leonardo da vinci brief biography

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for inventions like a flying machine.

(1452-1519)

Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman — the epitome of a true Renaissance man. Gifted with a curious mind and a brilliant intellect, da Vinci studied the laws of science and nature, which greatly informed his work. His drawings, paintings and other works have influenced countless artists and engineers over the centuries.

Da Vinci was born in a farmhouse outside the village of Anchiano in Tuscany, Italy (about 18 miles west of Florence) on April 15, 1452.

Born out of wedlock to respected Florentine notary Ser Piero and a young peasant woman named Caterina, da Vinci was raised by his father and his stepmother.

At the age of five, he moved to his father’s estate in nearby Vinci (the town from which his surname derives), where he lived with his uncle and grandparents.

Young da Vinci received little formal education beyond basic reading, writing and mathematics instruction, but his artistic talents were evident from an early age.

Around the age of 14, da Vinci began a lengthy apprenticeship with the noted artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. He learned a wide breadth of technical skills including metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing, painting and sculpting.

His earliest known dated work — a pen-and-ink drawing of a landscape in the Arno valley — was sketched in 1473.

Early Works

At the age of 20, da Vinci qualified for membership as a master artist in Florence’s Guild of Saint Luke and established his own workshop. However, he continued to collaborate with del Verrocchio for an additional five years.

It is thought that del Verrocchio completed his “Baptism of Christ” around 1475 with the help of his student, who painted part of the background and the young angel holding the robe of Jesus.

According to Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects , written around 1550 by artist Giorgio Vasari, del Verrocchio was so humbled by the superior talent of his pupil that he never picked up a paintbrush again. (Most scholars, however, dismiss Vasari’s account as apocryphal.)

In 1478, after leaving del Verrocchio’s studio, da Vinci received his first independent commission for an altarpiece to reside in a chapel inside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.

Three years later the Augustinian monks of Florence’s San Donato a Scopeto tasked him to paint “Adoration of the Magi.” The young artist, however, would leave the city and abandon both commissions without ever completing them.

Was Leonardo da Vinci Gay?

Many historians believe that da Vinci was a homosexual: Florentine court records from 1476 show that da Vinci and four other young men were charged with sodomy, a crime punishable by exile or death.

After no witnesses showed up to testify against 24-year-old da Vinci, the charges were dropped, but his whereabouts went entirely undocumented for the following two years.

Leonardo da Vinci: Paintings

Although da Vinci is known for his artistic abilities, fewer than two dozen paintings attributed to him exist. One reason is that his interests were so varied that he wasn’t a prolific painter. Da Vinci’s most famous works include the “Vitruvian Man,” “The Last Supper” and the “ Mona Lisa .”

Vitruvian Man

Art and science intersected perfectly in da Vinci’s sketch of “Vitruvian Man,” drawn in 1490, which depicted a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart inside both a square and a circle.

The now-famous sketch represents da Vinci's study of proportion and symmetry, as well as his desire to relate man to the natural world.

The Last Supper

Around 1495, Ludovico Sforza, then the Duke of Milan, commissioned da Vinci to paint “The Last Supper” on the back wall of the dining hall inside the monastery of Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie.

The masterpiece, which took approximately three years to complete, captures the drama of the moment when Jesus informs the Twelve Apostles gathered for Passover dinner that one of them would soon betray him. The range of facial expressions and the body language of the figures around the table bring the masterful composition to life.

The decision by da Vinci to paint with tempera and oil on dried plaster instead of painting a fresco on fresh plaster led to the quick deterioration and flaking of “The Last Supper.” Although an improper restoration caused further damage to the mural, it has now been stabilized using modern conservation techniques.

In 1503, da Vinci started working on what would become his most well-known painting — and arguably the most famous painting in the world —the “Mona Lisa.” The privately commissioned work is characterized by the enigmatic smile of the woman in the half-portrait, which derives from da Vinci’s sfumato technique.

Adding to the allure of the “Mona Lisa” is the mystery surrounding the identity of the subject. Princess Isabella of Naples, an unnamed courtesan and da Vinci’s own mother have all been put forth as potential sitters for the masterpiece. It has even been speculated that the subject wasn’t a female at all but da Vinci’s longtime apprentice Salai dressed in women’s clothing.

Based on accounts from an early biographer, however, the "Mona Lisa" is a picture of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant. The painting’s original Italian name — “La Gioconda” — supports the theory, but it’s far from certain. Some art historians believe the merchant commissioned the portrait to celebrate the pending birth of the couple’s next child, which means the subject could have been pregnant at the time of the painting.

If the Giocondo family did indeed commission the painting, they never received it. For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with the painting. Today, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, secured behind bulletproof glass and regarded as a priceless national treasure seen by millions of visitors each year.

Battle of Anghiari

In 1503, da Vinci also started work on the "Battle of Anghiari," a mural commissioned for the council hall in the Palazzo Vecchio that was to be twice as large as "The Last Supper."

He abandoned the "Battle of Anghiari" project after two years when the mural began to deteriorate before he had a chance to finish it.

In 1482, Florentine ruler Lorenzo de' Medici commissioned da Vinci to create a silver lyre and bring it as a peace gesture to Ludovico Sforza. After doing so, da Vinci lobbied Ludovico for a job and sent the future Duke of Milan a letter that barely mentioned his considerable talents as an artist and instead touted his more marketable skills as a military engineer.

Using his inventive mind, da Vinci sketched war machines such as a war chariot with scythe blades mounted on the sides, an armored tank propelled by two men cranking a shaft and even an enormous crossbow that required a small army of men to operate.

The letter worked, and Ludovico brought da Vinci to Milan for a tenure that would last 17 years. During his time in Milan, da Vinci was commissioned to work on numerous artistic projects as well, including “The Last Supper.”

Da Vinci’s ability to be employed by the Sforza clan as an architecture and military engineering advisor as well as a painter and sculptor spoke to da Vinci’s keen intellect and curiosity about a wide variety of subjects.

Flying Machine

Always a man ahead of his time, da Vinci appeared to prophesy the future with his sketches of devices that resemble a modern-day bicycle and a type of helicopter.

Perhaps his most well-known invention is a flying machine, which is based on the physiology of a bat. These and other explorations into the mechanics of flight are found in da Vinci's Codex on the Flight of Birds, a study of avian aeronautics, which he began in 1505.

Like many leaders of Renaissance humanism, da Vinci did not see a divide between science and art. He viewed the two as intertwined disciplines rather than separate ones. He believed studying science made him a better artist.

In 1502 and 1503, da Vinci also briefly worked in Florence as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and commander of the papal army. He traveled outside of Florence to survey military construction projects and sketch city plans and topographical maps.

He designed plans, possibly with noted diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli , to divert the Arno River away from rival Pisa in order to deny its wartime enemy access to the sea.

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Da Vinci’s Study of Anatomy and Science

Da Vinci thought sight was humankind’s most important sense and eyes the most important organ, and he stressed the importance of saper vedere, or “knowing how to see.” He believed in the accumulation of direct knowledge and facts through observation.

“A good painter has two chief objects to paint — man and the intention of his soul,” da Vinci wrote. “The former is easy, the latter hard, for it must be expressed by gestures and the movement of the limbs.”

To more accurately depict those gestures and movements, da Vinci began to study anatomy seriously and dissect human and animal bodies during the 1480s. His drawings of a fetus in utero, the heart and vascular system, sex organs and other bone and muscular structures are some of the first on human record.

In addition to his anatomical investigations, da Vinci studied botany, geology, zoology, hydraulics, aeronautics and physics. He sketched his observations on loose sheets of papers and pads that he tucked inside his belt.

Da Vinci placed the papers in notebooks and arranged them around four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy. He filled dozens of notebooks with finely drawn illustrations and scientific observations.

Ludovico Sforza also tasked da Vinci with sculpting a 16-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue of his father and founder of the family dynasty, Francesco Sforza. With the help of apprentices and students in his workshop, da Vinci worked on the project on and off for more than a dozen years.

Da Vinci sculpted a life-size clay model of the statue, but the project was put on hold when war with France required bronze to be used for casting cannons, not sculptures. After French forces overran Milan in 1499 — and shot the clay model to pieces — da Vinci fled the city along with the duke and the Sforza family.

Ironically, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, who led the French forces that conquered Ludovico in 1499, followed in his foe’s footsteps and commissioned da Vinci to sculpt a grand equestrian statue, one that could be mounted on his tomb. After years of work and numerous sketches by da Vinci, Trivulzio decided to scale back the size of the statue, which was ultimately never finished.

Final Years

Da Vinci returned to Milan in 1506 to work for the very French rulers who had overtaken the city seven years earlier and forced him to flee.

Among the students who joined his studio was young Milanese aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would become da Vinci’s closest companion for the rest of his life. He did little painting during his second stint in Milan, however, and most of his time was instead dedicated to scientific studies.

Amid political strife and the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan, da Vinci left the city and moved to Rome in 1513 along with Salai, Melzi and two studio assistants. Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of newly installed Pope Leo X and son of his former patron, gave da Vinci a monthly stipend along with a suite of rooms at his residence inside the Vatican.

His new patron, however, also gave da Vinci little work. Lacking large commissions, he devoted most of his time in Rome to mathematical studies and scientific exploration.

After being present at a 1515 meeting between France’s King Francis I and Pope Leo X in Bologna, the new French monarch offered da Vinci the title “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King.”

Along with Melzi, da Vinci departed for France, never to return. He lived in the Chateau de Cloux (now Clos Luce) near the king’s summer palace along the Loire River in Amboise. As in Rome, da Vinci did little painting during his time in France. One of his last commissioned works was a mechanical lion that could walk and open its chest to reveal a bouquet of lilies.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci died of a probable stroke on May 2, 1519, at the age of 67. He continued work on his scientific studies until his death; his assistant, Melzi, became the principal heir and executor of his estate. The “Mona Lisa” was bequeathed to Salai.

For centuries after his death, thousands of pages from his private journals with notes, drawings, observations and scientific theories have surfaced and provided a fuller measure of the true "Renaissance man."

Book and Movie

Although much has been written about da Vinci over the years, Walter Isaacson explored new territory with an acclaimed 2017 biography, Leonardo da Vinci , which offers up details on what drove the artist's creations and inventions.

The buzz surrounding the book carried into 2018, with the announcement that it had been optioned for a big-screen adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio .

Salvator Mundi

In 2017, the art world was sent buzzing with the news that the da Vinci painting "Salvator Mundi" had been sold at a Christie's auction to an undisclosed buyer for a whopping $450.3 million. That amount dwarfed the previous record for an art work sold at an auction, the $179.4 million paid for “Women of Algiers" by Pablo Picasso in 2015.

The sales figure was stunning in part because of the damaged condition of the oil-on-panel, which features Jesus Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left holding a crystal orb, and because not all experts believe it was rendered by da Vinci.

However, Christie's had launched what one dealer called a "brilliant marketing campaign," which promoted the work as "the holy grail of our business" and "the last da Vinci." Prior to the sale, it was the only known painting by the old master still in a private collection.

The Saudi Embassy stated that Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud of Saudi Arabia had acted as an agent for the ministry of culture of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Around that time, the newly-opened Louvre Abu Dhabi announced that the record-breaking artwork would be exhibited in its collection.

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QUICK FACTS

• Name: Leonardo da Vinci
• Birth Year: 1452
• Birth date: April 15, 1452
• Birth City: Vinci
• Birth Country: Italy
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance artist and engineer, known for paintings like "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa,” and for inventions like a flying machine.
• Science and Medicine
• Writing and Publishing
• Architecture
• Technology and Engineering
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock to a respected Florentine notary and a young peasant woman.
• Da Vinci used tempera and oil on dried plaster to paint "The Last Supper," which led to its quick deterioration and flaking.
• For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection, and he never parted with the painting.
• Death Year: 1519
• Death date: May 2, 1519
• Death City: Amboise
• Death Country: France

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Leonardo da Vinci Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/leonardo-da-vincii
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 28, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
• Nothing is hidden beneath the sun.
• Obstacles cannot bend me. Every obstacle yields to effort.
• We make our life by the death of others.
• Necessity is the mistress and guardian of nature.
• One ought not to desire the impossible.
• He who neglects to punish evil sanctions the doing thereof.
• Darkness is the absence of light. Shadow is the diminution of light.
• The painter who draws by practice and judgment of the eye without the use of reason, is like the mirror that reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite to it without knowledge of the same.
• He who does not value life does not deserve it.
• Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
• Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

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Leonardo da Vinci

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 13, 2022 | Original: December 2, 2009

Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, engineer, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific. His natural genius crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term “ Renaissance man.” Today he remains best known for two of his paintings, " Mona Lisa " and "The Last Supper." Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to human anatomy. His combination of intellect and imagination allowed him to create, at least on paper, such inventions as the bicycle, the helicopter and an airplane based on the physiology and flying ability of a bat.

When Was Leonardo da Vinci Born?

Da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Tuscany (now Italy), in 1452, close to the town of Vinci that provided the surname we associate with him today. In his own time he was known just as Leonardo or as “Il Florentine,” since he lived near Florence—and was famed as an artist, inventor and thinker.

Did you know? Leonardo da Vinci’s father, an attorney and notary, and his peasant mother were never married to one another, and Leonardo was the only child they had together. With other partners, they had a total of 17 other children, da Vinci’s half-siblings.

Da Vinci’s parents weren’t married, and his mother, Caterina, a peasant, wed another man while da Vinci was very young and began a new family. Beginning around age 5, he lived on the estate in Vinci that belonged to the family of his father, Ser Peiro, an attorney and notary. Da Vinci’s uncle, who had a particular appreciation for nature that da Vinci grew to share, also helped raise him.

Early Career

Da Vinci received no formal education beyond basic reading, writing and math, but his father appreciated his artistic talent and apprenticed him at around age 15 to the noted sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence. For about a decade, da Vinci refined his painting and sculpting techniques and trained in mechanical arts.

When he was 20, in 1472, the painters’ guild of Florence offered da Vinci membership, but he remained with Verrocchio until he became an independent master in 1478. Around 1482, he began to paint his first commissioned work, The Adoration of the Magi, for Florence’s San Donato, a Scopeto monastery.

However, da Vinci never completed that piece, because shortly thereafter he relocated to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza clan, serving as an engineer, painter, architect, designer of court festivals and, most notably, a sculptor.

The family asked da Vinci to create a magnificent 16-foot-tall equestrian statue, in bronze, to honor dynasty founder Francesco Sforza. Da Vinci worked on the project on and off for 12 years, and in 1493 a clay model was ready to display. Imminent war, however, meant repurposing the bronze earmarked for the sculpture into cannons, and the clay model was destroyed in the conflict after the ruling Sforza duke fell from power in 1499.

'The Last Supper' 

Although relatively few of da Vinci’s paintings and sculptures survive—in part because his total output was quite small—two of his extant works are among the world’s most well-known and admired paintings.

The first is da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” painted during his time in Milan, from about 1495 to 1498. A tempera and oil mural on plaster, “The Last Supper” was created for the refectory of the city’s Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Also known as “The Cenacle,” this work measures about 15 by 29 feet and is the artist’s only surviving fresco. It depicts the Passover dinner during which Jesus Christ addresses the Apostles and says, “One of you shall betray me.”

One of the painting’s stellar features is each Apostle’s distinct emotive expression and body language. Its composition, in which Jesus is centered among yet isolated from the Apostles, has influenced generations of painters.

'Mona Lisa'

When Milan was invaded by the French in 1499 and the Sforza family fled, da Vinci escaped as well, possibly first to Venice and then to Florence. There, he painted a series of portraits that included “La Gioconda,” a 21-by-31-inch work that’s best known today as “Mona Lisa.” Painted between approximately 1503 and 1506, the woman depicted—especially because of her mysterious slight smile—has been the subject of speculation for centuries.

In the past she was often thought to be Mona Lisa Gherardini, a courtesan, but current scholarship indicates that she was Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Florentine merchant Francisco del Giocondo. Today, the portrait—the only da Vinci portrait from this period that survives—is housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, where it attracts millions of visitors each year.

Around 1506, da Vinci returned to Milan, along with a group of his students and disciples, including young aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would be Leonardo’s closest companion until the artist’s death. Ironically, the victor over the Duke Ludovico Sforza, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, commissioned da Vinci to sculpt his grand equestrian-statue tomb. It, too, was never completed (this time because Trivulzio scaled back his plan). Da Vinci spent seven years in Milan, followed by three more in Rome after Milan once again became inhospitable because of political strife.

Inventions and Philosophy 

Da Vinci’s interests ranged far beyond fine art. He studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture, weaponry and more, often creating accurate, workable designs for machines like the bicycle, helicopter, submarine and military tank that would not come to fruition for centuries. He was, wrote Sigmund Freud, “like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep.”

Several themes could be said to unite da Vinci’s eclectic interests. Most notably, he believed that sight was mankind’s most important sense and that “saper vedere” (“knowing how to see”) was crucial to living all aspects of life fully. He saw science and art as complementary rather than distinct disciplines, and thought that ideas formulated in one realm could—and should—inform the other.

Probably because of his abundance of diverse interests, da Vinci failed to complete a significant number of his paintings and projects. He spent a great deal of time immersing himself in nature, testing scientific laws, dissecting bodies (human and animal) and thinking and writing about his observations. 

Da Vinci’s Notebooks

At some point in the early 1490s, da Vinci began filling notebooks related to four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy—creating thousands of pages of neatly drawn illustrations and densely penned commentary, some of which (thanks to left-handed “mirror script”) was indecipherable to others.

The notebooks—often referred to as da Vinci’s manuscripts and “codices”—are housed today in museum collections after having been scattered after his death. The Codex Atlanticus, for instance, includes a plan for a 65-foot mechanical bat, essentially a flying machine based on the physiology of the bat and on the principles of aeronautics and physics.

Other notebooks contained da Vinci’s anatomical studies of the human skeleton, muscles, brain, and digestive and reproductive systems, which brought new understanding of the human body to a wider audience. However, because they weren’t published in the 1500s, da Vinci’s notebooks had little influence on scientific advancement in the Renaissance period.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci left Italy for good in 1516, when French ruler Francis I generously offered him the title of “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King,” which afforded him the opportunity to paint and draw at his leisure while living in a country manor house, the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France.

Although accompanied by Melzi, to whom he would leave his estate, the bitter tone in drafts of some of his correspondence from this period indicate that da Vinci’s final years may not have been very happy ones. (Melzi would go on to marry and have a son, whose heirs, upon his death, sold da Vinci’s estate.)

Da Vinci died at Cloux (now Clos-Lucé) in 1519 at age 67. He was buried nearby in the palace church of Saint-Florentin. The French Revolution nearly obliterated the church, and its remains were completely demolished in the early 1800s, making it impossible to identify da Vinci’s exact gravesite.

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Leonardo da vinci (1452–1519).

A Bear Walking

• Leonardo da Vinci

The Head of a Woman in Profile Facing Left

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right

Allegory on the Fidelity of the Lizard (recto); Design for a Stage Setting (verso)

The Head of a Grotesque Man in Profile Facing Right

After Leonardo da Vinci

Head of a Man in Profile Facing to the Left

Compositional Sketches for the Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, with and without the Infant St. John the Baptist; Diagram of a Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)

Studies for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Frontal View, Male Nude Unsheathing a Sword, and the Movements of Water (Recto); Study for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Rear View (Verso)

Carmen Bambach Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him, a tool for recording his investigation of nature. Although completed works by Leonardo are few, he left a large body of drawings (almost 2,500) that record his ideas, most still gathered into notebooks. He was principally active in Florence (1472–ca. 1482, 1500–1508) and Milan (ca. 1482–99, 1508–13), but spent the last years of his life in Rome (1513–16) and France (1516/17–1519), where he died. His genius as an artist and inventor continues to inspire artists and scientists alike centuries after his death.

Drawings Outside of Italy, Leonardo’s work can be studied most readily in drawings. He recorded his constant flow of ideas for paintings on paper. In his Studies for the Nativity ( 17.142.1 ), he studied different poses and gestures of the mother and her infant , probably in preparation for the main panel in his famous altarpiece known as the Virgin of the Rocks (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Similarly, in a sheet of designs for a stage setting ( 17.142.2 ), prepared for a staging of a masque (or musical comedy) in Milan in 1496, he made notes on the actors’ positions on stage alongside his sketches, translating images and ideas from his imagination onto paper. Leonardo also drew what he observed from the world around him, including human anatomy , animal and plant life, the motion of water, and the flight of birds. He also investigated the mechanisms of machines used in his day, inventing many devices like a modern-day engineer. His drawing techniques range from rather rapid pen sketches, in The   Head of a Man in Profile Facing to The Left ( 10.45.1) , to carefully finished drawings in red and black chalks, as in The   Head of the Virgin ( 51.90 ). These works also demonstrate his fascination with physiognomy, and contrasts between youth and old age, beauty and ugliness.

The Last Supper (ca. 1492/94–1498) Leonardo’s Last Supper , on the end wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, is one of the most renowned paintings of the High Renaissance. Recently restored, The Last Supper had already begun to flake during the artist’s lifetime due to his failed attempt to paint on the walls in layers (not unlike the technique of tempera on panel), rather than in a true fresco technique . Even in its current state, it is a masterpiece of dramatic narrative and subtle pictorial illusionism.

Leonardo chose to capture the moment just after Christ tells his apostles that one of them will betray him, and at the institution of the Eucharist. The effect of his statement causes a visible response, in the form of a wave of emotion among the apostles. These reactions are quite specific to each apostle, expressing what Leonardo called the “motions of the mind.” Despite the dramatic reaction of the apostles, Leonardo imposes a sense of order on the scene. Christ’s head is at the center of the composition, framed by a halo-like architectural opening. His head is also the vanishing point toward which all lines of the perspectival projection of the architectural setting converge. The apostles are arranged around him in four groups of three united by their posture and gesture. Judas, who was traditionally placed on the opposite side of the table, is here set apart from the other apostles by his shadowed face.

Mona Lisa (ca. 1503–6 and later) Leonardo may also be credited with the most famous portrait of all time, that of Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and known as the Mona Lisa (Musée du Louvre, Paris). An aura of mystery surrounds this painting, which is veiled in a soft light, creating an atmosphere of enchantment. There are no hard lines or contours here (a technique of painting known as sfumato— fumo in Italian means “smoke”), only seamless transitions between light and dark. Perhaps the most striking feature of the painting is the sitter’s ambiguous half smile. She looks directly at the viewer, but her arms, torso, and head each twist subtly in a different direction, conveying an arrested sense of movement. Leonardo explores the possibilities of oil paint in the soft folds of the drapery, texture of skin, and contrasting light and dark (chiaroscuro). The deeply receding background, with its winding rivers and rock formations, is an example of Leonardo’s personal view of the natural world: one in which everything is liquid, in flux, and filled with movement and energy.

Bambach, Carmen. “Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Bambach, Carmen C., ed. Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman . Exhibition catalogue.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Additional Essays by Carmen Bambach

• Bambach, Carmen. “ Anatomy in the Renaissance .” (October 2002)
• Bambach, Carmen. “ Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function .” (October 2002)

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• Sixteenth-Century Painting in Lombardy
• Sixteenth-Century Painting in Venice and the Veneto
• Unfinished Works in European Art, ca. 1500–1900
• Venetian Color and Florentine Design

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• List of Rulers of Europe
• Central Europe (including Germany), 1400–1600 A.D.
• Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
• France, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Rome and Southern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Venice and Northern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
• 15th Century A.D.
• Biblical Scene
• Central Italy
• High Renaissance
• The Last Supper
• Madonna and Child
• New Testament
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Artist or Maker

• Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio
• Parmigianino

Leonardo da Vinci

Italian Painter, Designer, Sculptor, Inventor, Scientist, Architect, and Engineer

Summary of Leonardo da Vinci

Only a select number of figures in the pantheon of art history can match the level of fame accorded Leonardo da Vinci. The very personification of the "Renaissance man", Leonardo searched for new knowledge within the burgeoning fields of the humanities and the sciences. One of the so-called "holy trinity" (with Michelangelo and Raphael ) of the Italian High Renaissance , Leonardo remains best known today as the painter of some of the world's greatest masterpieces, and for a series of notebooks and drawings that confirm his reputation as the most accomplished polymath of his time.

Accomplishments

• While his yearning for new knowledge that saw him excel in many fields within the humanities and sciences, Leonardo has achieved most acclaim as a painter. He has gained world-wide fame for his enigmatic portrait, the Mona Lisa , the religious fresco, The Last Supper , and his Vitruvian Man , a mathematically precise anatomical drawing. These priceless works are amongst the most known images of all time.
• Leonardo surpassed the naturalistic techniques of Early Renaissance masters through his meticulous attention to detail and through the introduction of new methods. The most influential of these was his signature sfumato effect in which he blended shades of color to blur - or to "smoke" - the outlines of figures, facial features, and objects. Sfumato achieved such realistic effects it contributed significantly to the birth of the era referred to now as the High Renaissance .
• Leonardo's intellectual curiosity and imagination produced many ideas and inventions that were described in his vast collection of notebooks. These contain scientific diagrams (predicting future inventions such as the parachute, the helicopter, and the military tank), anatomical and botanical sketches and drawings, and his philosophy on painting. As the art historian E. H. Gombrich put it, "the more one reads these pages, the less one can understand how one human being could have excelled in all these different fields of research and made important contributions to all of them".
• Leonardo produced several ambitious architectural designs. In Milan, he designed an ingenious 32-mile waterway linking Milan and Lake Como. He is also credited with the design of the spectacular double-helix central staircase (two spirals winding around a glass column, allowing guests to acknowledge each other without physically passing). Through his ability to combine his creative vision with more practical problem-solving skills, Leonardo helped establish architectural principles that have passed down through the centuries.

The Life of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo stated that "Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt", and as if to push home his point, he invented sfumato , an application of subtle colored glazes that were able to convey atmosphere and subtle shifts in moods and feelings in the human body and face.

Important Art by Leonardo da Vinci

Ginevra de' Benci

Painted while still in his early 20s, Ginevra de' Benci is one of Leonardo's earliest known works. It gives us the first example of his signature portraiture technique whereby he abandoned the conventional "half face" profile pose in favor of a three-quarter pose. Through the three-quarter rotation of his sitter, Leonardo gives us a fuller facial portrait that places the personality of the subject above their status. It was a humanistic technique that would define his future portraits, including such works as the Mona Lisa . Indeed, Leonardo is thought to be the first Italian to represent his sitter in such a way and it would become a convention of High Renaissance portraiture. There is also a strong suggestion (traces of fingerprints on the painting's surface) that Leonardo used his fingers to delicately shade Ginerva's flesh tones. As the National Gallery of Art in Washington (NGAW) states, "The planes of her face subtly modeled, she may have 'come to life' before viewers in a fashion more vivid than any other painting they had seen before", and adds that, "One of Leonardo's contemporaries wrote that he 'painted Ginevra d'Amerigo Benci with such perfection that it seemed to be not a portrait but Ginevra herself'". Ginevra de' Benci was 16 years old and from an affluent family. She was well-educated and had earned a reputation as a fine poet and conversationalist. Her milk-white complexion is flawless, and her blank expression is difficult to read. But as NGAW explains, "Young women of the time were expected to comport themselves with dignity and modesty. Virtue was prized and guarded, and a girl's beauty was thought to be a sign of goodness. Portraitists were expected to enhance - as needed - a woman's attractiveness according to the period's standards of beauty". It is likely that Leonardo was commissioned to paint Ginerva's portrait on the occasion of her betrothal (thought to be to a man named Luigi Niccolini). But as the NGAW states, the painting also "reflects a cultural phenomenon of the Italian Renaissance period - platonic love affairs between well-mannered gentlemen and ladies. Such affairs, often conducted from afar, focused on effusive literary expressions that displayed the courtier's and lady's sophistication". Indeed, Ginevra is known to have had many admirers, including Bernardo Bembo, the Venetian ambassador to Florence, and Lorenzo de'Medici, who both composed poems in her honor. The painting is also of significance for its reverse side which carries an emblem in the form of a wreath of laurel and palm encircled with a sprig of juniper, and a scroll featuring the phrase "Virtutem Forma Decorat" ("beauty adorns virtue"). The NGAW states that "The central juniper, ginepro in Italian, a cognate of Ginevra's name and thus her symbol, also represents chastity. The palm stands for moral virtue, while the laurel indicated artistic or literary inclinations".

Oil on canvas - National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Virgin of the Rocks

This painting presents the Madonna, with infant versions of Christ and John the Baptist, and the archangel Gabriel. Like other Renaissance artists, Leonardo was interested in presenting proverbial religious narratives in a more naturalistic way. Here Leonardo's animate quartet sits amidst a mystical landscape that demonstrates his mathematical approach to picture perspective. Complementing the intimate group in the foreground, the scenery of desolate rocks and still water lends the narrative a dreamlike quality, infusing the scene at once with a sense of the heavenly and the human (a blurring, in other words, of the spiritual with the material). The composition utilizes a pyramidal arrangement common amongst High Renaissance artists, while Leonardo's perfection of anatomical movement and fluidity elevates the figures with a sense of naturalistic motion. Their gestures and glances, too, create a dynamic human interaction that was highly innovative. Leonardo's sfumato style, meanwhile, is present in the way colors and outlines blend into a soft smokiness. This technique brings a heightened intensity and more realistic depth-of-field. The painting is also an early example of the use of oil pigment, which was relatively new to Italy, and made the artist better able to capture such intricate details.

Oil on wood transferred to canvas - Musée du Louvre, Paris

Lady with an Ermine

The Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, commissioned this portrait. In it, Leonardo depicts Sforza's sixteen-year-old mistress Cecilia Gallerani (Sforza being in his late thirties). She peers to the right, as if her attention has been caught by something just outside the picture frame. She bears a look of poise and knowing that is exceptional for a young lady of such tender years. The slightly coy smile seems to suggest her confidence in her position at the Court, and the knowledge of the power of her innate beauty. She holds an ermine, bearer of the fur that was used in Sforza's coat of arms. The ermine was a symbol of purity, and its inclusion was likely representative of Cecilia's fidelity to the Duke. Leonardo's genius in this work is evident in the way he captured the complexity of his sitter's psychology. Indeed, her three-quarter pose and gesture were unconventional for portraiture of the time. Leonardo's scientific study of the human body, and its movements and expressions, meanwhile, allowed him to represent the subtle human undertones that intrigue the viewer and invite them into the intimate mental world of the subject. As art critic Sam Leith put it, "Give the painting a really good, close look and you'll see she really does have the very breath of life in her...just distracted by a noise, caught in a living moment...". In 2014, Pascal Cotte, a French scientist, completed a three-year investigation of the painting in which Cotte discovered that it was completed in three distinct stages. Cotte discovered that Leonardo's first version was a simple portrait (with no animal). The second included a small grey ermine. In the third, the animal is transformed into a large white ermine. Commenting on Cotte's research, historian Lorenza Munoz-Aloñso writes, "The duke, who was da Vinci's patron and champion for eighteen years, was nicknamed 'the white ermine'. The progression in the painting might indicate a growing desire from the couple to affirm their relationship in a more public manner. The transformation of the ermine - from small and dark to muscular and white - could also indicate the duke's wish for a more flattering 'portrait' [of his mistress]". It is also widely believed that the ermine was included to conceal the secret pregnancy of Cecilia who later gave birth to Sforza's son - Cesare.

Oil on wood panel - Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, Poland

The Vitruvian Man

In the accompanying text to the drawing, Leonardo describes his intention to study the proportions of man as described by the first-century BC Roman architect Vitruvius (after whom the drawing was named) in his treatise De Architectura ( On Architecture , published as Ten Books on Architecture ). Vitruvius used his own studies of well-proportioned man to influence his design of temples, believing that symmetry was crucial to classical architecture. Leonardo used Vitruvius as a starting point for inspiration in his own anatomical studies and further perfected his measurements, correcting over half of Vitruvius's original calculations. The idea of relative proportion has influenced Renaissance architecture (and beyond) as a concept for creating harmony between the earthly and divine in churches, as well as the temporal in palaces and palatial residences. Ultimately, The Vitruvian Man is a mathematical study of the human body highlighting the nature of balance which proportion and symmetry lend us, an understanding that would inform all of Leonardo's output in art and architecture. It also underlines the goals of Renaissance Humanism which placed man in relation to nature, and as a link between the earthly (square) and the divine (circle). It also demonstrates, of course, the artist's thorough understanding of science and mathematics, and his excellence in draftsmanship. The image is truly iconic and has been referenced through several fine art sources. These include William Blake's, Glad Day (aka The Dance of Albion) (c.1794), Enzo Plazzotta's Homage to Leonardo (aka. Vitruvian Man ) (1984) - an outdoor statue in central London, and Andrew Leicester's giant robot-like Tin Man (2001) sculpture placed in the engineering faculty courtyard at the University of Minnesota. It has also provided a point of reference within popular graphic culture with the online comic book resource (Comiclist) displaying some twenty three comic-book covers - including issues of Spiderman, Wonder Woman and Ironman - that self-consciously align these superheroes with Leonardo's drawing. The drawing has even featured in an episode of The Simpsons (season 10) in which Homer Simpson is chased by the Vitruvian Man in a dream where he is attacked by famous artworks that have come to life.

Pen and ink on paper - Accademia, Venice, Italy

The Last Supper

The Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, commissioned The Last Supper for the dining hall of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie. It tells the famous biblical story of the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples before his crucifixion, and specifically, the moment after he has told them that one of their own would betray him. Each of the apostles is individually rendered with different expressions of consternation and disbelief as Judas stands in the shadows clutching the purse containing silver he received for his betrayal (Leonardo was given permission to bring a criminal to his studio from prison to model as Judas). Jesus occupies the center frame, reaching for bread and a glass of wine referring to the Eucharist. Behind him, seen through the windows, lays an idealized landscape, perhaps alluding to heavenly paradise, and the three windows possibly denote the holy trinity. The intricate detail, coupled with the use of one point perspective, placing Jesus at the crux of the pictorial space, and from which all other elements emanate, was to herald in a new direction in High Renaissance art. Furthermore, the use of the vanishing point technique complimented the painting's position and setting, allowing for the artwork to mesh into the space as if it were a natural extension of the nuns' dining area. The art historian E. H. Gombrich said of the finished painting: "There was nothing in this work that resembled older representations of the same theme. In these traditional versions, the apostles were seen sitting quietly at the table in a row - only Judas being segregated from the rest - while Christ was calmly dispensing the Sacrament. There was drama in it, and excitement. Leonardo, like Giotto before him, had gone back to the text of the Scriptures, and had striven to visualize what it must have been like when Christ said, 'Verily I say unto you, that one of you will betray me'". Because the water-based paints typically used for frescos of this type were not conducive to Leonardo's sfumato technique, he opted instead for oil-based paints. However, the oil-on-plaster combination would prove disastrous as, even before the artist's death, the paint had begun to flake from the wall (a situation not helped by the steam and smoke emanating from the monastery's kitchens). Today, little of Leonardo's original paintwork remains with the last restoration, finished in 1999, lasting some twenty-one years. The art historian Khyati Rajvanshi describes how the fresco now sits in a strict temperature-controlled environment. Rajvanshi adds that "The management board allows just 1,300 people to visit the Last Supper each day" giving each person a maximum of fifteen minutes to enjoy the masterpiece (and not leave too much dust to cause it further harm).

Fresco - Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist

This preliminary drawing shows the Virgin seated next to her mother, St. Anne, while holding the baby Jesus, and with the baby St. John the Baptist looking on. Mary's eyes peer down at her child who points to the heavens as he delivers a benediction. The piece is very large in size, consisting of eight papers glued together. Also known as the Burlington House Cartoon , it is presumed to be a sketch in planning for a painting, although the painting either no longer exists, or was never created. Leonardo often used a "cartoon" such as this as a stencil which he placed on the intended painting surface. Once fixed in place, a pin would be used to create an outline that would then guide the artist's brush. Because this piece is impeccably preserved, it is assumed that it was never put to use for this purpose. The drawing is notable in that it reflects Leonardo's search for perfection, even in planning for a painting. His acuity with anatomy is present in the realistic ways the figures' bodies are shown in various gestures of interaction with each other. Genuine tenderness is conveyed in the faces of the women and St. John as they reflect upon the focal point of Christ. The attention to detail for what was a preparatory drawing, underlines the artist's painstaking approach to producing art. Leonardo's cartoons are so technically perfect that they are regarded as highly as his finished masterpieces. Many were admired and shown both at the Court and in public exhibitions during his life and after.

Charcoal and chalk drawing on paper - The National Gallery, London

Salvatore Mundi

King Louis XVII of France is said to have commissioned Salvator Mundi after his conquest of Milan in 1499. The painting is a portrait of Jesus in the role of savior of the world and master of the cosmos. His right hand is raised with two fingers extended as he gives divine benediction. His left hand holds a crystalline sphere, representing the heavens. This is an unusual portrait in that it shows Christ, in very humanist fashion, as a man in contemporary Renaissance dress, gazing directly out at the viewer. It is also a half-length portrait, which was a radical departure from full-length portraits of the time. Jesus's "closeness" to us lends the visage an intense intimacy. The painting is representative of the mastery of Leonardo's signature techniques. The softness of the gaze, acquired through sfumato , lends a spiritual quality, inviting veneration from the viewer, while Jesus's face encompasses an emotion and expressiveness defined by the artist's acuity with anatomical correctness. The darkness from which he emerges contrasts with the light that seems to emanate from Jesus's exposed upper chest. Thus, the painting still (in spite of his humanist outer shell) presents Christ as an awe-inspiring "bringer of light". Salvator Mundi was unaccounted for between 1763 and 1900 when it was bought by one Sir Charles Robinson as a work by Bernardino Luini. It later sold at Sotheby's, London, in 1958 for £45 ($125). The painting, which was badly damaged, was then bought by an independent U.S. auction house in 2005. Having undergone extensive restoration, it reemerged in the early 2000s when it was confirmed as a work by Leonardo (though some experts still questioned it attribution). The painting was sold at auction at Christies New York in 2017 for $450 million a new record for an artwork at that time.

Oil on wood panel - Louvre, Abu Dhabi

The Mona Lisa , also known as La Gioconda , is said to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant named Francesco del Gioconda. The half-length portrayal shows the sitter, seated on a chair with one arm resting on the chair and one hand resting on her arm. The use of sfumato creates a sense of soft calmness, which emanates from her being, and infuses the background. There has been much speculation as to its origin of location, yet it is more widely construed that it is imaginary, a composition born in Leonardo's mind (that could also allude to our admittance into Mona Lisa's dreamlike interior world). But it is of course Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression that transfixes the viewer and the eternal mystery of what's lying behind that iconic smile. Portraits of the time focused on presenting the outward appearance of the sitter, the personality of the subject only hinted at through symbolic objects, clothing, or gestures. Yet Leonardo desired to capture more than mere likeness. He wanted to show something of her soul, which he accomplished by placing emphasis on her peculiar and unconventional smile. As Gombrich observed, "We see that Leonardo has used the means of his ' sfumato ' with the utmost deliberation. Everyone who has ever tried to draw or scribble a face knows that what we call its expression rests mainly on two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes. Now it is precisely these parts which Leonardo has left deliberately indistinct, by letting them merge into a soft shadow. That is why we are never quite certain in what mood Mona Lisa is really looking at us. Her expression always seems just to elude us". Leonardo's painting is probably the most famous single painting in history. It has inspired many artists. Raphael drew upon it for a drawing in 1504, while countless writers have written about her, including the 19 th century French poet Theophile Gautier who called her "the sphinx who smiles so mysteriously." She has been the subject of many popular songs (most famously, perhaps, Mona Lisa, by Nat "King" Cole), and has been parodied in art, from the 1883 caricaturist's Eugene Bataille's, Mona Lisa smoking a pipe , to the 1919 Marcel Duchamp readymade showing her with a mustache and beard. In 1954, Salvador Dalí created his Self-portrait as Mona Lisa and in 1963 Andy Warhol included her in his seminal silkscreen output Mona Lisa "Thirty are better than one" . Her image has also been reproduced endlessly on postcards, calendars, posters, and all manner of other commercial products.

Oil on wood panel - Musée du Louvre, Paris

Biography of Leonardo da Vinci

Childhood and education.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, widely considered one of the most gifted and inventive men in history, was born in 1452 in a village near the town of Vinci, Tuscany.

The illegitimate son of Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary and landlord, and Caterina, a peasant girl (who later married an artisan), Leonardo was brought up on the family estate in Anchiano by his paternal grandfather. His father married a sixteen-year old girl, Albiera, with whom Leonardo was close, but who died at an early age. Leonardo was the oldest of twelve siblings but was never treated as the illegitimate son. Like his siblings, Leonardo received a basic education in reading, writing and arithmetic, but he did not show his great passion for learning until adult life.

Early Training and Work

At the age of fourteen, Leonardo moved to Florence where he began an apprenticeship at the renowned workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, an artist who himself had been a student of the Early Renaissance master Donatello . It is a matter of record that Leonardo also visited the nearby workshop of Antonio Pollaiuolo. Verrocchio was an important artist in the court of the Medici, a family noted equally for its political power and its generous patronage of the arts. Indeed, Florence attracted many talented young artists, including Domenico Ghirlandaio , Pietro Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi and it is indicative of his father's civic standing that Leonardo was able to take up his apprenticeship in such a prestigious workshop.

Although Leonardo gained only a basic grasp of Latin and Greek, Florentine artists of this period were compelled to the study the humanities as a way of more fully understanding man's place in the modern world, and Leonardo's curious and skeptical mind was nurtured under Verrocchio's mentorship (as art historian E. H. Gombrich wrote, "At a time when the learned men at the universities relied on the authority of the admired ancient writers, Leonardo, the painter, would never accept what he read without checking it with his own eyes").

Leonardo's name would become closely associated with the intellectual movement/philosophy known as Renaissance Humanism . It promoted a return to the values and ideals of the classical world but also laid emphasis on what it was to "be human". Great focus was placed on "higher" education and the promotion of "civic virtue" in the belief that by reaching one's full potential - which the Renaissance artist achieved by becoming learned in aesthetic beauty, ethics, logic, and scientific and mathematical principles - one could advance civilization. Leonardo would more than measure up to the title of "renaissance man" through his passionate interest in the disciplines of art, anatomy, architecture, geometry, chemistry, and engineering.

In 1472, after six years of apprenticeship, Leonardo became a member of the Guild of St. Luke, a Florentine group of artists and medical doctors. Although his father had set him up with a workshop of his own, Leonardo - now regarded by many of his peers, according to Gombrich, "as a strange and rather uncanny being" - continued to work with Verrocchio as an assistant for a further four or five years.

Customary to the times, the output of Verrocchio's workshop would have given rise to collaborative efforts between master and apprentice. Two pictures accredited to Verrocchio, The Baptism of Christ (1475) and The Annunciation (1472-75), are seen by art historians, such as the Renaissance chronicler, Giorgio Vasari , to evidence Leonardo's lighter brush strokes when compared with Verrocchio's heavier hand.

In 1476, Leonardo was accused of sodomy with three other men. Homosexuality was illegal and punishable, not only by imprisonment, but also by public humiliation and even death. Leonardo was acquitted through lack of corroborative evidence, which has been attributed to the fact that his friends/lovers came from powerful Florentine families. Perhaps because of the stigma and chastisement, Leonardo kept a low profile over the next few years, with little or no record of his activities during this time.

Leonardo's earliest commissions came in 1481 from the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto for a panel painting of the Adoration of the Magi (unfinished), and an altar painting for the St. Bernard Chapel in the Palazzo della Signoria (never begun). However, Leonardo stopped work on the commissions to move to Milan after accepting an offer from the city's Duke to join his court. He was listed in the royal register as pictor et ingeniarius ducalis ("painter and engineer of the duke").

There is some speculation as to why the move to Milan was so appealing to the artist when his Florentine career was in the ascendency. It may have been that his decision was to put the earlier sexual scandal behind him. While that may have been a contributory factor, it seems more likely that what the historian Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich called Leonard's "gracious but reserved personality and elegant bearing" was a better fit for the austere Milanese Court. As Heydenreich writes, "It may have been that the rather sophisticate spirit of Neoplatonism prevailing in the Florence of the Medici went against the grain of Leonardo's experience-oriented mind and that the more strict, academic atmosphere of Milan attracted him. Moreover, he was no doubt enticed by Duke Ludovico Sforza's brilliant court and the meaningful projects awaiting him there".

Mature Period

Leonardo worked in Milan between 1482 and 1499. Between 1483-86, he worked on the The Virgin of the Rocks , an altarpiece commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. For reasons that are unknown, Leonardo entered into a decade-long legal dispute with the Confraternity (leading Leonardo to paint a second version of the work in 1508). In 1485, he undertook a diplomatic mission to Hungary on behalf of the Duke. He met with the influential Hungarian King, Matthias Corvinus, and worked on preparations for court festivals. While in Hungary he also worked on engineering and architectural plans, including for the dome of the cathedral in Milan.

While in Milan, Leonardo spent a great deal of time observing human anatomy. He closely studied the way in which human bodies moved, the way they were built and proportioned, how they interacted in social engagement and communication, and their habits of gesture and expression. This was a time-consuming and painstaking undertaking that helps explain perhaps why there are so few paintings dating from this period - just six in total, with suggestion of a further three commissions either now lost or never commenced - yet an extraordinarily large library of drawings. These are now testament to Leonardo's mastery of observation and his ability to convey human emotion.

It was during this period that he experimented with new and different painting techniques. One of the practices Leonardo is most famous for is his ability to create a "smoky" effect, which was coined sfumato . Through his deep knowledge of glazes and brushstrokes, he developed the technique, which allowed for edges of color and outline to flow into each other to emphasize the soft modulation of flesh or fabric, as well as the remarkable translucence of hard surfaces such as crystal or the tactility of hair. The intimate authenticity that resulted in his figures and subjects seemed to mirror reality in ways that had not been seen hitherto. A good example of this is his depiction of an orb in the painting Salvatore Mundi (1490-1500). It was during this period that Leonardo produced his great fresco masterpiece - what Gombrich called "one of the great miracles wrought by human genius" - The Last Supper (1495-98). It was painted on the dining hall wall of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

As an antidote to the beauty of his great masterpieces, Leonardo produced a series of drawings of deformed faces and bodies, perhaps the most famous of which are A Bald Fat Man with a Broken Nose (1485-90), and Grotesque Head of an old Woman (1489-90). The art historian Martin Kemp writes that Leonardo sometimes "followed ugly people around and drew them [in the belief] that the beautiful needed the grotesque [...] like light and shade". The art historian Jonathan Jones said of the former, meanwhile, that Leonardo's "repeated doodles of the same archetypal ugly visage [was] sometimes called his 'nutcracker' profile [...] This looks like a real man, and a fairly scary one: a street character, a violent, massive bald guy with a broken nose. And what makes it seem most real is that it is drawn quickly yet decisively, as in a sketch from life".

For his last unfinished project before leaving Milan, Leonardo was commissioned to cast a five-meter-high equestrian bronze sculpture - called Gran Cavallo - commemorating Francesco Sforza, the founder of the Sforza dynasty. In 1493, a clay model of the intended sculpture was displayed during the wedding of Emperor Maximilian to Bianca Maria Sforza, emphasizing the importance of the anticipated work. Unfortunately, the project was never finished and the conquering French Army, who had seized Milan in 1499, ended up using Leonardo's model for target practice. It is believed that the bronze reserved to cast the clay sculpture had been repurposed for cannon casting in what proved to be the unsuccessful defense of Milan against Charles VIII in the war with France.

Following the French invasion of Milan, and the overthrow of Duke Sforza in 1499, Leonardo left for Venice accompanied by his childhood friend and future assistant, Salai. In Venice, Leonardo was employed as a military engineer where his main commission was to design naval defense systems for the city under threat of a Turkish military incursion. Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500, where he received a warm and enthusiastic welcome. He lived as a guest of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata. Leonardo was employed as a senior architectural advisor for a committee working on a damaged foundation at the church of San Francesco al Monte, but he devoted most of his time to studying mathematics.

In 1502, Leonardo secured service in the Court of Cesare Borgia, an important member of an influential family, as well as son of Pope Alexander VI, and commander of the papal army. He was employed as a "senior military architect and general engineer" and accompanied Borgia on his travels throughout Italy. His duties included making maps to aid with military defense, as well as designs for the construction of a dam to ensure an uninterrupted supply of water to the canals from the River Arno. During the diversion of the river project, he met Niccolò Machiavelli, who was a noted scribe and political observer for Florence. It has been said that Leonardo introduced Machiavelli to the concepts of applied science, and that he had a great influence on the man who would go on to be called the Father of Modern Political Science.

Leonardo returned for a second time to Florence in the spring of 1503 and was enthusiastically welcomed into the Guild of St. Luke. He worked on landscape sketches for a canal that would bypass the "choppy" Arno River and connect Florence directly with the sea. As Heydenreich notes, "The project, considered time and again in subsequent centuries, was never carried out, but centuries later the express highway from Florence to the sea was built over the exact route Leonardo chose for his canal". His return to Florence also spurred one of the most productive periods of painting for the artist including preliminary work on his Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (1503-19), the mural Battle of Anghiari (1503-05) (which was left unfinished and later copied by the artist Peter Paul Rubens ), and what was destined to become the world's most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa (1503-19). Of the latter, Gombrich wrote: "What strikes us first is the amazing degree to which Lisa looks alive. She really seems to look at us and to have a mind of her own. Like a living being, she seems to change before our eyes and to look a little different every time we come back to her [...] That great observer of nature knew more about the way we use our eyes than anybody who had ever lived before him".

In 1508, Leonardo returned to Milan where he remained for the next five years enjoying the generous patronage of Charles d'Amboise, the French Governor of Milan, and King Louis XII (of France). He was engaged in architectural projects, with notable commissions such as work on a Villa for Charles, bridge building, a project to create a waterway to link Milan with Lake Como, and preparatory sketches for an oratory for the church of Santa Maria alla Fontana.

Leonardo ran a successful studio which included his former Milanese pupils, de' Conti and Salai, and new recruits, Cesare da Sesto, Giampetrino, Bernardino Luini, and a young aristocrat named Francesco Meizi. Although he created little as a painter, Leonardo did undertake a second aborted sculptural commission from the military commander, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio. The preparatory sketches for the equestrian sculpture have survived, but the Trivulzio scrapped the project in favor of a more modest design.

Leonardo's second Milan period is best known for his scientific activities. He collaborated with the renowned anatomist, Marcantonio della Torre, which led to Leonardo's precise drawings of the human body and his excursions in comparative anatomy (differences between species) and the related field of physiology. Meanwhile, his manuscripts of this time included mathematic, mechanical, geological, optical, and botanical studies. He created plans for his famous flying machine, and also devised military weapons such as an early example of the machine gun and a large crossbow. Gombrich suggested that there were two reasons that Leonardo "never published his writings, and that very few can even have known of their existence." The first was because "he was left-handed and had taken to writing from right to left so that his notes can only be read in a mirror". The second relates to the possibility that Leonardo "was afraid of divulging his discoveries [such as his observation the 'the sun does not move'] for fear that his opinions would be found heretical".

It was also during the second Milan period that Leonardo and Francesco Melzi, his favorite pupil, became close companions and remained so until Leonardo's death. It may be reasonably surmised that at this point in his life, Leonardo was finally able to live discreetly as a gay man, his accomplishments and acclaim providing a safe shelter from the kind of traumatic and punitive stigmatization he experienced in his earlier years in Florence.

Late Period

In 1513, after the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan, the sixty-year-old Leonardo relocated, taking Salai and Melzi with him, to Rome where he spent the next three years. He was given a generous stipend and residence in the Vatican by the Giuliano de' Medici, the brother of Leo X, the new pope. It was a depressing time for Leonardo, however, who struggled to secure any meaningful commissions. As Heydenreich writes, Leonardo arrived in Rome "at a time of great artistic activity: Donato Bramante was building St. Peter's, Raphael was painting the last rooms of the pope's new apartments, Michelangelo was struggling to complete the tomb of Pope Julius II, and many younger artists, such as Timoteo Viti and Sodoma, were also active".

Heydenreich refers to "drafts of embittered letters" which confirmed Leonardo's disquiet and unhappiness which restricted his activities largely to "mathematical studies and technical experiments or surveyed ancient monuments as he strolled through the city". However, Leonardo did produce a "magnificently executed map of the Pontine Marshes" and drawings for a planned Florentine residence for the Medici (who had returned to power in 1512).

While in Rome he also made the acquaintance of King François I of France who offered Leonardo the permanent position of "first painter, architect and engineer to the King" at the French Royal Court. François is credited with doing more than any other individual to promote Renaissance art and architecture in France and Leonardo, having accepted the King's invitation, lived out the last three years of his life (with Melzi) at a small, but palatial, residence at Clos Lucé, close to the king's residence at Château d'Amboise. Leonardo brought with him a large cache of paintings and drawings, most of which stayed in France after his death (and which are now housed in Le Louvre as part of the world's largest single collection of Leonardo's art).

Leonardo did little painting in France, although his last painting, St John the Baptist (1513), was most likely made during this time. He worked on landscape plans for the palace gardens but all new work was abruptly halted following a region-wide outbreak of malaria. Leonardo found time to edit his scientific papers and to prepare his treatise on painting, including his Visions of the End of the World series which included his many cataclysmic storm drawings, known as the Deluges .

During these years, Leonardo and King François formed a close friendship - Vasari wrote that "The King ... was accustomed frequently and affectionately to visit him" - and, although he died shortly before construction began in earnest, it is likely that Leonardo designed the now famous double-helix staircase (two concentric spirals wind separately around a central column, allowing guests to pass without meeting while still being able to see one another through windows placed in a central column) of the Chateau de Chambord, a lavish Renaissance Chateau, commissioned by François (and which took 28 years to complete). Leonardo died on May 2, 1519 at Clos Lucé, naming Melzi as principal beneficiary of his estate.

It is down to Melzi's efforts that Leonardo's notebooks and drawings were saved. After Leonardo's death, Melzi returned to Milan where he was visited by Vasari. Referring to Melzi as his "much beloved" pupil, Vasari wrote that "he holds them [the notebooks] dear, and keeps such papers together as if they were relics". Leonardo's vineyards (sixteen rows) in Milan, a gift to Leonardo from Sforza in 1482 (confiscated during the French invasion but returned to Leonardo's ownership at a later unknown date) were divided between Salai and a former servant. (The vineyards remain an ongoing concern and a Leonardo Museum to this day.)

The reverence with which Leonardo was regarded is epitomized by the apocryphal story of François I's attendance at his death. Vasari described Leonardo as having "breathed [his] last in the arms of the king". Their legendary friendship inspired the 1818 painting by Ingres , François I Receives the Last Breaths of Leonardo da Vinci , in which Leonardo is shown as dying in the arms of the King.

Leonardo was originally interred in the chapel of St Florentin at the Chateau d'Amboise in the Loire Valley, but the building was destroyed during the French revolution. Although it is believed that he was reburied in the smaller chapel of St Hubert, Amboise, the exact location remains unconfirmed.

The Legacy of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo's list of achievements is extensive. As a defining figure of the High Renaissance, he helped usher in a new dawning in Western art and civilization. Amongst his most influential techniques were his pioneering use of vanishing points, the soft clouding effect in his signature sfumato method, his profound understanding of the dynamics between light and dark in chiaroscuro , and the enigmatic facial expressions of his figures that created a mesmerizing and realistic quality. One can add to his paintings, his inventions, his precise anatomical and topographical drawings, as well as hydraulic and mechanical designs and his architectural achievements.

It is hard to encapsulate the achievements of an artist who, in the words of art historian Martin Kemp, had "got such a grip on people's imagination - whether they're engineers, medics, fans of art, or whatever". Nevertheless, Kemp gives us a good insight into Leonardo's genius through his account of the "spine tingling" privilege of studying the Mona Lisa on an easel (the painting having been temporarily released from its bulletproof glass casing). Kemp had been worried that the painting might have lost something of its uniqueness because of its excessive fame and overexposure. He need not have worried. "There is a sense of something happening between the picture and yourself", he said, and while acknowledging that his assessment "sounds entirely pretentious [...] it does happen". Kemp argued indeed, that when in the presence of the original work, "The picture becomes a kind-of living thing", and that any attempt to offer an analysis of Mona Lisa's aura was, in the end, a somewhat futile exercise.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Leonardo da Vinci

• Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reimagined the World By Shelley Frisch & Stefan Klein
• Leonardo Da Vinci: The Biography Our Pick By Walter Isaacson
• Leonardo da Vinci By Kenneth Clark and Martin Kemp
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• The Shadow Drawing: How Science Taught Leonardo How to Paint By Francesca Fiorani
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• The Story of Art By E. H. Gombrich
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• The Story of Modern Art By Norbert Lynton
• Illuminations By Walter Benjamin
• Leonardo's Notebook from 1508: Fully Digitized Our Pick Available online from the British Library
• Leonardo's Notebooks: Writing and Art of the Great Master By H. Anna Suh
• The Da Vinci Notebooks By Leonardo da Vinci
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• Leonardo Da Vinci: Complete Paintings and Drawings By Johannes Nathan & Frank Zollner
• Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Works By Simona Cremante
• Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man By Martin Kemp
• Leonardo da Vinci: Complete Paintings (Revised) Our Pick By Pietro C. Marani
• The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting By Ben Lewis
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• Leonardo da Vinci: Paintings, Drawings, Quotes, Biography
• The lusts of Leonardo da Vinci By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / Oct 19, 2011
• Leonardo da Vinci: The Biography by Walter Isaacson review - unparalleled creative genius By Blake Morrison / The Guardian / Dec 16, 2017
• The Secret Lives of Leonardo da Vinci By Claudia Roth Pierpont / The New Yorker / Oct 16, 2017
• What made Leonardo da Vinci a genius By Simon Worrall / November 4, 2017
• Psychology - The Smile of the "Mona Lisa" By Gustav Kobbé / The Lotus Magazine / November 1916
• Anatomy and Leonardo da Vinci Our Pick By Antony Merlin Jose / Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine / 2001
• Leonardo da Vinci and Fluid Mechanics By Ivan Marusic and Susan Broomhall / Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics / 2021
• Who was Leonardo da Vinci and what can we learn from him? By Nicola Davis / The Guardian / April 22, 2019
• The Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci Our Pick By Jonathan Pevsner / Scientific American / May 2, 2019
• 5 Surprising Things We Learned About Leonardo da Vinci From Historian Martin Kemp's New Online Masterclass By Menachem Wecker / Artnet / November 25, 2022
• The marvellous ugly mugs By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / December 4, 2002
• Behind the Art: What hidden messages does Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper hold? By Khyati Rajvanshi / The Indian Express
• Secrets of Leonardo's 'Lady with an Ermine' Finally Revealed By Lorenza Munoz-Aloñso / Artnet
• Ginevra de' Benci National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
• Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan at National Gallery London
• Christie's: The Last Leonardo da Vinci - Salvator Mundi
• Smarthistory: Leonardo, The Mona Lisa - in the Renaissance and today Our Pick
• The Telegraph: Mystery of Leonardo Da Vinci's two Virgins
• Smarthistory: The Last Supper Our Pick
• Smithsonian Channel: Does 'The Last Supper' Really Have a Hidden Meaning?
• The Guardian: Leonardo da Vinci - An artist who deserves every bit of his fame
• Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Artist & Inventor | Mini Bio Our Pick
• Interesting Engineering: Leonardo da Vinci's brilliant mind Our Pick
• NBC News Learn: Leonardo Da Vinci, Renaissance Man
• History Documentary BBC: Leonardo DaVinci, behind a Genius Our Pick
• The Da Vinci Code 2003 Novel by Dan Brown
• The Da Vinci Code 2006 Film
• The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci 1900 Novel by Dimitri Mérejkowski / A fictionalized account of da Vinci's life
• The Secret Supper 2004 Novel by Javier Sierra / This fictional thriller revolves around da Vinci's painting The Last Supper
• Chiaroscuro: The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci 2005 Graphic Novel by Pat McGreal and David Rawson / Da Vinci's life and possible homosexual relationship with the young artist Salai are narrated in this comic book series
• Mr. Peabody and Sherman 2014 Film / In this animated children's film, da Vinci, his painting The Mona Lisa, and his flying machine, are central to the plot
• My Favorite Martian S03E28 1966 TV Program / In this episode, main character Martin calls on da Vinci to help fix his spaceship, and da Vinci is upset to learn that many of his inventions have been credited to other people throughout history
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood 2010 Video Game / In this game, da Vinci is a significant supporting character, outlining missions for players

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Content compiled and written by Zaid S Sethi

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Kimberly Nichols

Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Inventor and Artist of the Renaissance

Victor Ovies Arenas / Getty Images

• Art History
• Architecture
• M.A., Anthropology, University of Iowa
• B.Ed., Illinois State University

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452–May 2, 1519) was an artist, humanist, scientist, philosopher, inventor, and naturalist during the Italian Renaissance . His genius, says his biographer Walter Isaacson, was his ability to marry observation with imagination and to apply that imagination to intellect and its universal nature.

Fast Facts: Leonardo da Vinci

• Known For : Renaissance-era painter, inventor, naturalist, philosopher, and writer
• Born : April 15, 1452 in Vinci in Tuscany, Italy
• Parents : Piero da Vinci and Caterina Lippi
• Died : May 2, 1519 in Cloux, France
• Education : Formal training limited to "abacus school" in commercial math, an apprenticeship at the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio; otherwise self-taught

Leonardo da Vinci was born in the village of Vinci in Tuscany, Italy, on April 15, 1452, the only child of Piero da Vinci, a notary and eventually chancellor of Florence, and Caterina Lippi, an unmarried peasant girl. He is properly known as "Leonardo" rather than "da Vinci," although that is a common form of his name today. Da Vinci means "from Vinci" and most people of the day who required a last name were given it based on their place of residence.

Leonardo was illegitimate, which, according to biographer Isaacson, may well have assisted his skill and education. He was not required to go to formal school, and he passed his youth in experimentation and exploration, keeping careful notes in a series of journals that have survived. Piero was a well-to-do man, descended from at least two generations of important notaries, and he settled in the town of Florence. He married Albierra, the daughter of another notary, within eight months of Leonardo's birth. Leonardo was raised in the da Vinci family home by his grandfather Antonio and his wife, along with Francesco, Piero's youngest brother only 15 years older than his nephew, Leonardo himself.

Florence (1467–1482)

In 1464, Albierra died in childbirth—she had no other children, and Piero brought Leonardo to live with him in Florence . There, Leonardo was exposed to the architecture and writings of the artists Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472); and it was there that his father got him an apprenticeship to the artist and engineer Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop was part art studio and part art shop, and Leonardo was exposed to a rigorous training program that included painting, sculpture, pottery, and metalworking. He learned the beauty of geometry and the mathematical harmony that art can leverage. He also learned chiarroscuro and developed the sfumato technique for which he would become famous.

When his apprenticeship ended in 1472, Leonardo registered in the Florentine painter's confraternity, the Compagnia di San Luca. Many of the works he did in Verocchio's workshop were often completed by several of the students and/or the teacher, and it is clear that by the end of his tenure, Leonardo had surpassed his master.

Verocchio's workshop was sponsored by the duke of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici  (1469–1492), also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. Some of the works painted by Leonardo in his 20s include the "Annunciation" and the "Adoration of the Magi," and the portrait of "Ginevra di Benci."

Milan (1482–1499)

When Leonardo turned 30, he was sent by Lorenzo on a diplomatic mission to bring a lute in the shape of a horse's head that he himself had crafted to be given to Ludovico Sforza, the powerful duke of Milan. With him was Atalante Migliorotti (1466–1532), the first of his long-term companions who acted as a friend, assistant, secretary, and romantic partner.

When Leonardo arrived in Milan, he sent a letter to Ludovico, a letter that was more or less a job application, laying out in detail the type of job he envisioned being useful to the duke: military and civil engineering. Instead, Leonardo ended up an impresario, producing elaborate pageants for the royal court such as the "Masque of the Planets." He designed scenery and costumes and developed fantastic mechanical elements for the plays that would fly, descend, or animate for the audience. In this role, he was part court jester: he sang and played the lute, told stories and fables, played pranks. His friends described him as gentle and entertaining, handsome, precise, and generous, a valued and beloved companion.

The Genius in the Notebook

It was also during this period that Leonardo began keeping regular notebooks. More than 7,200 single pages exist today, estimated to be one-quarter of his total output. They are filled with expressions of sheer genius: flights of fancy, precognitive sketches of impossible technologies (scuba gear, flying machines, helicopters); careful, analytical anatomical studies of dissections he performed on humans and animals; and visual puns. In his notebooks and his canvases, he played with shadow and light, perspective, motion, and color. His drawings of humans at the time are fascinating: an old warrior with a nutcracker nose and an enormous chin; grotesquely old men and women; and a thin, muscular, curly-haired androgynous figure, the opposite avatar of the old warrior who would provide centuries of delight and speculation for art historians.

Of course, he painted while he was in Milan: portraits included several of Ludovico's mistresses, "The Lady with the Ermine and La Belle Ferronnière," and religious works such as "Virgin of the Rocks" and the astonishing "Last Supper." He also made the famous drawing "Vitruvian Man," the best of numerous attempts of the day to illustrate what the Roman architect Vitrivius (c. 80–15 BCE) meant when he said the layout of a temple should reflect the proportions of a human body. Leonardo ditched most of Vitrivius' measurements and calculated his own ideal of perfection.

In 1489, Leonardo finally earned the job he had wanted in 1482: he received an official court appointment, complete with rooms (albeit not at Ludovico's castle). His first commission was to make an immense sculpture of the duke of Milan's father Francesco sitting on a horse. He made the model of clay and worked for years planning the casting, but never completed the bronze sculpture. In July 1490, he met the second companion of his life, Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, known as Salai (1480–1524).

By 1499, the duke of Milan was running out of money and no longer consistently paying Leonardo, and when Louis XII of France (1462–1515) invaded Milan, Ludovico fled the city. Leonardo stayed in Milan briefly—the French knew him and protected his studio from the mobs—but when he heard rumors that Ludovico was planning to return, he fled home to Florence.

Italy and France (1500–1519)

When Leonardo returned to Florence, he found the city still shaken from the after-effects of the brief and bloody rule of Savonarola (1452–1498), who in 1497 had led the "Bonfire of the Vanities"—the priest and his followers collected and burned thousands of objects such as artworks, books, cosmetics, dresses, mirrors, and musical instruments as forms of evil temptations. In 1498, Savonarola was hanged and burned in the public square. Leonardo was a different man when he returned: he dressed like a dandy, spending almost as much on clothing as he did on books. His first patron was the notorious military ruler Cesare Borgia (1475–1507), who conquered Florence in 1502: Borgia gave Leonardo a passport to travel wherever he needed, as his personal engineer and innovator.

The job only lasted about eight months, but during that time Leonardo built a bridge supporting a garrison of troops out of a pile of lumber and nothing more. He also perfected the art of maps, drawing villages as they would be seen from the air, accurate, detailed birds-eye views of cities measured with a compass. He also established a friendship with Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), who would base his classic "The Prince" on Borgia. By 1503, though, Borgia was running amok, requiring mass executions in the towns he occupied. At first, Leonardo seemed oblivious, but when Machiavelli left, so did Leonardo: back to Florence.

In Florence, Leonardo and Machiavelli worked on an astonishing project: they planted to divert the Arno river from Pisa to Florence. The project got started, but the engineer changed the specs and it was a spectacular failure. Leonardo and Machiavelli also worked on a way to drain the Piombino Marshes: the movement and force of water was a fascination for Leonardo throughout his life, but the marsh project was also not completed.

Michelangelo

Artistically, Florence had a huge drawback: Leonardo had acquired a nemesis, Michelangelo . Twenty years younger, Michelangelo was a pious Christian convulsed by agony over his nature. The two artists' communication devolved into a bitter feud. The two men were each commissioned to do battle scenes: hung in separate galleries, the paintings were depictions of frenzied faces, monstrous armor, and mad horses. Isaacson suggests that the upshot of the war of the battle scene was useful to both artists because they were now both luminaries, rather than interchangeable parts.

From 1506–1516, Leonardo wandered back and forth between Rome and Milan; another one of his patrons was the Medici Pope Leo X (1475–1521). In 1506, Leonardo adopted Francesco Melzi, the 14-year-old son of a friend and civil engineer, as his heir. Between 1510 and 1511, Leonardo worked with anatomy professor Marcantonio della Torre, whose students dissected humans while Leonardo made 240 meticulous drawings and wrote 13,000 words of description—and probably more, but those are what survived. The professor died of the plague, ending the project before it could be published.

And of course, he painted. His masterpieces during this period in his life include the "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda"); "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne," and a series of images of Salai as St. John the Baptist and Bacchus.

In 1516, Francis I of France commissioned Leonardo for another astounding, impossible task : design a town and palace complex for the royal court at Romorantin. Francis, arguably one of the best patrons Leonardo ever had, gave him the Chateau de Cloux (now the Clos Luce). Leonardo was by now an old man, but he was still productive—he made 16 drawings over the next three years, even if the city project was not completed—but he was visibly ill and had likely suffered a stroke. He died on May 2, 1519, at the Chateau.

• Clark, Kenneth and Martin Kemp. "Leonardo da Vinci: Revised Edition." London, Penguin Books, 1989.
• Isaacson, Walter. "Leonardo Da Vinci." New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. 
• Farago, Claire. "Biography and Early Art Criticism of Leonardo da Vinci." New York: Garland Publishing, 1999.
• Nicholl, Charles. "Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind." London, Penguin Books, 2005.
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Biography Online

• Leonardo da Vinci Biography

In addition to art, Da Vinci studied all aspects of life from anatomy to mathematics and astronomy; his far-reaching investigations and discoveries sought to show an underlying unity of the universe. Da Vinci is considered to be a key person in the birth of the European Renaissance , which saw an emergence of new ideas, scientific discoveries and the creation of beautiful art.

Short Biography of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo was born an illegitimate son of a Florentine noble and peasant woman; he grew up in Vinci, Italy. In his formative years, he developed a love of nature and from an early age began to display his remarkable academic and artistic talents.

Adoration of the Magi by Da Vinci

In 1466, he moved to Florence where he entered the workshop of Verrocchio. Initially, his formative style reflected his teacher but he soon developed an artistic sense which went far beyond his master’s rigid style. His first work of significance was the “Adoration of the Magi” commissioned by monks of San Donato a Scopeto. Although unfinished, the work was a masterpiece and introduced several new ideas. In particular, he introduced themes of movement and drama. He also pioneered the use of Chiaroscuro ; this is the technique of defining forms through the contrast of light and shadow. This would be later used to great effect in the Mona Lisa.

“Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.” The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Richter, 1888)

In 1482, Leonardo went to the court of Ludovico Sforza in Milan, where he stayed for 16 years. Here he continued painting and also branched out into other interest such as engineering and anatomy.  During this period he painted the famous artworks “Madonna on the Rocks” and also “The Last Supper.”

Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci

The Last Supper has been described as one of the greatest religious paintings. With Christ at the centre of the picture, it embodies great feeling and emotion as Christ is about to announce his imminent betrayal by Judas. The painting is held at the Convent of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, Milan, but unfortunately over time the quality of the original painting has deteriorated, despite frequent restoration attempts.

Leonardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa

In 1499, his patron L. Sforza was defeated by the French invasion, causing Leonardo to return to Florence. During this period, he painted the fresco of the Battle of Anghiari. This artwork was to exert tremendous influence over future artists. However, it was never completed and was later destroyed. It was also during this period that Leonardo completed The Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is one of the world’s most famous and intriguing pictures. The Mona Lisa is a portrait of a wife of a Florentine noble. For several days she came to Leonardo and sat for her portrait to be painted; however, she refused to smile. Leonardo even tried hiring musicians but to no avail. One day, just for a fleeting second, she gave a faint smile, and Leonardo was able to capture it. Her smile encapsulates a mysteriousness which is both fascinating and intriguing. Sri Chinmoy said of the Mona Lisa.

“That smile has immortalized her, immortalized the artist and immortalized the art. Artist and art have been immortalized by just a faint smile, a smile that has an enigmatic touch. Even now a soul-touch is there, and that soul-touch has conquered the heart of the world.” (1)

In the Mona Lisa, Leonardo masters the techniques of sfumato and chiaroscuro . Sfumato enables a gradual transition between colours – allowing delicate and expressive images. In the Mona Lisa, the use of chiaroscuro is evident in the contrast between her face and the dark background.

Glider design by Da Vinci

In this period Leonardo also extended his studies into engineering, science and other subjects. There seemed to be no end to his interests. He made copious notes in his complex mirror handwriting, much of which wasn’t deciphered in his lifetime. He also drew complex models of machines; in particular, he was fascinated by flight. He used to buy birds just so that he could release and enjoy watching them fly away. Da Vinci also attempted to build a flying object himself. Machines that he drew on paper, such as helicopters, would become a reality many centuries later. If his medicinal studies had been published, it would have revolutionised the science, as he was one of the first to understand the circulation of blood within the body. He also realised the earth revolved around the sun, anticipating the future work of Copernicus and Galileo .  Da Vinci was driven to contemplate all aspects of life and the world, it left him with a great love and fascination with the universe.

“Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing … Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles…” The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Through different fields, Da Vinci sought to see an underlying unity in the universe and took an optimistic view of human potential.

“Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue that they will restore to man his lost memory.”

The Vitruvian Man

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man

This is a drawing of the proportions of man. Da Vinci used earlier work and notes by the Roman architect Vitruvius. The picture combines art, man and science – illustrating the beauty of geometrical proportions and the human form. It is symbolic of Da Vinci’s work, and the Renaissance he inspired, to combine these art forms into one diagram. In the simplicity of a line drawing, there are many different factors brought into play; it has become an iconic image.

Da Vinci fame grew during his lifetime, though he was not a wealthy man and he had to rely on the patronage of his patrons. This included powerful men, such as Cesare Borgia, who in the early 1500s demanded Da Vinci design instruments of war. Da Vinci designed a crossbow, prototype tank and ‘machine gun.’

Personal life of Da Vinci

Leonardo remained single throughout his life. He did not marry or have children. He kept his personal life private and shared few details. He was close with his pupils Salai and Melzi, but appeared to be mostly absorbed in his far-reaching investigations, work and paintings. In his day, contemporary reports indicated Da Vinci was a unique person, with a physical beauty, dignified presence and strong moral character. Da Vinci expresses his love of truth:

“To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God’s grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.” The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

His first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, writes on the person of Da Vinci in 1550.

“..Besides a beauty of body never sufficiently extolled, there was an infinite grace in all his actions; and so great was his genius, and such its growth, that to whatever difficulties he turned his mind, he solved them with ease.” ( Source text )

A notable characteristic of Da Vinci was his wide-ranging respect and reverence for truth, life and living creatures. He adopted a vegetarian diet and would buy caged birds just so he could release them. He is quoted as saying:

“ The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”

Between 1506-1510, Leonardo spent time in Milan working on behalf of the very generous French King Lois XII. In 1513 he travelled to the Vatican, Rome where he enjoyed the patronage of the new Medici Pope, Leo X. Here, Da Vinci worked in proximity to contemporaries such as the great Masters Michelangelo and Raphael . However, an intense rivalry soon developed between the younger Michelangelo and Da Vinci.

The religion of Da Vinci

Despite being the patron of the Pope, Da Vinci was not an orthodox Catholic. Vasari writes of Da Vinci that he was:

“cast of mind was so heretical that he did not adhere to any religion, thinking perhaps that it was better to be a philosopher than a Christian.”

Madonna of the Rocks (cropped) by Da Vinci

Vasari removed this quote in the second edition but, from his life’s work, we can see Da Vinci valued reason and was willing to question dogma passed down through the ages. Da Vinci wrote criticisms of the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church. The religious paintings of Da Vinci also indicate a religious faith expressed in a non-conformist way. His Madonna on the Rocks incorporates a Virgin Mary, not dressed regally or surrounded with a halo, but simply dressed in the surroundings of nature. Da Vinci did believe in God, but his religious sensibilities were expressed through seeing God in art, science and nature.

“We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.” The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Da Vinci was a great perfectionist – one reason why he completed so few paintings was that he never felt he had satisfactorily finished anything. He said towards the end of his life:

“I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.”

In 1515, Da Vinci left to settle at the castle of Cloux, near Amboise by the kind invitation of Francis I of France. Here Da Vinci, spent his remaining years, free to pursue his own studies. He died in 1519 leaving behind one of the greatest body of artistic and scientific works.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Leonardo da Vinci ”, Oxford, UK – www.biographyonline.net . Published: 12th Jan 2014. Last updated 15th February 2018.

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• Leonardo da Vinci
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• October 21, 2018 3:14 PM
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Your guide to Leonardo da Vinci: his life, inventions and milestones in his career

Renaissance painter, architect, inventor – Leonardo da Vinci is often remembered as one of history's greatest artists, yet this overlooks his radical approach to the challenges of flight, manufacturing and war. Here, we chart the important chapters in Leonardo’s professional life, from his boyhood apprenticeship in Florence to his final years – plus his genius visions for the future…

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More than five centuries after his death, Leonardo da Vinci’s legacy lives on in creations such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper – two of the most recognisable works of art in existence. As well as being a talented painter, however, Leonardo was also a skilled scientist and engineer with an incredible range of interests. In this comprehensive guide to Leonardo da Vinci, art historian Maya Corry explores eight of the most important chapters in Leonardo’s professional life – from his boyhood apprenticeship in Florence to his final years as a fêted figure in the court of the king of France. Also, Marina Wallace explores seven of Leonardo da Vinci's most forward-thinking ideas and inventions – from the telescope to the flying machine…

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Leonardo da Vinci: a brief biography

• Timeline: Leonardo da Vinci's rise to success

7 of Leonardo da Vinci's visions for the future

Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci, Tuscany in 1452, the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary and a young peasant. Little is known of his childhood, but his artistic talent must have been apparent at an early age for, at 14, he was apprenticed to one of the most well-known Florentine workshops of the day: that of painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio.

In 1482, now an artist in his own right, da Vinci moved from Florence to Milan in search of new work. There, he began working as a military engineer for Ludovico Sforza, future Duke of Milan, designing many of his famous war inventions. It was also during his time in the city that da Vinci created one of his most famous works, The Last Supper .

• Leonardo : the real history behind the new Renaissance drama

Da Vinci spent 17 years in Milan, painting, sculpting and recording new inventions and scientific and anatomical observations in a series of notebooks. But in 1499, the French invasion of the city brought his employment with Sforza to an end and da Vinci spent several years travelling around Italy working on a variety of projects. Among these was the Mona Lisa , a painting believed to have been started in 1503, and The Virgin and Child with St Anne (1510).

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Da Vinci spent his final years at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, in the employment of the French king, Francis I. He died there, on 2 May 1519, at the age of 67.

After his death, da Vinci’s unpublished manuscripts, full of ideas and observations, were first neglected and later dispersed, with many pages disappearing forever. But in the 20th century, scholars and restorers began to recover and interpret what texts survived. Thanks to them, we can now appreciate the activity of one of the most extraordinary minds the world has ever known.

Da Vinci’s inquiring mind and relentless search for answers saw him make groundbreaking discoveries in engineering, science, anatomy and industry, often centuries before these ideas became widely accepted and put into practice.

Leonardo da Vinci’s rise to success: a timeline

What were the turning points in Leonardo da Vinci's long career? Art historian Maya Corry explores…

Leonardo moves to Florence – and an artist’s workshop

Around 1464, the young Leonardo went to Florence to live with his father. Although he did not have the full advantages of those born in wedlock, his illegitimacy was not a serious hindrance. While the church stridently condemned sex outside marriage, the realities of life, love and lust meant that many children were the result of such unions. Leonardo was welcomed into his father’s home, and Ser Piero provided for him just as he did for his legitimate offspring. The boy would have received a basic education, being taught to read, write and do sums.

At 12 years old, Leonardo reached the age when boys of his status started to learn a profession, but due to his illegitimacy he could not follow his father and become a notary. His artistic talent was perhaps already apparent by this time, for Ser Piero arranged for him to be apprenticed to the Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio. Apprenticeships lasted around six years and were often formalised with a contract. These listed the responsibilities of the master: to keep the lad fed, housed, clean and well-dressed, and to teach him all the skills necessary to succeed in his line of work. In return, the child promised to be diligent, honest and – in a sign of the unhappiness endured by some apprentices – not to run away.

Verrocchio was a prosperous painter and sculptor. He ran a busy workshop, a space for both living and working, in which he trained apprentices and employed assistants to help him produce the many works of art that his patrons commissioned. Initially, Leonardo would have risen early to light the fire, grind the pigments to make paint, prime panels and prepare all the materials needed for the day’s work. In time, he would have graduated to more skilled and important jobs, learning all that he needed to know along the way.

The apprentice blossoms into artistic maturity

Throughout the next years, Leonardo continued to work closely with Verrocchio, and by 1473 had likely graduated to the position of a paid collaborator. Successful Renaissance artists commonly employed assistants to help them complete large commissions, with several people often working on a single painting. Contracts sometimes specified how much of a picture was to be by the master’s own hand – the greater the proportion, the more expensive it was. He tended to be responsible for the most important parts, such as faces and main figures, with patrons happy to leave background details to assistants.

Verrocchio depended on this kind of arrangement to produce his Baptism of Christ altarpiece, on which at least three different artists worked. Giorgio Vasari, the great 16th-century writer on art, claimed that Leonardo contributed the left-hand angel in the painting, and that its great beauty prompted fierce jealousy in Verrocchio. Although Vasari wrote decades after the events and we have to take his words with a pinch of salt, many art historians nevertheless agree that the angel – and some parts of the landscape – were painted by the young artist.

By this point, Leonardo was also producing works of art that were entirely his own efforts, such as the Annunciation . This picture might have been his ‘masterpiece’: the work that proved he had mastered his profession and was eligible to join the painters’ guild. It shows the young Madonna interrupted in her reading by the arrival of Gabriel, winged like a bird of prey, who tells her she will give birth to the son of God. They appear in a beautiful garden, the ground strewn with flowers. In the background the vista fades away into misty mountains. Both the Virgin and angel are delicate beauties, in the same vein as the Baptism of Christ ’s left-hand angel. In these early paintings, we can see themes that were to preoccupy Leonardo throughout his career: the workings of light and vision; emotional interaction between figures; the careful observation of the natural world; and the depiction of ideal beauty.

• Why does the Tower of Pisa lean to one side?

Leonardo proves his worth to the Duke of Milan

Around 1482, Leonardo left Tuscany and journeyed north to Milan, seeking the patronage of the city’s ruler, Ludovico Sforza. For ambitious artists, writers, scholars and musicians, there was nothing better than an official position at the court of a great lord or lady. It came with a salary, providing freedom from the usual pressure to hustle for commissions and stick to agreed deadlines.

• Read more about Leonardo da Vinci’s patrons

This was clearly an attractive prospect for Leonardo, and he presented himself to Ludovico with a hard sell. With a canny awareness of what would most appeal to the duke, he laid out his skills in a letter. First and foremost, he declared, he was a master of “instruments of war”, who could build ingenious weapons for Ludovico that would “cause terror to the enemy” (this was a time of almost constant conflict). Most of the letter is taken up with descriptions of these “secret” military inventions, but Leonardo also mentions the bronze equestrian monument Ludovico wished to erect in honour of his late father, Francesco, boasting that he would be able to make this “to the immortal glory and eternal honour… of the illustrious house of Sforza”.

Leonardo concluded by listing his other talents: in architecture, hydraulics, sculpture and, finally, painting. During the Renaissance, it was common for painters to have several strings to their bow. Many were also skilled in other fields, such as sculpture, metalwork, manuscript illumination or engineering. Some read classical texts and published learned treatises on these topics. Leonardo was not entirely unusual then, but the range of areas in which he claimed to be a master was broad, making him an attractive prospect to a ruler such as Ludovico.

Although the duke was rich he was not profligate and Leonardo did not secure the salary he coveted until 1489. In the meantime, he took on commissions such as the Virgin of the Rock s altarpiece. This shows the apocryphal meeting of the little cousins Christ and John the Baptist in a mysterious rocky landscape, watched over by the Virgin and an angel. The carefully arranged composition is suffused with a gentle light and sense of calm majesty, the figures united by gestures and gazes. The painting showcases his talents and was swiftly celebrated.

Leonardo's intimate court paintings break new ground

In July 1493, Leonardo noted that a woman named ‘Caterina’ had joined his household in Milan. This could have been a housekeeper, but it may be that after many years, he was finally reunited with his mother. This would have presumably brought additional happiness at a time of general prosperity and success for the artist, who had been given quarters in the Corte Vecchia, an old ducal palace. There he had a large workshop space, allowing him to build a huge model of the monument to Ludovico’s father. Included among the members of his workshop were young Milanese artists such as Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco d’Oggiono, as well as apprentices including Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, better known as Salaì. Under Leonardo’s influence, they produced numerous drawings and paintings of exquisite young men and women.

• Read more about the relationship between Leonardo and Salaì

Leonardo was fascinated by physical loveliness, but the activities of the workshop were also shaped by the tastes of the courtly circle that surrounded Ludovico. This included nobles, scholars, poets, musicians and physicians, many of whom were also interested in ideal beauty, and what it communicated about those who possessed it. Leonardo and Boltraffio (who was of noble blood) were welcomed into this world. Pleasurable time was passed debating the key intellectual questions of the day, and Leonardo was praised for his knowledge and verbal skill. During this period, he produced a number of portraits of members of the court: a musician who was probably his friend Atalante Migliorotti ( Portrait of a Musician ); the educated and erudite Cecilia Gallerani, Ludovico’s teenage mistress ( Lady with an Ermine ); and a self-possessed, dark-haired woman, possibly Lucrezia Crivelli ( La Belle Ferronnière ), pictured below.

In these paintings, Leonardo employed traditional methods of identifying a sitter – the musician, for example, holds a sheet of music – and potent symbolism. The ermine caressed by Cecilia represents both chastity and lust, and is a play on her name (the Greek word for ‘weasel’ is similar to Gallerani). But he also sought psychological realism, rejecting the more traditional profile format in favour of dynamic poses that highlight the life and movement of each sitter, and make viewing feel like a truly interactive experience. Contemporaries spoke with admiration of Leonardo’s ability to encapsulate an individual’s inner world in a single image. The court poet Bernardino Bellincioni wrote that the painted Cecilia “appears to be listening”, and that she would remain “alive and beautiful” for all eternity thanks to Leonardo’s skill.

A religious masterpiece is born

Relatively early in the 1490s, Leonardo received another major commission. He was asked to paint a mural of the Last Supper in the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, where the ducal family often worshipped. The task of depicting Christ’s final meal with his disciples, when he revealed to them foreknowledge of his terrible betrayal and death, must have been exciting for Leonardo. It allowed him to explore visually his beliefs about how the body communicates inner states of being.

Fascination with this question drove both his artistic and scientific investigations, for it is impossible to clearly divide one from the other. Leonardo’s notes are full of assertions that the painter ought to be constantly aware of how the “motions of the mind” are visible in bodily movements, gestures and facial expressions. He even recorded the faces of passers-by that struck him as particularly interesting and animated. As ever, he wanted to comprehend the underlying mechanisms of these processes, and his skull studies also reveal a probing effort to understand how the intellect, or soul, is linked to the body’s physical apparatus.

The Last Supper gave Leonardo the opportunity to put his theories on display. Astonished and devastated by Christ’s announcement that one of them would cause his death, the disciples convey their feelings with fierce clarity through their body language. The Apostle James flings his arms out in shock, his face registering horror. John the Evangelist turns away from Jesus in pain, as St Peter grabs his knife and gestures in disbelief. Judas’s pose reveals his guilt: unlike the others, he does not gesture wildly or in sorrow, but simply turns to Christ in surprise and clutches to himself a bag of coins, the payment for his betrayal. Jesus is the calm centre of the composition, and our eyes are led inexorably to him by the spatial arrangement of the picture and its vanishing point.

While the subject of the picture was much to Leonardo’s liking, its size posed a challenge. He preferred to work slowly and delicately, but fresco painting had to be done quickly. To solve this problem, he developed a new method of applying the pigment, allowing him to move at his preferred pace. Over the years the duke became impatient with the slow progress of the painting, and Leonardo had to mollify him with promises that he was getting on with it. Ultimately, Ludovico was much pleased with the work, and he rewarded Leonardo with the gift of a vineyard near Porta Vercellina. The picture’s fame spread, although Leonardo’s experiments with the new way of applying the pigment soon caused it to begin to deteriorate.

From military architecture to the Mona Lisa

Having spent the previous year working as a military architect and engineer for Cesare Borgia, captain of the papal armies, in 1503 Leonardo sought a new patron. He wrote to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II describing his prowess in hydraulics and engineering, and offering to build bridges: one “as high as a building, and even tall ships will be able to sail under it”; another “across the Bosporus to allow people to travel between Europe and Asia”. Nothing came of this overture and Leonardo, who was now 51, must have been frustrated by the loss of security and, above all, freedom that he had experienced since leaving Milan. He had to return to the world of the jobbing artist, bound by the terms of contracts, with his time spoken for.

Leonardo came to be employed by the Florentine republic to manage the diversion of the river Arno, and was commissioned to produce an enormous mural of the battle of Anghiari in the city’s Great Council Hall. The painting, in the seat of power where government was conducted, was to celebrate Florentine military prowess, and was intended to match another mural, of the battle of Cascina, by Michelangelo. The plan thus pitted the two great Tuscan artists against one another in direct competition. Leonardo’s surviving drawings for his mural reveal tangles of men and horses caught in the heat of battle. Faces contort with tension, rage and valour; as with The Last Supper , he wanted viewers to be immersed in the emotion of the scene. There is another similarity with The Last Supper : once more, Leonardo experimented with painting techniques, and once more he was not successful. The colours of the mural ran together, and parts were obscured.

• Read more about Leonardo and Michelangelo' rivalry and mutual inspiration

In the same year Leonardo began work on a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the merchant Francesco del Giocondo. He could not have known that this little painting, with its clever play on Lisa’s name – her smile indicating that she was giocondo (jocund) – would become the most famous work of art ever created.

Leonardo deepens his anatomical investigations

By 1510, Leonardo was settled in Milan and in receipt of a salary from the French king Louis XII, allowing him to focus his attentions on his own interests rather than a major commission. Probably working alongside Marcantonio della Torre, a professor of anatomy from the nearby University of Pavia, he had ready access to bodies for dissection. He started compiling a treatise on anatomy, beginning with the study of “a perfect man” and then discussing the bodies of an old man, an infant and a woman, taking in the development of the foetus in the womb. Leonardo also produced a series of drawings of the skeleton and musculature that remain breathtaking in their detail, clarity and beauty. They not only demonstrate his desire to reveal the body’s secrets, but also an extraordinary level of artistic innovation.

Partly thanks to his experience in architecture and engineering, Leonardo developed new methods of depicting the complexity of bodily systems and structures in two dimensions that communicate clearly with no loss of information. These included exploded and layered views, and sequential drawings in series. His anatomical work in this period was driven by empirical observation, but in his notes, we find references to the infinite wisdom of the twin creators, nature and God (“il maestro”), thanks to whom the internal workings of the body are organised so perfectly.

In these years the artist was accompanied by Francesco Melzi, a young Milanese nobleman who became a sort of adopted son to him (formal or informal adoptions were common in the Renaissance, often utilised by those who did not have a natural heir). When, in December 1511, warfare once again forced Leonardo to leave Milan, Melzi hosted him in his family’s villa at Vaprio d’Adda, Lombardy.

While staying in the Melzi villa, Leonardo reverted to his interest in the dissection of animals – a mainstay of anatomical investigation at a time when it was not always easy to access human bodies. His fervent desire to comprehend the workings of the heart are revealed in the copious notes and drawings he made of the heart of oxen, wherein he carefully observed the passage of blood through the valves.

Gathering a lifetime’s meditations

In 1516 Leonardo went to live in France, at the invitation of the new king Francis I. In 1517, he received a visit from Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona. The cardinal’s secretary recorded that, on a previous occasion, he had visited The Last Supper in Milan, which was “most excellent” but “beginning to deteriorate”. Now he encountered Leonardo, himself “an old man”, who showed them three paintings: a “Florentine woman done from life” (likely the Mona Lisa ), Saint John the Baptist and a Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. All three were “most perfect”. It was unusual for an artist to keep paintings with him for such lengthy periods and not part with them, but the fact that Leonardo did so indicates the pictures’ importance to him. It was also convenient to have them ready to display to important guests of the king. Leonardo’s fame was well established by this point, and it would have been politically useful for Francis I to be able to bask in the reflected glory of being his patron.

Unfortunately Leonardo was no longer capable of painting owing to his age and infirmity. He still did some teaching, but mainly spent his working days organising his voluminous notes for publication. The cardinal’s secretary recalled being shown writings on machines and hydraulics and many anatomical drawings by Leonardo, who told them he had performed 30 dissections over his lifetime.

In peace and security, the artist concluded his final years, marshalling a lifetime’s work of meditation on the mysteries of life: the forces of nature; God’s movement in the universe; and the perfection of the human body and soul. His fascination with these weighty themes drove his activities in painting, sculpture, anatomy, natural science, architecture, optics and hydraulics.

Although today we consider the realms of art and science to be separate, this is not something that Leonardo and his Renaissance contemporaries would have acknowledged. Rather than seeking to compartmentalise his many spheres of activity, we come closer to Leonardo when we recognise the underlying interests that motivated and fuelled them all.

Maya Corry is an art historian at the University of Oxford, whose research is focused on early modern Italy. She is author of upcoming Beautiful Bodies: Spirituality, Sexuality and Gender in Leonardo’s Milan (OUP). This article first appeared in BBC History Magazine's Leonardo da Vinci Special Edition

Marina Wallace explores seven of Leonardo da Vinci's most forward-thinking ideas and inventions for BBC History Magazine – from the telescope to the flying machine…

Works of art

Drawing was, for da Vinci, primarily a learning exercise: a type of brainstorming on paper. Always keen to experiment with new techniques, da Vinci would make clay models, cover them with linen dipped in wet clay, and then draw from them. Black and white pigment was then applied with a brush as a way of executing studies in light and shade – known as chiaroscuro .

One of da Vinci’s most famous works, Mona Lisa , exemplifies the sfumato technique he is known for, where colours are blurred like smoke to produce softened outlines. In the words of da Vinci himself, “the eye does not know the edge of any body”.

Da Vinci was not afraid to adopt unorthodox methods in painting. In his c1498 work The Last Supper he rejected traditional fresco techniques of the day (pigment mixed with water and sometimes egg yolk on moist plaster). Instead, he experimented with other water and oil-based mediums in order to create his masterpiece.

Technical examination of panel paintings, such as his c1501 work Madonna of the Yarnwinder , has also revealed that da Vinci used strikingly complex underdrawings in his work. Spolvero marks (charcoal dust) have been discovered beneath several of his paintings, which confirms he used a cartoon – a full-size preparatory study for a painting transferred onto the panel via a method similar to tracing.

His use of hand- and fingerprints to blend shadows also distinguishes his paintings from those of his contemporaries, and his use of light influenced many artists after him. His unique way of viewing drawing as an investigative technique still influences artists, including Joseph Beuys who, in 1975, produced several conceptual works influenced by da Vinci’s manuscripts in the Codex Madrid (1490–1505).

Human Anatomy

Throughout his career da Vinci strove for accuracy in his anatomical drawings. Although most of these were based on studies of live subjects, they reveal his knowledge of the underlying structures observed by dissection. Da Vinci acquired a human skull in 1489, and his first documented human dissection was of a 100-year-old man, whose peaceful death he witnessed in a Florentine hospital in 1506.

Curious about the structures and functions of the body, da Vinci dissected around 30 corpses in his lifetime.

Human dissection was tightly regulated by the church, which objected to what it saw as desecration of the dead. Nevertheless, da Vinci’s dissections were carried out openly in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Among his drawings is an ink and chalk sketch of a baby in utero , probably made by dissecting a miscarried foetus and a woman who had died in childbirth.

Da Vinci perceived the workings of the human body to be a perfect reflection of engineering and vice versa. In 1508, his studies of hydrodynamics coincided with the study of the aortic valve and the flow of blood to the heart. He annotated instructions for wax casts and glass models of the aorta and recorded experiments with flowing water, using grass seeds to track the flow of ‘blood’. Through these experiments he observed that the orifice of a heart’s open valve is triangular and that the heart has four chambers.

Da Vinci’s anatomical discoveries weren’t widely disseminated, and it was another century before the rest of the world began to catch up: William Harvey didn’t publish his theories on the circulation of blood until 1628.

Study of Optics

A number of da Vinci’s manuscripts contain writings on vision, including important studies of optics as well as theories relating to shadow, light and colour. For da Vinci, the eye was the most important of the sense organs: “the window of the soul”, as he put it. We now know how the eye works, but in the artist’s time, sight was a mystery. To complicate matters further, the eye was a difficult organ to dissect. When cut in to, it collapses and the lens takes on a more spherical shape.

Da Vinci boiled his eye specimens, unknowingly distorting their lenses. After close examination he concluded that the eye was a geometrical body, comprising two concentric spheres: the outer “albugineous sphere”, and the inner “vitreous” or “crystalline sphere”. At the back of the eye, opposite the pupil, he observed, was an opening into the optic nerve by which images were sent to the imprensiva in the brain, where all sensory information was collated.

Leonardo da Vinci’s observations on the workings of the eye preceded Johannes Kepler’s fundamental studies in the 17th century on the inner working of human retina, convex and concave lenses, and other properties of light and astronomy.

And like Kepler a century later, da Vinci was also fascinated by his observations of celestial bodies. He stated: “The moon is not luminous in itself. It does not shine without the sun.” In his notes he includes a reminder to himself to construct glasses through which to see the moon magnified. Although da Vinci never built his telescope – the first example wasn’t created until 1608 – the initial idea was his.

Manned Flight

Da Vinci was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight. He felt that if he could arrive at a full understanding of how birds fly, he would be able to apply this knowledge to constructing a machine that allowed man to take to the skies. He attempted to combine the dynamic potential of the human body with an imitation of natural flight.

In his notes, da Vinci cites bats, kites and other birds as models to emulate, referring to his flying machine as the “great bird”. He made attempts at solving the problem of manned flight as early as 1478 and his many studies of the flight of birds and plans for flying machines are contained in his Codex on the Flight of Birds , 1505. He explored the mechanism of bird flight in detail, recording how they achieve balanced dynamism through the science of the motions of air.

One of the innovations da Vinci sketched out was an ornithopter, a bird-like system with a prone man operating two wings through foot pedals. For safety reasons he suggested that the machine should be tested over a lake and that a flotation device be placed under the structure to keep it from sinking if it fell into the water.

Da Vinci’s flight designs are not complete and most were impractical, like his sketch of an aerial screw design, which has been described as a predecessor of the helicopter. However, his hang glider has since been successfully constructed. After da Vinci, the 17th and 18th centuries witnessed several attempts at man-powered flight. The first rigorous study of the physics of flight was made in the 1840s by Sir George Cayley, who has been called the ‘father of aviation’.

Technical Drawing

Automation of industrial processes is often seen as a 19th-century concept, but da Vinci’s design for a file cutter shows the same idea. The operator turns a crank to raise a weight. After this the machine operates autonomously.

Some of da Vinci’s most modern-looking drawings are his studies of basic industrial machines. His best examples are designed to translate simple movement by the operator into a complex set of actions to automate a process. One particularly interesting device was for grinding convex mirrors, while his Codex Atlanticus shows a hoist that translates the backward and forward motion of a handle into the rotation of wheels to raise or lower weight. Next to simple drawings are exploded views (showing the order of assembly) to make the mechanism crystal clear.

The Codex Madrid , bound volumes with precise drawings concerning mainly the science of mechanisms, was rediscovered in 1966. Priority is given to the drawings, which are accompanied by a commentary or a caption. The care taken with the layout of each page and the finesse of the drawings indicates they are close to publishable form, either as a presentation manuscript or printed treatises. By showing component parts of machines in a clear fashion, da Vinci pioneered what was to come much later in the industrial age.

Almost all his industrial designs were proposals rather than inventions translated into concrete form. We might wonder how these could have revolutionised manufacturing had they been realised, but the real lesson da Vinci offers the world of science, mechanics, engineering and industry is less in his inventions and more in his highly innovative representational style and brilliantly drawn demonstrations.

Before da Vinci, very few scientists studied rocks trying to determine how they formed. The dominant belief about Earth science came from antiquity and Aristotle’s idea that rocks evolved over time, seeking to become perfect elements such as gold or mercury – a merging of geology with alchemy. Geological knowledge was based on the assumption that the Earth, surrounded by spheres of water, air and fire, was a divine creation. Deposits of fossils were thought to have been laid down by ‘the deluge’ (biblical flood) or to be of miraculous origin.

Da Vinci noted that fossils were too heavy to float: they could not have been carried to high ground by flood waters. Observing how in places there were several layers of fossils, he reasoned that such phenomena could not be the result of a single event. He observed layers of fossils in mountains high above sea level, concluding that the landscape was formed by repeated flooding and the erosive powers of water.

He wrote about his observations of rocks: “Drawn by my eager desire, wishing to see the great manifestation of the various strange shapes made by formative nature, I wandered some way among gloomy rocks, coming to the entrance of a great cavern, in front of which I stood for some time, stupefied and incomprehending such a thing.” In drawings such as A Deluge , and paintings such as the two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks, da Vinci captures his sense of mystery and wonder, replacing the divine with observation and physical explanations.

It was not until the 1830s that scientists including Charles Lyell and then Charles Darwin became convinced that the surface of Earth changes over time only slowly and gradually, not by sudden catastrophic events such as the biblical flood.

Engineering

Da Vinci’s extraordinary inventiveness led him to attempt to solve complex technical problems, such as transmitting motion from one plane onto another using intricate arrays of gears, cams, axles and levers. He was the first to design separate components that could be deployed in a variety of devices, ranging from complex units such as the gears for barrel springs and ring bearings for axles to simple hinges. His mechanics included levers, cranes and ball bearings. As we’ve already noted, he drew such devices with great attention to reality, knowing that drawings needed to be amplified with designs of the individual parts.

Da Vinci’s genius as an engineer lay in seeing clearly how design must be informed by the mathematical laws of physics rather than just practice. He undertook military, civil, hydraulic, mechanical and architectural engineering, first applying his talents aged 30, when he was employed in Milan by Ludovico Sforza as a military engineer, an occupation he held for many years. Da Vinci designed instruments for war, including catapults and other weapons, and had ideas for submarines and machine guns.

For Sforza, da Vinci designed several bridges, including a revolving bridge for use by armies on the move. With wheels, a rope-and-pulley system and a counterweight tank for balance, it could be packed away and transported. Some of his famous designs, such as the ‘tank’, were not practical devices but technological musings aimed at a patron. His civil engineering projects, meanwhile, included geometry studies and designs of canals and churches with domes.

Da Vinci’s innovative attitude about how things work made him a pioneer in what later became the science of mechanics.

Marina Wallace was a director of the Universal Leonardo project, which aimed to deepen understanding of da Vinci. Her most recent book is 30-Second Leonardo da Vinci (Ivy Press, 2018)

This article was first published in the May 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine

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March 16, 2024

Life Story of Famous People

Short Bio » Painter » Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci known as Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452, in Vincy, Republic of Florence, which is presently known as Italy. He was a sculptor, painter, architect,  mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, musician, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He is one of the most mysterious and extraordinarily genius people of all time. His parents were rich landlord Antonio da Vinci and a peasant girl, Caterina. He was their illegal child.

After raised by his father at the age 14, he was apprenticed by the famous Verrocchio. And after 6 years he became one of the best artist in Italy. The best thing is, after completing the famous painting “The baptism of Christ”, his master admitted that Leonardo da Vinci work is far superior than him and he put down the brush and never painted again. In 1476 he was charged for homosexuality by the Florentine court. In 1478 he left Verrocchio and his father’s house. After that he started his mysterious professional life. He became busy with his paintings, research, and inventions. Vinci created the first accurate anatomical model of a human named “Vitruvian Man”. He also 13000 page of research about anatomy, war machine, plane and civil engineering. His best work is the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Vitruvian Man.

Important Works of Leonardo da Vinci

• The Baptism of Christ(1472-1475), with Verrocchio
• The Adoration of the Magi, (1481)
• John The Baptist(1514)
• Virgin of the Rocks(1480)
• The Last Supper (1498)
• Mona Lisa(1507)

Some Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci

Name: Leonardo da Vinci Full Name: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci Father: Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci Mother: Caterina Born: 15 April, 1452 Died: 2 May, 1519 (aged 67) Birth Place: Vinci, Italy Height: 5 feet 8 inches Education: Fields: Different kinds of field in arts and science Citizenship: Italian Language: Italian

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Leonardo da Vinci

• Occupation: Artist, Inventor, Scientist
• Born: April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy
• Died: May 2, 1519 in Amboise, Kingdom of France
• Famous works: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Vitruvian Man
• Style/Period: High Renaissance

• The term Renaissance Man means someone who is good at everything. Leonardo is considered to be the ultimate Renaissance man.
• Some people claim he invented the bicycle.
• He was very logical and used a process like the scientific method when investigating a subject.
• His Vitruvian man is on the Italian Euro coin.
• Only around 15 of his paintings are still around.
• The Mona Lisa is also called "La Giaconda" meaning the laughing one.
• Unlike some artists, Leonardo was very famous for his paintings while he was still alive. It's only recently that we've realized what a great scientist and inventor he was.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Leonardo da Vinci

15. April 1452 – 2. Mai 1519

As a child he was very smart and was very quick at arithmetic and music. He learned the lyre and had a wonderful singing voice, and quickly went to further develop his talents with a tutor. At age 17, he went to become an apprentice of painting under the instruction of Andrea del Verrochio, in Florence, who was an artist, skilled craftsmen, goldsmith, sculptor and painter. He started to use his science to enhance his paintings. He studied and sketched rock formations, caves and fossils. He had very few close friends during his life, even though he was very kind and sympathetic. Later, during his apprenticeship, he started to find his niche at inventing machines like the helicopter, diving suit, and submarine. After he finished his education, he stayed for a short time assisting Andrea del Verrochio.

From 1478 to 1482, he obtained his own studio. After that, he was offered the job of court artist for Lodvico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. He took it and lived in beautiful Milan for 17 years. There, he had a great variety of jobs including designing artillery, and planning river system diversions for the city. In Milan, he really started to dive into the field of science and learn a lot. Go to the science section to learn more!

Toward the end of his life, in about 1508, King Louis XII of France asked him to accompany him to Milan, and he went willingly. There, he stayed working on anatomy and other fields until 1512, when the French lost Milan. He then had to go to Rome. There, he stayed until his life was finished. He was very good friends with Guiliano de’ Medici, brother of the duke, and he was well housed and treated very kindly. Sadly, while in the bliss of the Renaissance, his health started to fail. In March, 1516, Guiliano died, and Leonardo was left alone in the world, practically deserted. Not far thereafter, on May 2, 1519, the mind of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci died.

Da Vinci — The Genius

Gain insight into the mind of a genius and the fundamental scientific and artistic principles he discovered., the renaissance man.

Who Was Leonardo Da Vinci?

While Leonardo da Vinci is best known as an artist, his work as a scientist and an inventor make him a true Renaissance man. He serves as a role model applying the scientific method to every aspect of life, including art and music. Although he is best known for his dramatic and expressive artwork, Leonardo also conducted dozens of carefully thought out experiments and created futuristic inventions that were groundbreaking for the time.

His keen eye and quick mind led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas. He was a vegetarian who loved animals and despised war, yet he worked as a military engineer to invent advanced and deadly weapons. He was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance, yet he left only a handful of completed paintings.

Navigate this website to learn more about Leonardo's brilliant and imaginative mind, and the art, inventions, and discoveries that he made.

Learn More >

Da Vinci — The Artist

Leonardo sought a universal language in painting. Using perspective and his experiences with scientific observation, Leonardo tried to create faithful renditions of life. This call to objectivity became the standard for painters who followed in the 16th century.

Da Vinci — The Inventor

Throughout his life, Leonardo had brilliant and far-out ideas, ranging from the practical to the prophetic. Leonardo recognized that levers and gears, when applied properly, could accomplish astonishing tasks.

Da Vinci — The Scientist

Da Vinci bridged the gap between the shockingly unscientific medieval methods and our own trusty modern approach. The sheer range of topics that came under his inquiry is staggering: anatomy, zoology, botany, geology, optics, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics among others.

Arthinkal Magazine

• Leonardo da Vinci - A Brief Biography (1452-1519)

Leonardo da Vinci – A Brief Biography (1452-1519)

by arthinkal · Published July 21, 2021 · Updated December 17, 2023

Leonardo da Vinci. Image by wgbieber from Pixabay

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, theorist, and scientist of the Renaissance period.

He is the creator of the Mona Lisa and is widely regarded as one of the greatest artists and thinkers of all time.

Initially famous for his achievements as a painter, he eventually also became famous for his notebooks filled with notes and drawings on a variety of subjects such as anatomy, cartography, astronomy, botany, paleontology, military machines, and other inventions.

Leonardo is often considered the founder of the High Renaissance, whose artistic and scientific works have influenced subsequent artists and scientists for centuries.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15th April 1452 in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, 20 miles away from Florence.

He was born out of wedlock to Ser Piero da Vinci, a legal notary, and Caterina, a woman from the lower class.

According to a local oral tradition, Leonardo was born in Anchiano, a country hamlet that offered sufficient privacy for an illegitimate birth. However, this account could never be verified and so Leonardo’s actual birthplace still remains uncertain.

A year after his birth, Leonardo’s parents married separately.

Apart from these details, very little is known about Leonardo’s childhood. Much of it is shrouded in myth and speculation, and whatever little is known about it has been derived from Giorgio Vasari ‘s biography of Leonardo in the book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550).

According to tax records, around 1457, Leonardo lived with his paternal grandfather, Antonio da Vinci.

In spite of his father belonging to a long line of notaries, Leonardo only received a basic and informal education in writing, reading, and mathematics.

Apprenticeship Under Verrocchio

In the mid-1460s, Leonardo’s family moved to Florence, which was the center of Christian Humanist thought and culture at the time.

In 1466, Leonardo da Vinci, aged 14, became a studio boy in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, a leading Florentine painter and sculptor.

Three years later, Leonardo became an apprentice to Verrocchio and remained in training for the next seven years. Other artists such as Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio, who would all go on to become famous artists in the future, also apprenticed in Verrocchio’s workshop at the same time.

At the workshop, Leonardo was exposed to a wide range of technical skills such as drafting, metalworking, plaster casting, metallurgy, mechanics, chemistry, woodwork, and leatherworking.

Apart from these skills, he also picked up artistic skills such as drawing, painting, modeling, and sculpting.

According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on Verrocchio’s The Baptism of Christ painting. Close examination of the painting has shown that a few areas, such as the landscape and much of the figure of Jesus, have been painted over the tempera using the relatively new technique of oil painting, thereby indicating the hand of a young Leonardo da Vinci.

End of Leonardo’s Apprenticeship

In 1472, Leonardo da Vinci, aged 20, qualified as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke, the common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe.

Leonardo’s father set up a workshop for him, but he was so attached to Verrocchio that he continued to live and collaborate with him for a few more years.

Beginning of Leonardo’s Independent Artistic Career

In January 1478, Leonardo da Vinci received an independent commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saint Bernard in Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence. This was his first major independent commission. Sadly, he never completed it.

By 1480, Leonardo was said to be living with the Medici, who became his patron.

Leonardo often worked in the garden of the Piazza San Marco, a city square in Florence. At the garden, he met and mingled with the other artists, philosophers, and poets who were called on by the Medici.

In March of 1481, Leonardo received another independent commission from the monks of San Donato in Scopeto to paint The Adoration of the Magi . Unfortunately, he did not complete this as well.

Instead, he went to offer his services to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. He wrote a letter to Sforza, describing to him the various things he could do in the fields of engineering and weapon designing. And at the very end of the letter, he added almost as an afterthought that he could also paint.

In 1482, Leonardo, aged 30, was sent as an ambassador by Lorenzo de Medici to Ludovico Sforza.

Life in Milan

In Milan, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks for the confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, a church and Dominican convent in Milan.

Leonardo was employed on many projects for Sforza. He was asked to prepare floats and pageants for festivals and other special occasions. He was also asked to draw and make a wooden model for a competition to design the Cupola (a dome-like structure on top of a building) for the Milan Cathedral.

Leonardo then received a commission to make a model for a huge equestrian monument to Ludovico’s predecessor Francesco Sforza. He completed a model for the horse and made detailed plans for its casting, but the project was eventually abandoned in 1494 when Ludovico gave away the bronze to be used for a cannon to defend the city from Charles Vlll of France.

Return to Florence

In 1499, Ludovico Sforza was overthrown by King Louis Xll of France at the Battle of Novara.

As a result of this change in political power, Leonardo da Vinci left Milan for Venice, along with his assistant Salai and his mathematician friend Luca Pacioli. Upon his arrival in Venice, Leonardo was employed as a military architect and engineer, trying to devise methods to defend the city from naval attacks.

The following year, Leonardo returned to Florence and stayed as a guest of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata, the mother church of the Servite Order.

At the monastery, Leonardo was provided with a workshop, where he created the charcoal drawing of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist . According to Vasari, the drawing became so popular that men, women, and children flocked to see it and admire it.

Employment Under Cesare Borgia

In 1502, Leonardo da Vinci went to Cesena and entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander Vl.

In order to gain Borgia’s patronage, Leonardo created a town plan (a detailed map) of Imola, Borgia’s stronghold. On seeing the map, Borgia employed Leonardo as his chief military engineer and architect and took him along with him in his travels throughout Italy.

Shortly later, Leonardo also created a map of Chiana Valley in Tuscany, so as to give Borgia a better overlay of the land and a greater strategic position. The map also helped Leonardo in another project of constructing a dam from the sea to Florence, to ensure a steady supply of water in order to sustain the canal during all seasons.

In early 1503, Leonardo left Borgia’s service and returned to Florence.

Life on Returning to Florence

Upon his return to Florence, Leonardo da Vinci began working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, an Italian noblewoman and member of the Gherardini family of Florence.

Giocondo’s portrait was commissioned by her husband to Leonardo, on which he would continue to work until his last years.

Giacondo’s portrait eventually came to be known as the Mona Lisa and became the most famous painting in the world.

Leonardo was also part of a committee formed to recommend where Michelangelo’s statue of David would be placed.

From 1503 to 1505, Leonardo spent his time designing and painting a mural of The Battle of Anghiari , while Michelangelo worked on designing and painting its companion mural of The Battle of Cascina .

Unfortunately, neither artist completed their respective murals.

The Battle of Anghiari is often referred to as ‘The Lost Leonardo’, as the painting in its original form can no longer be found. Some commentators believe it to be hidden beneath one of the later frescoes in the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred) in the Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence.

Summoned to Milan

In 1506, Charles ll d’Amboise, the acting French governor of Milan, summoned Leonardo to the city.

In Milan, Leonardo received a commission for an equestrian figure of d’Amboise, of which only a wax model survived. It is believed that much like most of his projects, this one too was never completed.

The Council of Florence wanted Leonardo to return to Florence to finish The Battle of Anghiari . But he was no longer interested in the project and was given leave at the behest of Louis Xll, who wished to commission Leonardo to make some portraits.

After going back to Florence for a brief period to sort out a dispute with his brothers over his father’s estate, Leonardo returned to Milan in 1508.

In 1512, Leonardo began working on an equestrian monument for Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, an Italian aristocrat who held several military commands during the Italian Wars.

But once again, the project was abandoned when a confederation of Venetian, Swiss, and Spanish forces invaded Milan and drove the French away.

Leonardo remained in the city for a few more months, staying at the Medici’s Villa in Vaprio d’Adda.

Moving to Rome

In September 1513, Leonardo da Vinci made his way to Rome, where he was received by Giuliano di Lorenzo de Medici, the brother of Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici, who assumed the papacy as Leo X in March of the same year.

For the next three years, Leonardo lived in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope. It was a place where Michelangelo and Raphael were also active around the same time.

Leonardo practiced botany in the Vatican gardens and was once also asked to make plans for the draining of the Pontine Marshes.

During this period, Leonardo became ill and suffered a stroke, the first of multiple strokes that would one day lead to his death.

Moving to France

In October 1515, Milan was recaptured by King Francis l of France.

The following year, Leonardo da Vinci entered the service of King Francis l and moved into the manor house Chateau du Clos Luce, in France, taking along the Mona Lisa with him.

Francis frequently visited Leonardo and was so impressed by him that the two became close friends. Around this time, Francis also commissioned Leonardo to make plans for an immense castle town in Romorantin, a town in the region of Centre-Val de Loire.

On 2nd May 1519, Leonardo da Vinci, aged 67, died at Clos Luce. The cause of his death was believed to be a stroke.

Francis I had become a close friend of Leonardo before Leonardo’s death, and he even remarked that there was never another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture, and architecture, as he was a great philosopher.

In accordance with his will, sixty beggars carrying tapers followed Leonardo’s casket.

Leonardo’s remains were interred in the Collegiate Church of Saint Florentin at the Chateau d’Amboise.

Leonardo’s friend and apprentice Francesco Melzi was his principal heir and executor, receiving Leonardo’s painting tools, personal objects, and library, along with money.

Salai, Leonardo’s long-time apprentice and companion, owned the Mona Lisa at the time of his death in 1524. The small panel portrait was valued at 505 lire at the time, an exceptionally high amount for such a small portrait.

Leonardo da Vinci is regarded as one of the greatest artists and thinkers to have ever lived. He was the quintessential polymath, often referred to as a genius, whose fame within his own lifetime was such that aristocrats and kings admired and courted him.

Interest in Leonardo has never diminished over all these years. In fact, it has only increased and intensified. Experts study, analyze, and translate his writings, interpret his drawings, and examine his paintings using scientific techniques. They argue over attributions made to him and look for his lost artworks that have never been found.

Although initially only famous for his paintings, it has now been generally accepted that Leonardo was so much more than just a painter. Since his death, his personal notebooks have become famous, revealing the true extent of his genius.

His notebooks reveal his infinite curiosity and interest in a wide range of topics such as engineering, anatomy, physiology, science, mathematics, etc, and prove that he is one of the greatest innovators of all time.

These notebooks are filled with detailed and accurate drawings and information regarding human anatomy, machines, and other scientific inventions so ahead of time that they seemed fantastical and unrealistic.

One of the most famous drawings in his notebooks is the Vitruvian Man , which is a study of the proportions of the human body. The drawing depicts a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart, inscribed in a circle and square, and represents Leonardo’s concept of the ideal human body proportions. The drawing has become one of the most famous and influential drawings by an artist.

Some other famous drawings and sketches include the Studies of the Fetus in the Womb , which accurately depicts the human fetus in its proper position inside a dissected uterus; the anatomical study of the arm and the human brain and skull; the extremely detailed and accurate drawing of the human spinal column; and a design for a flying machine, an aerial screw suggestive of a helicopter.

And finally, we are all aware of Leonardo’s great achievements in the field of art. His masterpiece, Mona Lisa , is the most famous painting in the world today. And The Last Supper is the most reproduced and famous religious painting of all time.

One thing is for certain, a man such as Leonardo da Vinci, whose genius was so rare and universal, comes but rarely in history. All we can be sure of is that his greatness will continue to live on for many more centuries, or it may possibly never die at all.

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