Vinci Glossary

Definitions for the key art techniques, manuscript terms, and Renaissance concepts used throughout this site. Each entry includes etymology, Leonardo's own usage, visual examples, and links to related pages.

25 Terms Art & Technique Manuscript Language Attribution

Attribution

The scholarly process of determining which artist created or contributed to a work — documentary, stylistic, and technical evidence weighed together.

Camera Obscura

A dark chamber or box in which an external image is projected through a small aperture — a key analogy for the eye in Leonardo's visual science.

Cartoon (Art)

A full-scale preparatory drawing used to transfer a composition to panel or wall — often pricked and pounced with charcoal dust.

Chiaroscuro

The dramatic use of contrasting light and shadow to model three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional surface.

Codex

A bound manuscript book — the form used by Leonardo for his notebooks, distinguishing them from scrolls.

Contrapposto

A standing pose in which the body weight shifts to one leg, creating opposing rotations in the torso and pelvis — used throughout Renaissance figure painting.

Disegno

Drawing as both craft skill and intellectual concept — Renaissance theorists debated whether disegno or colore was the true foundation of painting.

Folio

A single leaf of a manuscript or codex. Leonardo's notebook citations use folio numbers, with recto (r) for the front and verso (v) for the back.

Foreshortening

The representation of an object or figure as shorter than it actually is because it extends away from the viewer — a key perspective challenge in figure drawing.

Fresco

Mural painting on fresh wet plaster — pigments bond permanently as the plaster dries. Leonardo deliberately avoided true fresco for the Last Supper, with disastrous results.

Gesso

A chalk and glue ground applied to panels before painting — provides a smooth, brilliant white base for tempera or oil layers.

Glazing

Applying thin translucent layers of oil paint over dried underlayers — used by Leonardo to build depth of tone and achieve sfumato transitions.

Imprimatura

A thin, often translucent first layer of paint applied over the gesso ground to tone the panel — establishes the mid-tone for subsequent layers.

Infrared Reflectography

Imaging technique that penetrates paint layers to reveal underdrawings and pentimenti — central to modern technical art history and attribution studies.

Leonardeschi

Painters trained in or directly influenced by Leonardo's workshop — including Boltraffio, Salaì, Marco d'Oggiono, and Cesare da Sesto.

Mirror Script

Leonardo's characteristic right-to-left handwriting, readable only in a mirror — written naturally as a left-hander, possibly for privacy or habit.

Paragone

The Renaissance debate comparing the arts — particularly painting versus sculpture, and painting versus poetry. Leonardo argued forcefully for painting's supremacy.

Pentimento

A visible alteration in a painting where the artist changed their mind — from the Italian pentirsi, "to repent." Revealed by infrared imaging and X-ray.

Quattrocento

Italian for "the 1400s" — the 15th century, during which Leonardo was born (1452) and came of age as an artist. Characterized by the early Renaissance's revival of classical forms.

Recto / Verso

The front (recto, abbreviated r) and back (verso, abbreviated v) of a manuscript folio — used in all scholarly citations of Leonardo's notebooks.

Sfumato

Leonardo's signature technique — soft, smoky transitions between tones without hard contour lines. The name derives from the Italian fumo, "smoke."

Sfumatura

The broader process of subtle tonal gradation — sfumato is its most famous application, but sfumatura describes Leonardo's whole approach to tonal modeling.

Sgraffito

A technique of scratching through a surface layer to reveal the layer beneath — used in wall decoration and occasionally in panel painting to create textural effects.

Tempera

Paint using egg yolk as the binder — fast-drying, brilliant, and precise. The dominant medium before oil paint; Leonardo used it for the Last Supper (unconventionally, on dry wall).

Underdrawing

A preliminary drawing made on the prepared panel or canvas beneath the paint layers — in Leonardo's works often executed in black chalk or a liquid medium, revealed by infrared imaging.

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