Was Leonardo da Vinci left handed?

Lists of famous left-handed artists - usually including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, and others - are duly trotted out in support of this assertion, and copied from website to website with little or no justification or questioning. read more

Leonardo da Vinci’s left-handedness is one of the wonderfully distinctive aspects of his draftsmanship, but it is not always prominent. After about 1500 he began to seek more tonal effects that rendered his hatched lines less obvious. read more

The handedness of Leonardo da Vinci: a tale of the complexities of lateralisation. McManus IC(1), Drury H. Author information: (1)Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. i.mcmanus@ucl.ac.uk The handedness of Leonardo da Vinci is controversial. read more

One argument, however, is less fanciful but perhaps more logical: writing in ink from left to right was too messy because Leonardo was a southpaw. Some historians have suggested that da Vinci’s left-handedness added to his genius, because it forced him to think and see in an extraordinary way. read more