At the time of the Roman conquest, the province was inhabited by the Vettones and Callaici; it afterwards formed part of Hispania Tarraconensis. Among the Christian kingdoms which arose in Spain as the Moorish invasion of the 8th century receded, Leon was one of the oldest. The title of king of Leon was first assumed by Ordoño in 913. Ferdinand I. (the Great) of Castile united the crowns of Castile and Leon in the 11th century; the two were again separated in the 12th, until a final union took place (1230) in the person of St Ferdinand. The limits of the kingdom varied with the vicissitudes of war, but roughly speaking it may be said to have embraced what are now the provinces of Leon, Palencia, Valladolid, Zamora and Salamanca. For a detailed account of this kingdom, see Spain: History. The captaincy-general of the province of Leon before 1833 included Leon, Zamora and Salamanca. The Leonese, or inhabitants of these three provinces, have less individuality, in character and physique, than the people of Galicia, Catalonia or Andalusia, who are quite distinct from what is usually regarded as the central or national Spanish type, i.e. the Castilian. The Leonese belong partly to the Castilian section of the Spaniards, partly to the north-western section which includes the Galicians and Asturians. They have comparatively few of the Moorish traits which are so marked in the south and east of Spain. Near Astorga there dwells a curious tribe, the Maragatos, sometimes considered to be a remnant of the original Celtiberian inhabitants. As a rule the Maragatos earn their living as muleteers or carriers; they wear a distinctive costume, mix as little as possible with their neighbours and do not marry outside their own tribe.
LEON, an episcopal see and the capital of the Spanish province of Leon, situated on a hill 2631 ft. above sea-level, in the angle made by the Torio and Bernesga, streams which unite on the south, and form the river Leon, a tributary of the Esla. Pop. (1900) 15,580. Leon is on the main railway from Madrid to Oviedo, and is connected with Astorga by a branch line. The older quarters of the city, which contain the cathedral and other medieval buildings, are surrounded by walls, and have lost little of their beauty and interest from the restoration carried out in the second half of the 19th century. During the same period new suburbs grew up outside the walls to house the industrial population which was attracted by the development of iron-founding and the manufacture of machinery, railway-plant, chemicals and leather. Leon thus comprises two towns—the old, which is mainly ecclesiastical in its character, and the new, which is industrial. The cathedral, founded in 1199 and only finished at the close of the 14th century, is built of a warm cream-coloured stone, and is remarkable for simplicity, lightness and strength. It is one of the finest examples of Spanish Gothic, smaller, indeed, than the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, but exquisite in design and workmanship. The chapter library contains some valuable manuscripts. The collegiate church of San Isidoro was founded by Ferdinand I. of Castile in 1063 and consecrated in 1149. Its architecture is Romanesque. The church contains some fine plate, including the silver reliquary in which the bones of St Isidore of Seville are preserved, and a silver processional cross dating from the 16th century, which is one of the most beautiful in the country. The convent and church of San Marcos, planned in 1514 by Ferdinand the Catholic, founded by Charles V. in 1537, and consecrated in 1541, are Renaissance in style. They are built on the site of a hostel used by pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. The provincial museum occupies the chapterhouse and contains some interesting Roman monuments. The lower part of the city walls consists of Roman masonry dating from the 3rd century. Other buildings are the high school, ecclesiastical seminaries, hospital, episcopal palace and municipal and provincial halls.
Leon (Arab. Liyun) owes its name to the Legio Septima Gemina of Galba, which, under the later emperors, had its headquarters here. About 540 Leon fell into the hands of the Gothic king Leovigild, and in 717 it capitulated to the Moors. Retaken about 742, it ultimately, in the beginning of the 10th century, became the capital of the kingdom of Leon (see Spain: History). About 996 it was taken by Almansur, but on his death soon afterwards it reverted to the Spaniards. It was the seat of several ecclesiastical councils, the first of which was held under Alphonso V. in 1012 and the last in 1288.
LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452–1519), the great Italian painter,
sculptor, architect, musician, mechanician, engineer and natural
philosopher, was the son of a Florentine lawyer, born out of
wedlock by a mother in a humble station, variously described
as a peasant and as of gentle birth. The place of his birth
was Vinci, a castello or fortified hill village in the Florentine
territory near Empoli, from which his father’s family derived
its name. The Christian name of the father was Piero (the
son of Antonio the son of Piero the son of Guido, all of whom
had been men of law like their descendant). Leonardo’s mother
was called Catarina. Her relations with Ser Piero da Vinci
seem to have come to an end almost immediately upon the birth
of their son. She was soon afterwards married to one Accattabriga
di Piero del Vacca, of Vinci. Ser Piero on his part was
four times married, and had by his last two wives nine sons and
two daughters; but he had from the first acknowledged the
boy Leonardo and brought him up in his own house, principally,
no doubt, at Florence. In that city Ser Piero followed his
profession with success, as notary to many of the chief families in
the city, including the Medici, and afterwards to the signory or
governing council of the state. The son born to him before
marriage grew up into a youth of shining promise. To splendid
beauty and activity of person he joined a winning charm of
temper and manners, a tact for all societies, and an aptitude for
all accomplishments. An inexhaustible intellectual energy and
curiosity lay beneath this amiable surface. Among the
multifarious pursuits to which the young Leonardo set his hand,
the favourites at first were music, drawing and modelling. His
father showed some of his drawings to an acquaintance, Andrea
del Verrocchio, who at once recognized the boy’s artistic vocation,
and was selected by Ser Piero to be his master.
Verrocchio, although hardly one of the great creative or inventive forces in the art of his age at Florence, was a first-rate craftsman alike as goldsmith, sculptor and painter, and particularly distinguished as a teacher. In his studio Leonardo worked for several years (about 1470–1477) in the company of Lorenzo di Credi and other less celebrated pupils. Among his contemporaries he formed special ties of friendship with the painters Sandro Botticelli and Pietro Perugino. He had soon learnt all that Verrocchio had to teach—more than all, if we are to believe the oft-told tale of the figure, or figures, executed by the pupil in the picture of Christ’s Baptism designed by the master for the monks of Vallombrosa. The work in question is now in the Academy at Florence. According to Vasari the angel kneeling on the left, with a drapery over the right arm, was put in by Leonardo, and when Verrocchio saw it his sense of its superiority to his own work caused him to forswear painting for ever after. The latter part of the story is certainly false. The picture, originally painted in tempera, has suffered much from later repaints in oil, rendering exact judgment difficult. The most competent opinion inclines to acknowledge the hand of Leonardo, not only in the face of the angel, but also in parts of the drapery and of the landscape background. The work was probably done in or about 1470, when Leonardo was eighteen years old. By 1472 we find him enrolled in the lists of the painters’ gild at Florence. Here he continued to live and work for ten or eleven years longer. Up till 1477 he is still spoken of as a pupil or apprentice of Verrocchio; but in that year he seems to have been taken into special favour by Lorenzo the Magnificent, and to have worked as an independent artist under his patronage until 1482–1483. In 1478 we find him receiving an important commission from the signory, and in 1480 another from the monks of San Donato in Scopeto.
Leonardo was not one of those artists of the Renaissance who sought the means of reviving the ancient glories of art mainly in the imitation of ancient models. The antiques of the Medici gardens seem to have had little influence on him beyond that of generally stimulating his passion for perfection. By his own instincts he was an exclusive student of nature.
