result of one master, but of a multitude of factors. There are two in particular that I would like to trace here. One was the environment of Verrocchio’s studio, a place where multiple ideas were exchanged. Another was the influx of Greek learning that came particularly by way of John Argyropoulos among other Greek emigres after the fall of Constantinople. We’ll explore both of these to understand how our own classrooms can be rich in ideas that promote deep learning.
Leonardo’s father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio at the age of fourteen. Ser Piero, his father, took new interest in his son at around the age of twelve when Albiera – Ser Piero’s wife and Leonardo’s step-mother – died. Leonardo had been living amongst relatives in Vinci, but was then moved to Florence, closer to his father. Noting his talent for drawing, Ser Piero took some of Leonardo’s drawing to Verrocchio, “to tell him whether Leonardo, by devoting himself to drawing, would make any proficience.” (Vasari, 90) This was a momentous occurrence for Leonardo, as Verrocchio’s studio would provide ample sustenance to his mind. He not only would hone his artistic skills, but would be introduced to a panoply of topics under discussion in Florence at the time. Isaacson writes:
“Verrocchio’s workshop, which was nestled in a street near [Ser] Piero’s notarial office, was the perfect place for Leonardo. Verrocchio conducted a rigorous teaching program that involved studying surface anatomy, mechanics, drawing techniques, and the effects of light and shade on material such as draperies.”
Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci, 33
The program of study Leonardo would undertake would give him the guidance and coaching that would lead him to mastery. Here he would accumulate his 10,000 hours of practice under the watchful eye of a master. Isaacson goes on to write:
“An inventory of his [Verrocchio’s] shop showed that it had a dining table, beds, a globe, and a variety of books in Italian. . . .The topics of discussion in his shop included math, anatomy, dissection, antiquities, music, and philosophy.”
Notice how alongside the technical proficiency in their craft, the apprentices were receiving essentially a liberal arts education. Now, they did not have the advantage of receiving this education through formal schooling. As a matter of fact, Leonardo would later attempt to learn Latin on his own, perhaps as a way of bridging the gap to the cultural elite. (Isaacson 32, 34) The point here is to note how the apprenticeship model was not so fixated on technical job skills that it did not provide a wide-ranging learning environment.
The informal education received at Verrocchio’s studio was stimulated by an informal society founded by Cosimo de’ Medici around 1462. The Florence Academy, or more properly the Platonic Academy of Florence, was a discussion group for Florentine intellectuals that centered around Marsilio Ficino who led the group in studying the works of Plato as well as ancient Greek culture. This interest in ancient Greece was sparked in part by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Greek scholars fled the East bringing with them not only their learning but also manuscripts of many important works that had only existed in the West in poor or partial translations.
A prominent scholar-in-residence was John Argyropoulos. Argyropoulos was to Aristotle what Ficino was to Plato, providing translations of such works as the Nichomachean Ethics, Politics and Metaphysics among others. Beyond merely being a leader in the revival of Greek philosophy, Argyropoulos attracted interest in the humanism that was the centerpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It is difficult to trace precisely the lines of influence from Argyropoulos to Leonardo, such that many major biographers leaves these lines untraced. However, it is known that Leonardo frequented the Florence Academy during the time of Argyropoulos’s tenure there. Perhaps the drive to understand the connection between the cosmos and man stems from this philosophical influence.
No other work better expresses the humanist ideal than the Vitruvian Man. Vitruvius was a Roman architect in the 1st century b.c. In his work, De Atrchitectura, he looked at the proportions of the human body and based his architectural principles around them. For instance, he lays out the structure of a temple building based on the proportions of a man laying down:
“The navel is naturally placed in the centre of the human body, and, if in a man lying with his face upward, and his hands and feet extended, from his navel as the centre, a circle be described, it will touch his fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square.”
The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, translated by Joseph Gwilt (London: Priestley and Weale, 1826), III, 1.3
Perhaps this text explains why the central part of the church is called the nave. The dimensions of the typical cruciform basilica are not far off from what Vitruvius envisioned. Now, how this relates to Leonardo is that from his musings on art, architecture, geometry and humanism, we can see a coalescing of these streams of thought in his drawing the “Vitruvian Man.” In Leonardo’s drawing we find a man circumscribed and enclosed in a square. Isaacson, describing the drawing, writes:
“Leonardo’s drawing is meticulously done. His lines are not sketchy and tentative. Instead, he dug hard with his stylus, carving the lines confidently into the page as if he were making an etching. He had planned this drawing very carefully and knew precisely what he was doing.”
Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci, 155
The “Vitruvian Man” was completed in his late thirties. Leonardo was in many ways his own man, pursuing a vast array of interests spanning architecture, painting, drawing, sculpture, and technological inventions. As the epitome of the Renaissance man, we can see the influences of his formal apprenticeship to Verrocchio, but also his apprenticeship in the milieu of Renaissance Florence under the informal tutelage of individuals such as Argyropoulos. What is the measure of a man? This is perhaps a central question in Renaissance humanism. Likewise, the somewhat more problematic question, how is man the measure of all things, drove much of the humanism of the era. At once, man is both the temple of the Holy Spirit, but also the standard by which religion and even God become measured. As a Renaissance man, Leonardo strikes me as someone who wrestled with the vast possibilities humanism provided, but also bore the crushing weight of humanism’s promotion of the human ideal.
pen, brown ink and watercolor over metalpoint on paper
A Well-Rounded Apprenticeship
It might be thought that an apprenticeship is in some ways inferior to or separate from a liberal arts education. In our own day and age, a person apprenticed in a craft is often choosing a different pathway than, say, a college education. This reinforces the idea the apprenticeship and education are at odds with one another. There is further reinforcement of this idea of inferiority and separation when one considers how the ruling classes have been afforded the opportunity to receive a liberal arts education whereas the common man was apprenticed in a skill or trade. We get glimpses of this bifurcation even in Leonardo’s ambition to gain facility in Latin as the elite of his day would have acquired in school. A renewal of apprenticeship in our day might feel like a turn away from the pathway to learning marked by degrees at higher and higher levels.
Yet, if we reconsider what Leonardo’s apprenticeship provided, we would be shortsighted if we reduced his time under the master Verrocchio as merely technical training. His apprenticeship years were indeed a time of cultivating his eyes and hands to create works of architecture, sculpture and painting. The skills Verrocchio passed on were very focused on creating works of art. However, his apprenticeship was so much more than skills training. Verrocchio’s studio allowed for rich conversations from a varied curriculum of books on hand, of the prominent ideas of the day and of deep discussions with patrons and other craftsmen. True, the apprentices in Verrocchio’s studio benefitted from being in Florence, a major center of the Italian Renaissance. But one could envision an approach even at that time and place where apprentices were isolated from such a rich atmosphere by only working on their craft exclusively. Leonardo the philosopher was trained in the studio of Verrocchio while learning his trade. Perhaps the greatness we see in Leonardo is actually not in the well-trained hand of a master artist, but in the well-trained mind of a Renaissance philosopher whose medium tended toward the visual.
I think there are a few key practical considerations to take from this examination of Leonardo’s training as an apprentice under Verrocchio. First, there ought to be some form of training in craftsmanship. I greatly appreciate how Jason Barney has put forward a five-fold division of Aristotle’s techne to include such things as athletics, common and domestic arts, professions, and performing arts in addition to language and mathematical arts. Handwork of any sort – knitting, origami, sketching, woodworking – is a key part of training the whole person. And what I mean by that is not that we train the intellect with subjects such as reading and arithmetic, leaving the physical to exercise and handwork. The intellect is also trained through handwork and physical exercise. There are aspects to our learning that benefit from physical engagement with objects and from movement. So, we need to update our thinking that physical exercise and handwork are not additions to the curriculum, but are essential to a well-rounded curriculum.
Second, a well-rounded education benefits from variety. This variety comes from a plethora of different interests, pursuits and books. Introducing our students to new ideas that might not be on our list of objectives can add the kind of vivacity to our daily work that generates depth of thought. For Leonardo, the interesting books in Verrocchio’s personal library presented him with stimulating pathways for learning. By attending informal learning environments such as the Florence Academy further stimulated his emerging genius. I think it is worth noting that his attendance was neither required, nor did it result in any credential. It was an at-will opportunity to be part of the philosophical movement underway in his local city. Do we value these kinds of impromptu opportunities? Are there local classes or workshops that we can encourage our students to participate in?
Finally, let us picture once more Verrocchio looking over the shoulder of young Leonardo. Leonardo is the one in the act of painting and the master is coaching, instructing, at times demonstrating, but the work of active learning and practice remains with the apprentice. This is an approach to learning that differs from the way we grew up learning in the modern classroom. It can be difficult to apply this approach in all subjects, but when we consider how the liberal arts are just that, arts, then I think we really need to ensure that the work of learning rests on the student.
I conclude by taking us much later in Leonardo’s career. He too developed a studio inviting young apprentices to learn from him. Francesco Melzi stands out as an apprentice demonstrating real talent. Even though many of his pupils struggled to produce works of enduring quality, living as they did in the shadow of one of the greatest artists of all time, the process remained the same. Enabling the younger artists opportunities to practice their craft under the watchful eye of the master. One can see in Melzi’s style the hallmarks of his master. There is a stiffness to his work that differs from the gracefulness of Leonardo’s figures. Yet, the aspiring young Melzi was still able to produce a few works that have passed the test of time.
The enduring value of apprenticeship is that it leads to mastery. In this new post-industrial economy the kind of training that leads to independence of thought and work will depend on the renewal of this approach to learning.
