Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Is this Leonardo?

Friday, October 29th, 2004

Is this Leonardo? asks, What did Leonardo da Vinci really look like?:

He was a handsome man. An eyewitness in Florence describes him thus: ‘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.’ There are nuances of fashion and sociology in this that are hard to catch, but the essential image is of someone very elegantly turned out, a bit of a dandy.

Indeed, I’ve heard that Leonardo was a bit of a…dandy.

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