Leonardo Da Vinci: Renaissance Man
Born
on a Saturday, third hour of night
With
Tuscan hills bathed in the star spangled light
Ser
Piero’s great pride and Vinci’s great joy
He
was Chaterina’s illegitimate boy
At
sixteen, he followed the
And
joined as apprentice to Verrocchio
To
learn to perfect the painter’s high trade
Of
capturing light and harnessing shade
He
started by painting a tranquil glade scene,
Then
the Madonnas and the pose of Benci,
The
Magi adored, the penitent Saint –
All
brought back to life on his canvass with paint
At
thirty he travelled to the city Milano
An
envoy in chief for the ruler Lorenzo
He
was sent to the court of his patron il Moro
To
give him a glimpse through the veil of tomorrow
In a
letter, he made his offer prodigious –
From
building of weapons to laying of bridges
Even
a lyre from a horse-skull and strings –
In
his words: “An infinite variety of things”
For
seventeen years he stayed in that quarter
Designing new ways to regulate water
While filling his days with Paragone theses
Of
legends and myths and fantasy species
At
Paradise Feast, the heavens displayed
With
magical motion effects that he made;
And
a three-tier city was part of his plan,
As
was his great wheel of Vetruvius man
He
pictured the Virgin on bleak rocky shore
And
captured an artist with his music score,
Then
Cecelia posing with snow-white ermine,
Before re-enacting the last supper scene
His
equine colossus was sculpted from clay
His
Platonic drawings on published display
His
thoughts and ideas in codexes bound
His
paintings commissioned to bless holy ground
From
Montefeltro to
From
Leo the Tenth to Louis the First -
They
all were enchanted by his mental thirst
As
architect, engineer, artist and sage
Biologist, scientist ahead of his age
Inventor of unbelievable things
An
unsurpassed genius, this legend of wings
He
towers above the landscape of time
With
brilliant ideas and visions sublime
Still no one can fathom the depths of his guile
Or
unlock the secret of Mona’s half smile
And
even though five hundred years have gone by
He
calls us to stretch out our mind-wings and fly
To
join in the journey that he once began
And walk in the steps of the Renaissance Man
Copyright 2008
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