Historical Figures’ Salaries In Gold: Leonardo Da Vinci

Region VII, Chile ~ Among the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci’s “La Scapigliata” stands out distinctly from the rest.

The unfinished painting is of a common woman with disheveled hair. It’s remarkable particularly for depicting not the exceptional, but the real.

Part of da Vinci’s genius was the way he was able to capture life—genuine, unaffected reality, often intense detail. His notebooks reflect the same.

Leonardo, in fact, passed on to posterity great details of his finances. We know, for example, that around the time he painted La Scapigliata in the early 1500s, the great master was living in Milan and earning a salary directly from the king.

Leonardo’s journals state that in a ten-month period, he was paid a total of 240 scudi and 200 florins from the king.

The Italian gold scodo at the time was 3.42 grams of gold, and the florin was 3.54 grams. As of today’s gold price, that adds up to an annualized salary of $72,153.24.

Bear in mind, this was Leonardo’s ‘take home pay’ as there was no income tax, meaning his gross salary in today’s world would be just over $100,000 to account for income tax and FICA.

If we were to extend this analogy even further, given that Leonardo was on the government payroll back then as an artist/engineer, we can look up the US government employee pay scale today.

Da Vinci was an accomplished professional to say the least. His age, experience, and job title in the early 1500s would make him the equivalent of a GS-13 rank today (based on current US government pay scale). Continue reading

The Medici – Godfathers Of The Renaissance [Video]

Tsenka Stoycheva July 24 2012

From a small Italian community in 15th century Florence, the Medici family would rise to rule Europe in many ways. Using charm, patronage, skill, duplicity and ruthlessness, they would amass unparalleled wealth and unprecedented power. They would also ignite the most important cultural and artisitc revolution in Western history- the European Renaissance. But the forces of change the Medici helped unleash would one day topple their ordered world.

Part 2 [~55 minutes] | Part 3 [~55 minutes] | Part 4 [~55 minutes]