Misfits

This free media photo was donated to Wikimedia Commons. by Luc Viatour / www.Lucnix.be

Misfits

Everyone knows this image.

It's one of the most famous images of all time, created by one of the most famous artists of all time. In fact, one dictionary has labeled Leonardo da Vinci the most creative individual EVER. What a title! And yet, in the early beginnings of this artist's life, he was labeled a misfit.
It's not good to reference this artist as 'da vinci' since this is only the province where he was from. Schools tend to skip over the reason why he's named after a province because Leonardo was an illegitimate child. He was deprived of a formal education by the church and state simply because he was born from a mother who did not marry his father.

Notice the writing in this picture seems a little hard to read? That's because it was written backwards. Today, a school teacher might label him dyslexic even though historians chose a fancier name for such a genius called 'mirror writing.' He wouldn't be a misfit today because of his birthright but we still might label him different just because he wrote in a different style and yet, still, we all agree that he was a genius.

The young Leonardo turned his label into a blessing. He was not the holy worshiper that many other artists during the Italian Renaissance were. Instead, Leonardo embraced science which was condemned by the church and often referred to as sacrilegious. Leonardo also identified with medieval people while everyone else in his time was embracing the classical history of the Greeks and Romans. (This is why he references the number three so many times - heaven, hell, earth - body, mind, soul - circle, triangle, square. This was a medieval device used to reference the trinity.)
Leonardo identified with other uneducated misfits like himself. Like Leonardo, the people in the middle ages were illiterate because of circumstances. Medieval manuscripts were so expensive they cost as much as a farm or a vineyard so only the very rich and/or the very holy had access to books. This is why the term medieval is unfortunately associated with ignorance. Like Leonardo, it wasn't their choice to remain ignorant and the people of the middle ages did whatever they could to learn more. So why did Leonardo create this incredible mandala that creates a circle, a square and a triangle from a single human form and then call it "Vitruvian Man?"
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman civil engineer and like Leonardo, he worked for his government designing structures, machines and weaponry. When there were no painting commissions for Leonardo, he did quite well designing weaponry for royal armies. Leonardo was referencing a man of science when science was respected by the government. Since Leonardo lived at a time when science was not respected by the church or the government this was his own way of referencing the classics and also calling attention to a time when science and engineering were valued.

Even though Leonardo was not valued by the church in his humble beginnings, he became so recognized for his skills, even the church began calling on him for commissions.
One allusion leads to another allusion and then to another.
...and then there's my allusion:)