What Leonardo da Vinci Really Looked Like

Leonar­do DaVin­ci was said to be very good look­ing.

This is said by one of DaVin­ci’s con­tem­po­raries of his phys­i­cal appear­ance after his meet­ing DaVin­ci in Pavia: “He was very attrac­tive. Well-pro­por­tioned, grace­ful, and good look­ing. He wore a short rose-pink tunic, knee length at a time when most peo­ple wore long gowns. He had beau­ti­ful curl­ing hair, care­ful­ly styled, which came down to the mid­dle of his chest.”

Accord­ing to Gior­gio Vasari, of his phys­i­cal appear­ance: “In the nor­mal course of events many men and women are born with var­i­ous remark­able qual­i­ties and tal­ents; but occa­sion­al­ly, in a way that tran­scends nature, a sin­gle per­son is mar­vel­lous­ly endowed by heav­en with beau­ty, grace and tal­ent in such abun­dance that he leaves oth­er men far behind… Every­one acknowl­edged that this was true of Leonar­do da Vin­ci, an artist of out­stand­ing phys­i­cal beau­ty who dis­played infi­nite grace in every­thing he did and who cul­ti­vat­ed his genius so bril­liant­ly that all prob­lems he stud­ied were solved with ease. He pos­sessed great strength and dex­ter­i­ty; he was a man of regal spir­it and tremen­dous breadth of mind…” from wikipedia. — think Vig­go Mortensen!!!-

Unlike what most peo­ple are told, DaVin­ci was paint­ed MANY times by his stu­dents, & con­tem­po­raries in Reli­gious Art! His face was “lent” repeat­ed­ly to Christ, God, St. John the Bap­tist, St. Roch, St. Nicholas, and St. Ambrose, and oth­ers. — He was very good look­ing. In the many reli­gious paint­ings by Bernardi­no Lui­ni, he uses the face of his friend and teacher, Leonar­do DaVin­ci. He is hon­ored and immor­tal­ized as Christ, or St. Joseph, and more Catholic saints. This is a fact, but it is not well known.

If you want to see DaVin­ci’s face — look at the works of Bernardi­no Lui­ni and the works of DaVin­ci’s stu­dents!

Maybe one day this will become com­mon knowl­edge… again. But, maybe not — peo­ple want Da Vin­ci to be an athi­et and not to have remained in the Catholic tra­di­tion and cul­ture, of which there is absolute­ly no proof and it is high­ly unlikey since he died in 1519, before the Ref­or­ma­tion. (I am not Catholic to say this)

What a strange and rather hate­ful com­ment to wish Da Vin­ci to be non-Catholic. Every­thing about his life and his work was linked to his faith. In fact if you know your ref­or­ma­tion his­to­ry, they were icon­o­clasts — they not only did not val­ue reli­gious art­work but often destroyed it as can still be seen in Eng­land and Ger­many. I would­n’t wish that on any artist.

Thank you for this. I did­n’t know Leonar­do da Vin­ci looked that good. I mean I thought he looked like the Russ­ian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev who was report­ed to take a bath only on his birth­days.

Plus that last por­trait is too old and wrinkly to be only 63. More like 73 or even old­er.