But Leonardo lacked his masterвЂ™s rapid power of execution and organizational skills. Verrocchio, a true Renaissance man, shared LeonardoвЂ™s wide breadth of interests and eclectic talent. His difficulties with focusing became even more evident later in adolescence, when he moved from the small village of Vinci to Florence in the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio. вЂin learning and in the rudiments of letters he would have made great proficiency, if he had not been so variable and unstable, for he set himself to learn many things, and then, after having begun them, abandoned them.вЂ™ ( Vasari, 1996).

LeonardoвЂ™s chronic struggle to distill his extraordinary creativity into concrete results and deliver on commitments was proverbial in his lifetime and present since early childhood: The excessive time dedicated to idea planning and the lack of perseverance seems to have been particularly detrimental to finalize tasks that at first had attracted his enthusiasm. The story of Da Vinci is one of a paradox-a great mind that has compassed the wonders of anatomy, natural philosophy and art, but also failed to complete so many projects ( Freud, 1922 Kemp, 2006). According to his first biographer Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo died lamenting вЂthat he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have doneвЂ™ ( Vasari, 1996 Nicholl, 2004 Vecce, 2006).

But some of the words written about Leonardo after he died at Clos-LucГ© in France on, hint at a very different man to the one many of us presume to know. Leonardo the artist, the scientist, the architect, the inventor, whose genius has been perceived as the allure of an unfathomable riddle. Five hundred years have passed since the death of Leonardo da Vinci, and much has been written about him.

71squared deep dreamer stopped working