Around 1482, Leonardo da Vinci wrote a letter to Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan, offering his services. It is often called "Leonardo's résumé", and it is a surprising read. Of the roughly ten numbered skills he lists, nearly all are about war: portable bridges, siege methods, cannon, armoured vehicles and naval defences. Only near the end does he mention architecture, sculpture and, almost in passing, that he can paint as well as anyone.
Below is a plain-English summary of what the letter offers, the story behind it, what happened after Leonardo reached Milan, and what the letter can still teach anyone pitching their own skills.
Who Leonardo was when he wrote it
Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452, in or near the Tuscan town of Vinci, the son of the Florentine notary Piero da Vinci and a young woman named Caterina. His parents were not married. Illegitimate sons were generally shut out of their father's guild, so the respectable path of becoming a notary was probably never open to him, and he was sent instead into the world of craft.
As a teenager he joined the Florentine workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, first as a studio boy and then as an apprentice. Verrocchio's shop produced paintings, sculpture, metalwork and more, which gave Leonardo a broad, hands-on training. By his late twenties he was an established painter in Florence, but commissions there were competitive, and several of his projects were left unfinished.
In 1482 he moved to Milan, a wealthy court run by Ludovico Sforza, known as "il Moro". According to early accounts, he arrived carrying a silver string instrument shaped like a horse's head, a lute or lyre he had made himself, as a gift. The letter belongs to the same moment: a newcomer trying to win the attention of a powerful patron.
What the letter actually offers
The text survives as a draft, generally identified with a page in the Codex Atlanticus, the large collection of Leonardo papers kept in Milan. Scholars usually describe it as written out in another hand rather than in Leonardo's famous mirror script, so it may have been prepared with a secretary's help. Whether a final copy was ever delivered is not known.
The letter opens by saying he has studied the war machines of the self-declared masters of the craft and found nothing new in them. He then promises to reveal his own "secrets" to the duke. In summary, the numbered points offer:
- Light, strong bridges that are easy to carry, for chasing an enemy or retreating, plus ways to burn the enemy's bridges.
- Methods for draining moats during a siege and building bridges, protective screens and scaling ladders.
- Ways to destroy a fortress even when cannon fire cannot reach it, unless it stands on solid rock.
- Small, easily moved cannon that throw stones like hail and frighten troops with their smoke.
- Silent tunnels and winding underground passages, even under rivers and moats.
- Covered, armoured vehicles that could break through enemy lines with infantry following behind.
- Well-designed cannon, mortars and light artillery unlike the usual kind.
- Catapults, mangonels, trebuchets and other throwing machines where guns would not work.
- Ships and devices for sea battles that could resist heavy cannon fire.
- In peacetime, architecture for public and private buildings and systems for moving water from place to place.
After the list he adds that he can sculpt in marble, bronze and clay, and that in painting he can do whatever anyone else can. He offers to work on a great bronze horse in memory of Ludovico's father, Francesco Sforza, and ends by inviting anyone who doubts him to a live demonstration in the duke's park.
Why a famous painter led with weapons
Modern readers often find the emphasis strange. Leonardo is remembered for the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, not for cannon. But in 1482 Italy was a patchwork of rival states, and Milan faced real military threats. A ruler like Ludovico needed engineers more urgently than he needed another portrait painter, and Leonardo wrote for his reader.
The claims were also ambitious. Leonardo had sketched many machines, but there is little evidence that, at the time of writing, he had built or tested most of what he describes. The letter is a confident pitch, not a record of finished work. His notebooks from the following years are full of drawings of fortifications, crossbows, armoured cars and canal systems, which shows he took the subject seriously even when designs stayed on paper.
What happened after he reached Milan
The pitch worked, at least in part. Leonardo spent most of the next eighteen years in Milan. Ludovico used him on engineering projects and court spectacles, and Leonardo produced some of his greatest art there, including The Last Supper in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie.
The bronze horse from the letter became the project known as the Gran Cavallo. Leonardo completed a full model and detailed plans for casting what would have been the largest equestrian statue of its time. It was never cast. In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze that had been set aside for it to his brother-in-law to make cannon, as Milan prepared for war with Charles VIII of France. The weapons the letter promised, in other words, ended up using the metal of the sculpture it also promised.
When French forces overthrew Ludovico around 1499 to 1500, Leonardo left Milan for Venice, where he again worked on military defences. In 1502 he served Cesare Borgia as chief military engineer. The skills he had advertised two decades earlier kept finding buyers.
Is it really the first résumé?
The letter is widely shared online as the "world's first résumé" or "Leonardo's CV". That is a fun label but not an accurate one. It does not list jobs, dates or training in the way a modern résumé does. It is closer to a cover letter or a proposal: a pitch from one person to a specific patron, focused on what that patron could gain.
It is also not the earliest such letter. Craftsmen and scholars in Europe had long written to rulers seeking employment. What makes this one special is the writer, and the gap between how he presented himself and how history remembers him.
One more common mix-up: the English wording that circulates online is a translation, and different versions vary. If you quote it, say which translation you are using.
Lessons for pitching your own skills
Read as a job application, the letter still holds up. A few things Leonardo did well:
- He wrote for the reader's needs. Milan needed defence, so defence came first. His painting, the skill we prize most today, came last because it mattered least to that reader.
- He was specific. Each point names a concrete capability, not a vague quality like "creative" or "hard-working".
- He offered proof. Inviting doubters to a demonstration is the Renaissance version of a portfolio or a trial project.
- He tied himself to the patron's goals. The bronze horse honoured Ludovico's father and family, which turned a sculpture commission into something personal for the duke.
There is a caution in it, too. Some of his promises went well beyond what he had actually built. Confidence opened the door, but it was his real ability, shown over years, that kept him there.
For more on the man behind the letter, see Leonardo da Vinci: Six Starting Points for Further Reading.
Sources: Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci (birth, Verrocchio, the 1482 letter, Milan years, the Sforza horse); the English translation of the letter widely circulated online, first shared on this site via Memolition.
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