Influence and Implications of Renaissance Humanism in Leonardo da Vinci’s Paragone

Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise on artistic practice, the Paragone, placed within the wider context of the development of European intellectual and artistic thought, may be considered to be a continuation of a broader humanist movement within the Renaissance period. This assertion, however, is only accurate in part; closer examination of the detail of Leonardo’s work re-veals a twofold nature, reflecting the corresponding duality of the renaissance conception of humanism. On the one hand, Leonardo’s treatise appears to radicalise existing humanist concerns, in particular the emphasis upon the conception of the human being, as opposed to divinity, as the immanent centre of knowledge. Yet the text simultaneously adheres to an implicit condition of renaissance humanism, which consented to the ultimate superiority of the Divine, at the expense of the human being. The object of this study is to examine the radical quality of Leonardo’s Paragone, both socially and intellectually, within the context of an ultimately inhibiting epistemology.