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and accepted an offer made by the 22-year- old French King, François I, of permanent patronage in France. (In making this offer, François was supported and encouraged by his highly educated and worldly mother, Louise, and sister, Marguerite). François bestowed on Leonardo the titles of “Premier Painter, Engineer and Architect of the King.” He offered Leonardo a significant annual stipend and the use of the beautiful home at Clos Lucé. François paid for Leonardo’s staff, which included

centenary. My mother was born inMay, 1919 (an eventful year: think Women’s Suffrage, Prohibition, and League of Nations). She died of cancer way too young at 64 in 1983. She was fascinated by Leonardo. I had the pleasure of seeing the Last Supper in Milan with her in 1971 (when there were no crowds, no advance tickets needed, and my father just parked the rental car in front of the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery and we walked right in…Try doing that today!). It strikes me as mind-and-time-bending to think that my mother, who I perceive as so modern, so 20 th century, was actually born one-fifth of the historical continuum back to the last days of Leonardo in Amboise. Finally, I spent a significant chunk of the last 15 years thinking about Leonardo, researching his life, studying his paintings,

his dutiful assistant Francesco Melzi, his on-again, off-again secretary/assistant (and sometimes lover) Salai, Leonardo’s vegetarian chef, and a variety of others who traveled by mule with Leonardo over the Alps from Italy to Amboise in 1516. The traveling party brought three of Leonardo’s masterpieces with them, as well as paints, pigments, and art supplies then unknown in France. François imposed no requirement on Leonardo to work, only the hope that he would enliven the cultural level of the court

interviewing art historians, and tracking down all manner of theories about him. These activities were in the course of writing half a dozen critical guidebooks to the fiction of Dan Brown, starting with our 2004 book, Secrets of the Code , a collection of essays and interviews with experts about The Da Vinci Code . Unlike Dan Brown’s books, our books were non-fiction. But despite my years of work on Leonardo, I still have a lot of unanswered questions. It is said that Leonardo died in the arms of his great friend and patron, François I, at Amboise on May 2, 1519. A painting by the French artist Ingres (three centuries after the fact) records the scene beautifully, mythically. It probably didn’t happen that way. François seems to have been out of town on the day Leonardo died. But the King’s appreciation of Leonardo’s genius was so fervent that he wanted it recorded for history that the great man whom he called “father,” took his last

CLOCKWISE FROMTOP LEFT: LEONARDO’SWORKSHOP HAS BEEN RE- CREATED AND DECORATEDWITH ITEMS THAT HEWOULD HAVE USED. THESE DRAWINGS HAVE BEEN REPRODUCED AS AUTHENTICALLY AS POSSIBLE FROM LEONARDO’S NOTEBOOKS AND OTHER DRAWINGS. “THE DEATH OF LEONARDO DAVINCI” “FRANCIS I RECEIVES THE LAST BREATHS OF LEONARDO DAVINCI” IS AN 1818 PAINTING BY THE FRENCH ARTIST JEAN AÚGUSTE DOMINIQUE INGRES, SHOWING THE PAINTER LEONARDO DAVINCI DYING, WITH FRANCIS I OF FRANCE HOLDING HIS HEAD. ITWAS COMMISSIONED BY THE PIERRE LOUIS JEAN CASIMIR DE BLACAS, THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN ROME, AND NOW HANGS IN THE PETIT PALAIS IN PARIS. THIS COPY OF THE INGRES PAINTING HANGS IN CLOS LUCÉ. THE CHÂTEAU DU CLOS LUCÉ (OR SIMPLY CLOS LUCÉ) IS A LARGE CHÂTEAU IN THE CITY OF AMBOISE, FRANCE. LEONARDO DAVINCI LIVED HERE FROM 1516 UNTIL HIS DEATH IN 1519. IT IS NOWTHE MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE CLOS LUCÉ. THIS ISWHERE THE ROYALSWOULDWATCH THE FESTIVALS - THE COURT AND ITS LADIESWOULD SIT IN THIS ELEGANT GALLERY TOWATCH THE TOURNAMENTS, PARTIES, FESTIVITIES THAT LEONARDO ORGANIZED FOR THE KING.

and help François launch a French version of the Italian Renaissance. Leonardo’s Amboise experience was intended to be a time to look back on all he had done in his life, create new ideas and new works if he wanted to, and mentor an ambitious young warrior-king who wanted to build a new highly cultured civilization in France, all expenses paid. Second, we are traveling to Amboise just in advance of the 500 th anniversary hoopla for Leonardo. 2019 has a special significance for me, because it will also be my mother’s

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