Leonardo was the 'universal Man who personified the flowering of human achievement known as the Renaissance', (Bramly, 1994). He painted the most famous painting in the world, Mona Lisa. He had problems with attention and concentration, often did not finish things. He was easily distracted. He had difficulty completing tasks. He was often moving from one activity to another. He moved a lot from place to place and was somewhat hyperactive. He showed a lack of motivation to complete tasks. He tended to move on a lot between art and science. He did move abruptly from one task to another, because this movement from one thing to another was what helped him to bring things together. White (2000) 'the many confused strands of human knowledge and lent a logic and cohesion to what he understood of the world'. The ADHD was critical for him becoming a polymath. Indeed, he would be seen as primarily a scientist and secondly as a painter. Leonardo 'got bored and distracted very easily, especially when a project became routine rather than creative', (Isaacson, 2020). White (2000) sees Leonardo as an 'untamable eccentric, a risk-taker, a man who strayed very close to the edge of heresy and necromancy, a man gifted in so many ways, it was almost impossible for him to settle upon anything that fascinated him or one skill above others'. Catani and Mazzarello (2019) discussed the issue of grey matter in Leonardi da Vinci: a genius driven to distraction. They pointed out that he had problems with 'procrastination', 'time management', was 'constantly on the go', 'jumped from task to task'.
Writing:
Bramly (1994) stated that Leonardo 'wrote backwards from right to left with inverted characters, so his manuscripts have to be read with a mirror … a trait commonly found in left handed people'. Schott (1979) proposed that 'Leonardo’s language skills were lateralized to the more unusual right hemisphere'.
Parents:
His father had a child, Leonardo, outside of wedlock by a neighbour. His mother, aged 16, Catriona, later married a local farmer and moved to live locally. His father was a notary. His mother moved away from his grandparents when Leonardo was three years old. She was in the neighbourhood, nevertheless. His mother lived nearby after her marriage. Leonardo was somewhat a loner in following his own company. He was brought before a Court for sodomy – the case was dismissed. He might have been set up. He had identity diffusion. He was an anti-sexuality person. He was poor and showed poor financial management, as people with ADHD often do. His uncle, Francesco also helped with his early education (White, 2000). He did not have a formal university education which would have filled his head with scholastic nonsense. He was lucky to have avoided this. He was a highly successful apprentice painter. He was a fashionable dresser. He was a very independent student and independent person in later life.
Childhood:
Being born out of wedlock had serious implications for life chances, including education and work. Leonardo was brought up by his grandparents and had a 'solitary childhood' (White, 2000). Sigmund Freud wrote a very poor paper on Leonardo mentioning a vulture rather than a kite and giving a convoluted and bizarre explanation of Leonardo’s homosexuality and creativity. This did serious damage to psychoanalysis and still does today. His uncle, Francesco, who was '16 years Leonardo’s senior, who lived for many years in the family home and was very close to Leonardo' (White, 2000). Francesco made Leonardo very interested in landscape, which stayed with him throughout his life. Leonardo possibly got a basic education at a local school, but this is disputed. He was apprenticed to Verrocchio, a painter, around puberty.
Science work:
His method was to 'consult experience first and then with reasoning, show why such experience is bound to operate in such a way', (Isaacson, 2020). White (2000) sees him as 'the first scientist'. He had antedated much later scientists, for example, Newton. He was an experimenter and engineer and always very autodidactic. He showed the characteristics of pure genius in his scientific work including engineering projects and mechanical projects. He was very interested in the overlap between disciplines in anatomy, architecture and mathematics. He was not interested in a 'singular discourse like an autistic artist'. He was brilliant in every discipline he took an interest in. He could hyperfocus on work for a very long period, like Newton (Fitzgerald & O’Brien, 2007). He would even forget to eat. He did dissection of corpses and anatomical work.
Mona Lisa:
This is the most famous painting in the world. The lady with the enigmatic smile. Certainly, Leonardo himself was enigmatic. There is a question about whether Mona Lisa’s face reflects his enigmatic personality. Mona Lisa only became famous after it was stolen from the Louvre in Paris. Alan Yentob (Brooks, 2003), claims Mona Lisa was probably 'pregnant'.
Leonardo wanted to 'know everything' and was massively observant. He suffered anxiety and depression. He was anti-authority. He had identity diffusion and was probably a practicing homosexual. He was fascinated by music, both composition and performance. He does not appear to have related well to the Medici, the rulers of Florence. This inhibited his career. He was somewhat arrogant and narcissistic and didn’t follow contracts he made, correctly. This led to conflicts including legal conflicts. Leonardo was 'misanthropic', had a 'suppressed hatred for humanity', (White, 2000). He saw humans as 'latrine fillers', (White, 2000). Paradoxically, he was detail focused in his own terms. He was hyperkinetic and 'a ceaseless wanderer among the avenues and byways of knowledge', (White, 2000). White (2000) points out that Leonardo was 'paranoid, constantly afraid his ideas would be stolen, and his work plagiarized' and employed 'codes and ciphers' in his notebooks. He saw the world and people as rather dangerous. He was a suspicious character. He felt safer and not threatened by a 10 year old boy, Sali, who he took on and kept with him for the rest of his life. Sali was early on, a conduct disordered boy but this interested Leonardo. He was more interested in understanding problems than continuing to sort them out to their conclusion. Leonardo was a kind of 'magpie', (White, 2000). Leonardo was a compulsive note-taker and list-maker. He had obsessive compulsive traits. He had no problem in working with tyrants and doing engineering work for them. Leonardo said, 'I would prefer death to inactivity', (White, 2000). Michelangelo (Arshad & Fitzgerald, 2004) was envious of Leonardo, (White, 2000). Michelangelo shouted an insult at Leonardo on one occasion. Leonardo developed a reputation for 'unreliability', (White, 2000).
Conclusion:
Leonardo da Vinci painted the most famous painting in the world, Mona Lisa. Michael White sees him as the First Scientist. Indeed, he seemed more interested in science then art. He was one of the greatest men of the Renaissance. He had neurodevelopmental disorders, (Fitzgerald, 2004) which are very common in great creators, including ADHD.
- Michael Fitzgerald, Former Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
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