The video explores Leonardo da Vinci's remarkable journey as he was commissioned to paint a monumental fresco in Florence, depicting the Battle of Anghiari, where Florentine troops triumphed over the Milanese army. Leonardo's approach to creating his masterpiece was meticulous, involving sketching detailed layouts, modeling soldiers and horses, and envisioning the atmospheric conditions of the scene, including dust and smoke. This dedication to detail reflects his broader artistic philosophy and highlights the complexity of war through his art.

Simultaneously, the rivalry and contrasting personalities of Leonardo and Michelangelo during this period are scrutinized, particularly focusing on Michelangelo's creation of the grand statue of David. While Leonardo grappled with confidence issues, Michelangelo's sculpture became a symbol of Florentine pride, furthering the competitive dynamic between the two maestros. Despite Leonardo's setbacks and the challenges he faced, his work still influenced many artists and carried forward his legacy of portraying the raw reality and chaos of war instead of glorifying it.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. fresco [ˈfrɛskoʊ] - (noun) - A technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid or wet lime plaster. - Synonyms: (mural, painting, art)

That fall, the Republic hired him to paint a monumental fresco to adorn one wall in the city's enormous Grand Council hall.

2. monumental [ˌmɒnjəˈmɛntəl] - (adjective) - Great in importance, extent, or size. - Synonyms: (massive, grand, imposing)

That fall, the Republic hired him to paint a monumental fresco to adorn one wall in the city's enormous Grand Council hall.

3. articulating [ɑrˈtɪkjəˌleɪtɪŋ] - (verb) - Expressing ideas or feelings fluently and coherently. - Synonyms: (expressing, conveying, communicating)

Leonardo was very keen on articulating the pazzia bestialissima, as he calls war.

4. physiognomy [ˌfɪziˈɒnəmi] - (noun) - A person's facial features or expression, especially when regarded as indicative of character or ethnic origin. - Synonyms: (appearance, expression, visage)

And he works very closely at making these comparisons of physiognomy.

5. prickly [ˈprɪkli] - (adjective) - Easily irritated or annoyed. - Synonyms: (irritable, touchy, testy)

The new assignment went to a talented and prickly young artist who, at 29 years old, had already carved several sculptures that would become among the best known works of the Renaissance.

6. pieta [piːˈɛtə] - (noun) - A representation, especially a sculpture, of the Virgin Mary mourning over the dead body of Christ. - Synonyms: (sculpture, statue, depiction)

He'd sculpted a breathtaking marble virgin in Christ called the pieta and signed it an audacious and nearly unheard of gesture in his day.

7. audacious [ɔːˈdeɪʃəs] - (adjective) - Showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks. - Synonyms: (bold, daring, fearless)

He'd sculpted a breathtaking marble virgin in Christ called the pieta and signed it an audacious and nearly unheard of gesture in his day.

8. antithesis [ænˈtɪθəsɪs] - (noun) - A person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else. - Synonyms: (opposite, contrast, converse)

And so it's the complete antithesis of Leonardo.

9. colossal [kəˈlɒsəl] - (adjective) - Extremely large or great. - Synonyms: (huge, enormous, gigantic)

And so Leonardo had had to cope with this great genius who is at the height of his powers and really able to pull off the colossal

10. nihilistic [ˌniːɪˈlɪstɪk] - (adjective) - Rejecting all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless. - Synonyms: (pessimistic, cynical, skeptical)

And I think we feel that there's something almost nihilistic in what survives, what we understand in the Battle of Longhiari.

The Battle of Anghiari and the Michelangelo Renaissance Rivalry - Leonardo da Vinci - PBS

That fall, the Republic hired him to paint a monumental fresco to adorn one wall in the city's enormous Grand Council hall, where members of the ruling Signoria met. It would be three times larger than the Last Supper, commemorating Florence's triumph over Milan on the Plain of Anghiari more than 60 years earlier.

The Battle of Anghiari was a battle just within living memory, in which a heavily outnumbered Florentine troop defeated the Milanese army. And Leonardo was presumably expected to produce a stirring battle scene with ranks of horsemen and bold captains.

He was given a studio in a suite of rooms reserved for papal visits at the Church of Santa Maria Novella, while laborers erected scaffolding and covered his windows to diffuse the light so he could begin his cartoon. Leonardo jotted down compositional ideas, created models of soldiers in wax and filled a notebook with sketches of horses in various poses.

Now, he also gives us a description of how to do a battle, and he describes everything that's going on in the battle. He then says, you've got to calculate the dust in the air and how it's brighter above than below. First you must represent the smoke of artillery mingling in the air with the dust tossed up by the movement of horses and combatants.

The dust, being a thing of earth, has weight. It is the finest part that rises highest, so that part will be least visible and will seem almost the same color as the air. This extraordinary description, how to do a battle, and I've likened it to a visual layout of what you do in a film, and even a film would find it hard to capture all that.

Some might be shown disarmed and beaten down by the enemy, turning upon the foe with teeth and nails to take an inhuman and bitter revenge. You might see some riderless horse rushing among the enemy, his mane flying in the wind and wreaking destruction with his hooves. And there must not be a single spot of flat ground that is not trampled with gore.

Leonardo was very keen on articulating the pazzia bestialissima, as he calls war. It's really madness. And so the horses and the figures begin to have similar expressions of great fierceness. And he works very closely at making these comparisons of physiognomy.

On the 9th of July, 1504, Wednesday at 7 o'clock, died ser Piero da Vinci, notary at the Palazzo del Podesta. My father, aged eight years, leaving behind 10 sons and two daughters. Ser Piero had secured his son Leonardo's apprenticeship in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, and later helped him to get some of his most important commissions.

But there's almost no evidence of how Leonardo felt about his father. There was no will born out of wedlock. He was not entitled by law to any inheritance. His half siblings made sure he received nothing. Leonardo returned to his epic battle scene.

In the late summer of 1504, Florence's Signoria commissioned a second mural for the council's meeting hall. The new assignment went to a talented and prickly young artist who, at 29 years old, had already carved several sculptures that would become among the best known works of the Renaissance.

Michele Agnolo della Revico Buonarroti had briefly been apprenticed to the great Florentine master Ghirlandaio and had enjoyed the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici before moving to Rome, where he'd sculpted a breathtaking marble virgin in Christ called the pieta and signed it an audacious and nearly unheard of gesture in his day.

In a letter to his father, Michelangelo claimed that he had made the impossible possible. He had then returned to Florence, only to find that it was Leonardo whose homecoming was the talk of the town. Michelangelo had pretty brutal personality. He was very solitary, given to moods. I mean, very passionate man, very secretive. And so it's the complete antithesis of Leonardo.

But Michelangelo's next work, a 17 foot tall marble Colossus of David, would become an enduring symbol of civic pride for Florence. Do not make all the muscles in your figures prominent because muscles are not visible unless the limbs in which they are situated are exerting great force. Otherwise you will have depicted a sack of walnuts rather than a human form.

At a meeting to discuss where Michelangelo's statue would be displayed, Leonardo suggested it should be placed in the loggia behind a low wall. The committee disagreed. The David would go outside the main entrance to Florence's city Hall.

Leonardo not only wants to sideline Michelangelo's David, but he wants to sideline Michelangelo as well. And so he's a bit of a dissenting voice in that committee because everyone else is really as they would be impressed by this huge, more than lifesides sculpture, the muscular David.

And so Leonardo had had to cope with this great genius who is at the height of his powers and really able to pull off the colossal. And I do believe that Leonardo had a crisis of confidence. Concerned by Leonardo's slow pace on the Battle of Anghiari, the Republic of Florence demanded that he begin painting right away.

On Friday, at the stroke of the 13th hour, I began painting. As I made the first brush through, the weather turned and the court bell rang. Calling men to judgment. And immediately it began raining and poured until evening, and it was a light night. Leonardo has to get things right.

He looks at nature, and it's a complicated system. Optically, it's complicated. In terms of movement, it's complicated. He wants his painting to do everything. But, of course, to have this level of obeying natural law in all its complexity, to have this ability to deal with movement, the psychological movement and the physical movement, ultimately, it's an impossible agenda.

That fall, just as the central scene of Leonardo's mural had begun to take shape on the west wall of the Council hall, he stopped painting, abandoning yet another commission. It's unlikely Michelangelo ever began the mural he had been assigned to paint on the opposite wall. Only another artist's copy of his cartoon survives.

Florence would eventually hire Giorgio Vasari to replace Leonardo's incomplete painting, but not before other artists were inspired to reproduce his battle scene. What it depicted was the bestiality of war, not the glory and the victory, but this melee of terrified horses and sort of snarling soldiers hacking into each other.

And it's a frightening painting. And I think we feel that there's something almost nihilistic in what survives, what we understand in the Battle of Longhiari, where it seems in the famous image of the two horsemen facing each other down, that doesn't seem to be good versus evil. It doesn't seem to be nobility versus nobility.

It just seems to be violence versus violence. One witness who had seen it praised Leonardo's incomplete effort. Having climbed the stairs of the Great Hall. Look closely at a group of horses and men, part of a battle scene by Leonardo da Vinci. It will strike you as a miraculous thing.

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