write a biography of leonardo da vinci

January 7, 2025

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

External Links

More information of leonardo da vinci:, fans also viewed.

Published in Polymath

More Celebrities

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.

Several other famous Florentine artists were also known to have been homosexual, including Michelangelo , Donatello and Sandro Botticelli . Indeed, homosexuality was such a fact of artistic life in Renaissance Florence that the word "florenzer" became German slang for “gay.”

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.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S LEONARDO DA VINCI FACT CARD

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.

Michelangelo

"],["

Vincent van Gogh

"]]" tml-render-layout="inline">

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

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

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.

Famous Painters

Frida Kahlo

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Georgia O'Keeffe

11 Notable Artists from the Harlem Renaissance

Fernando Botero

Gustav Klimt

The Surreal Romance of Salvador and Gala Dalí

Salvador Dalí

• The Complete Works

The Virgin and Child with St Anne c. 1510

The Battle of Anghiari (detail) 1503-05

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) c. 1503-05

The Last Supper (2) 1498

Annunciation (Annunciazione)

Leonardo da vinci biography in details, early life, 1452–1466.

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, "at the third hour of the night" in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant who may have been a slave from the Middle East. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci."

Little is known about Leonardo's early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano, then lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci. His father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but died young. In later life, Leonardo only recorded two childhood incidents. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face. The second occurred while exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and was both terrified that some great monster might lurk there, and driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.

Leonardo's early life has been the subject of historical conjecture. Vasari, the 16th century biographer of Renaissance painters tells of how a local peasant requested that Ser Piero ask his talented son to paint a picture on a round plaque. Leonardo responded with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a plaque decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow, which he gave to the peasant.

Verrocchio's workshop, 1466–1476

In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Other famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling.

Much of the painted production of Verrocchio's workshop was done by his employees. According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his Baptism of Christ , painting the young angel holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again. This is probably an exaggeration. On close examination, the painting reveals much that has been painted or touched up over the tempera using the new technique of oil paint, the landscape, the rocks that can be seen through the brown mountain stream and much of the figure of Jesus bearing witness to the hand of Leonardo.

Leonardo himself may have been the model for two works by Verrocchio, including the bronze statue of David in the Bargello and the Archangel Michael in Tobias and the Angel.

By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine, but even after his father set him up in his own workshop, his attachment to Verrocchio was such that he continued to collaborate with him. Leonardo's earliest known dated work is a drawing in pen and ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August 1473.

Professional life, 1476–1513

Court records of 1476 show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy, and acquitted. From that date until 1478 there is no record of his work or even of his whereabouts, although it is assumed that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476 and 1481. He was commissioned to paint an altarpiece in 1478 for the Chapel of St Bernard and The Adoration of the Magi in 1481 for the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto.

In 1482 Leonardo helped secure peace between Lorenzo de' Medici and Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. Leonardo wrote a letter to Ludovico, describing his engineering and painting skill. He created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head, with which he was sent to Milan.

Leonardo continued work in Milan between 1482 and 1499. He 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. While living in Milan between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina among his dependents in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, her list of funeral expenditure suggests that she was his mother.

His work for Ludovico included floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico's predecessor. Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay, which became known as the "Gran Cavallo", and surpassed in size the two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance. Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not unusual for Leonardo. In 1492 the model was completed, and Leonardo was making detailed plans for its casting. Michelangelo rudely implied that Leonardo was unable to cast it. In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze to be used for cannons to defend the city from invasion by Charles VIII.

At the start of the Second Italian War in 1499, the invading French troops used the life-size clay model for the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice, where he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.

On his return to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist , a work that won such admiration that "men and women, young and old" flocked to see it "as if they were attending a great festival". In 1502 Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron. He returned to Florence where he rejoined the Guild of St Luke on 18 October 1503, and spent two years designing and painting a great mural of The Battle of Anghiari for the Signoria, with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, The Battle of Cascina. In Florence in 1504, he was part of a committee formed to relocate, against the artist's will, Michelangelo's statue of David.

In 1506 he returned to Milan. Many of Leonardo's most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione. However, he did not stay in Milan for long because his father had died in 1504, and in 1507 he was back in Florence trying to sort out problems with his brothers over his father's estate. By 1508 he was back in Milan, living in his own house in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila.

From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time. In October 1515, François I of France recaptured Milan. On 19th December, Leonardo was present at the meeting of Francois I and Pope Leo X, which took place in Bologna. It was for Francois that Leonardo was commissioned to make a mechanical lion which could walk forward, then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies. In 1516, he entered François' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé near the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise. It was here that he spent the last three years of his life, accompanied by his friend and apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi, supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi.

Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died, although this story, beloved by the French and portrayed in romantic paintings by Ingres, Ménageot and other French artists, may be legend rather than fact. Vasari also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament. In accordance to his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving as well as money, Leonardo's paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and companion, Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards, his brothers who received land, and his serving woman who received a black cloak of good stuff with a fur edge.

Some twenty years after Leonardo's death, François was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher." (From wikipedia)

Leonardo Da Vinci

www.Leonardo-da-Vinci.net is an unofficial website for Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci.

• Leonardo da Vinci
• The Last Supper
• Virgin of the Rocks
• Annunciation
• Lady with an Ermine
• St John the Baptist
• Ginevra de' Benci
• Adoration of the Magi
• Vitruvian Man
• Head of a Woman
• Flying Machine
• Female Hands
• Horse Study
• Self-Portrait
• Architecture
• Full Screen Slider

* As an Amazon Associate, and partner with Google Adsense and Ezoic, I earn from qualifying purchases.

There are few fields in which da Vinci did not play a role. Although primarily an artist, his interests included: painting , sculpting, architecture, music, science, invention , mathematics , literature, engineering, anatomy, geology, cartography, history, writing, botany and astronomy.

He is credited with having invented the parachute, the helicopter and a type of tank.

Some consider him to be the father of architecture, palaeontology and ichnology. As stated before, he is also renown as the one of the greatest painters of all time.

His most famous pieces, including the Mona Lisa as mentioned above, The Last Supper and The Vitruvian Man , are undoubtedly recognized around the world. He truly is a Renaissance man, which is fitting considering he lived during the Renaissance.

Leonardo was born Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci in 1452 in Vinci, Italy. Da Vinci was not technically his last name because he did not have one as he was born out of wedlock to a peasant named Caterina and a wealthy legal notary named Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci.

His name meant "Leonardo, the son of Piero from Vinci". Leonardo grew up in his mother's household in Vinci; otherwise, little is known of his childhood. When he was a teenager, he apprenticed as a studio boy to Andrea di Cioni, an artist, and Andrea del Verrocchio , a sculptor, in Florence.

Here, Leonardo was exposed to various technical and artistic skills, including chemistry, metallurgy, carpentry, drawing , painting and sculpting. By the age of twenty, Leonardo was qualified as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke and was given a workshop by his father.

In 1482, Leonardo was sent to Milan, Italy, to give a silver lyre as a peace offering, one of his creations, to the Duke of Milan on behalf of Lorenzo de'Medici. This is where his professional career began to soar.

He was soon afterwards commissioned to create two paintings, Virgin on the Rocks and The Last Supper for local religious establishments. Da Vinci also continued to complete commissioned projects for Ludovico, including a bronze statue of a horse.

However, Leonardo had to flee Milan and head to Venice after Ludovico was overthrown in the Second Italian War in 1499, where he worked as an engineer and architect for the military. He returned to Florence the next year, where he created the much-adored The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist .

Leonardo then travelled throughout Italy with Cesare Borgia, his patron, and son of Pope Alexander VI, again as a military architect and engineer from 1502-1503. In Cesare's employ, Leonardo created numerous maps that were very accurate and helpful.

They were a new concept at the time and would influence later map creation. Afterwards, Leonardo returned to Florence and rejoined the Guild of Saint Luke, where he spent two years painting The Battle of Anghiari alongside Michelangelo and his companion piece, The Battle of Cascina. These murals were for the Signoria della Chiesa.

Leonardo returned to Milan for a short time to work with some fellow artists before his father passed away in 1504, causing him to return to Florence to sort out his father's estate.

A few years later, da Vinci found himself living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where he was able to work alongside Michelangelo and Raphael . He was then hired by King Francis I of France, who recaptured Milan.

Leonardo and Francis I became good friends and Leonardo was allowed to live at Clos Luce, a house near the king's residence at the royal Chateau d'Amboise in France, with another apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi.

It is here that Leonardo would spend the last years of his life. Melzi inherited Leonardo's estate, which included money, paintings, books, tools and personal items. Leonardo was buried on the grounds of the Chateau d'Amboise in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in 1519.

Despite having passed away around half of a century ago, Leonardo da Vinci has never truly disappeared. The likes of Rembrandt have been inspired by his work.

It is unlikely he ever will. His life has been the subject of many novels, films and studies, although sometimes satirized, exaggerated or fictionalized.

As mentioned before, his artwork is immortal and his range of talents and knowledge is exceptional. There is no doubt that interest in his works will continue, and that is no exception to his portrait from 1512.

Hi, I'm Tom!

I'm the writer and founder of Leonardo-da-Vinci.net. I have studied different art movements for over 15 years, and am also an amateur artist myself! Read my bio here.

Leonardo da Vinci – The Life and Artworks of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a prime example of the kind of person who, throughout the Italian High Renaissance, was completely committed to studying the humanities in order to continuously improve himself as a member of society. Although Leonardo da Vinci’s accomplishments span many different principles and mediums, he is most well-known for his paintings, such as the Leonardo da Vinci portrait known as the Mona Lisa (1503). So, where was Leonardo da Vinci born? Where did he die? In this article, we will take a look at Leonardo da Vinci’s biography and answer these questions and more.

Table of Contents

Leonardo da Vinci’s Biography

Leonardo da Vinci’s insatiable curiosity and creative imagination used both of his brain’s left and right sides to their full potential to create a number of innovations that were far ahead of their time. The earliest sketches that predicted the helicopter, parachute, and military tank are attributed to him. His journals are almost as well-regarded as his works of art. They feature scientific graphs, sketches, and painting ideas and are a summation of his life’s work and brilliant intellect.

Today, scholars, artists, and scientists from all around the world continue to admire and study them.

Childhood and Education

In a hamlet close to the Tuscan town of Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci – one of the most talented and creative people in history – was born in 1452. The son of a Florentine attorney named Piero da Vinci and a poor farm girl named Caterina, he was raised by his grandfather on the family estate in Anchiano. Leonardo da Vinci was close to Albiera, a 16-year-old girl his father wedded but who passed away early.

Leonardo da Vinci was the eldest of 12 children, and his family never treated him any differently for being born out of wedlock.

Early Training and Work

Leonardo da Vinci relocated to Florence at the age of 14 to pursue a traineeship with Andrea del Verrocchio, a painter who had studied under Donatello, a prodigy of the Early Renaissance . Verrocchio was a significant artist at the court of the Medici, a wealthy family that is sometimes credited with fostering the Renaissance through its lavish support of the arts and political participation . Pietro Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Lorenzo de Credi were among the many outstanding young artists who were drawn to Florence, an important creative hub in Renaissance Italy.

Leonardo da Vinci’s ability to start his apprenticeship in such a famous art studio is a sign of his father’s clout in the community.

In order to completely comprehend man’s role in the world, artists of this era immersed themselves in the humanities. Leonardo da Vinci had considerable mentoring from Verrocchio, who helped to develop his early talent. He became interested in biology, architecture, chemistry, arithmetic, and engineering in addition to sketching, painting, and sculpting.

This schooling helped him develop a keen imagination that subsequently led to the design of wonderful inventions, as seen by the numerous sketches of mechanical devices and military weaponry that serve to maintain his image as a genius today.

The production of Verrocchio’s workshop would have been a joint effort between the apprentices and the master, as was customary at the period. Art historians, such as Giorgio Vasari , believe that some paintings attributed to Verrocchio really show traces of Da Vinci’s softer brushstrokes contrasted with the heavier hand of Verrocchio. After serving as an apprentice for six years, Da Vinci joined the Guild of St. Luke, an organization of Florentine painters and physicians, in 1472. Although his father provided him with a workshop of his own, Da Vinci spent the following four years working as an assistant at Verrocchio’s workshop.

Leonardo da Vinci was suspected of sodomy in 1476 together with three other men, but due to a lack of supporting evidence, he was exonerated. This is sometimes linked to the fact that Leonardo da Vinci’s associates hailed from wealthy families. At the time, homosexuality was against the law and could result in death as well as jail and public disgrace. He may have kept a low profile during the following several years, about which not much is known, due to the consequence that came after such a terrible incident.

The monks of San Donato a Scopeto provided him with one of his first solo contracts to depict the Adoration of the Magi between 1480 and 1482. After accepting a job offer from the Duke of Milan to serve in his court, Da Vinci would pause work on the commission to relocate to Milan. Many theories have been put up as to why the shift to Milan was required at this particular time, some of which refer to the sodomy charge from a few years before.

However, it is more probable that Da Vinci was lured by the extravagant Milanese Court’s invitation and the chance to advance his name and profession.

Mature Period

From 1482 through 1499, Da Vinci was employed by the Milanese Court. He was a well-known perfectionist who devoted a lot of time to studying human anatomy, especially how people’s bodies moved, were assembled, and were proportioned, how they interacted with one another during social interactions and communication, as well as how they expressed themselves through gestures.

This was undoubtedly a laborious process, which may explain in part why there are so few completed works despite an extraordinary amount of intricately detailed sketches and drawings that served as full-scale preliminary drawings for canvases.

In addition to demonstrating his unmatched powers of observation, these sketches also demonstrate his aptitude as an artist for deciphering and expressing human emotion.

Development of Techniques

Leonardo da Vinci dabbled with profoundly novel and distinctive painting approaches throughout this time. The artist is renowned for a number of skills, including his ability to produce the smokey effect known as sfumato .

He created a method that enabled margins of color and outline to merge together to accentuate the gentle variation of skin and material as well as the astonishing translucence of hard surfaces like crystal or the textures of hair through his in-depth understanding of brushstrokes and glazes.

Leonardo da Vinci’s themes and characters had an intimate genuineness that seemed to reflect reality in novel ways. Da Vinci’s painting, Salvator Mundi (1500), in which he depicts an orb, is a good illustration of this.

However, some of his experiments, like many other ground-breaking breakthroughs, would only become problematic afterward. The Last Supper (1498), one of his greatest fresco masterpieces of the time, was the most outstanding.

However, Da Vinci had used oil paints on wet plaster to create the sfumato aesthetic, which finally caused the pigment to peel off the refectory wall of the monastery of Santa Maria del Grazie in Milan.

He was sent on a mission to meet the powerful Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, in 1485 on behalf of the duke. While there, he was required to use his rigorous creative abilities to start preparing court festivals as well as architectural and engineering projects, such as the Milan cathedral’s dome design .

Continuing Work for Monarchs

Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to produce a five-meter-high equine bronze sculpture named Gran Cavallo in 1482 honoring the founder of the Sforza family as his final unfinished project before departing Milan.

During Emperor Maximilian’s wedding to Bianca Maria Sforza in 1503, a clay model of the planned sculpture was presented, stressing the significance of the upcoming work.

However, the project was never completed, and the victorious French Army used the figure for target practice after taking Milan in 1499. According to legend, the bronze intended for the sculpture was reused for cannon production during the inevitable failure of Charles VIII’s defense of Milan during the war with France.

After the 1499 French invasion and the fall of the Duke of Milan, Da Vinci traveled to Venice with Salai, his long-time companion, and helper who had lived with Da Vinci since he was 10 years old and stayed with him until his death. Da Vinci worked as a military engineer at Venice, where his major task was to construct naval defensive systems for the city, which was under threat from Turkish military advancements in Europe. He returned to Florence in 1500, where he resided as a visitor of the Servite monks in the abbey of Santissima Annunziata with his partner.

Da Vinci obtained employment at the Court of Cesare Borgia, a prominent member of a powerful family, in addition to being the son of Pope Alexander VI and leader of the papal army, in 1502. As a military engineer, he followed Borgia on his travels around Italy.

His responsibilities included creating maps to help in military defense and building a dam to assure an unbroken flow of water from the River Arno to the canals.

Interest in Science

During the river diversion project, he met Niccolò Machiavelli, a prominent writer, and political analyst for Florence at the time. Leonardo da Vinci is considered to have introduced Machiavelli to the notions of applied science.

Thus, Da Vinci seemed to have made a significant effect on the man who would go on to be referred to as the founder of modern political science.

In 1503, Da Vinci came to Florence for the second time and was greeted as a superstar when he rejoined the Guild of St Luke. This homecoming triggered one of the artist’s most creative years of artwork, such as preparatory work on his Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (1519).

Da Vinci returned to Milan in 1508, where he spent the following five years under the sponsorship of the French Governor of Milan, Charles d’Amboise, and King Louis XII. During this time, he was highly involved in scientific pursuits such as anatomical, mathematical, mechanical, and botanical research, as well as the development of his renowned flying machine.

During this time, notable projects included the development of a villa for Charles, bridge construction, and a project to develop a canal between Lake Como and Milan.

He also invented effective military weapons, including an early prototype of the machine gun and his well-known huge crossbow. During this period, Da Vinci also met his apprentice Francesco Melzi, who became his partner until his death. It’s possible that at this moment in his career and life that Da Vinci was eventually able to live openly as a homosexual man, his successes and renown offering a safe haven from the type of painful and punishing stigmatizing he faced in his youth.

Late Period

After the French were temporarily expelled from Milan in 1513, Da Vinci traveled to Rome and spent the next three years there. He was called to the attention of French King François I, who gave him a permanent post as the French Royal Court’s principal artist and engineer.  He was sent to Clos Lucé, near the king’s Château d’Amboise. François I, a significant character in the French Renaissance, would not only become the kind of patron Da Vinci required in his later years, requiring little of Da Vinci’s time but he was also said to be a good friend of the artist. “The King was accustomed to regularly and cordially seeing him,” Vasari said of the bond.

Leonardo da Vinci spent much of his last years organizing his scientific papers and notes rather than painting.

His final picture, St John the Baptist (1513), was most likely completed around this time. This collection of notes, reflecting a lifetime’s worth of outstanding research and aptitude throughout a wide range of fields, has proven to be his most lasting legacy.

His views on mathematics, architecture, engineering, human anatomy, and physics, as well as his perspective on art and Humanism, demonstrated a depth of brilliance that earned him the title of real genius.

Leonardo da Vinci passed away on the 2nd of May, 1519, in Clos Lucé, leaving his artistic and academic assets to his partner, Francesco Melzi. Salai and his brothers shared ownership of his vines. The mythical narrative of François I attending his death epitomizes the veneration with which he was held.

“Leonardo da Vinci breathed his last breath in the arms of the monarch,” according to Vasari.

Leonardo da Vinci was buried at the church of St Florentin at the Chateau d’Amboise, but the structure was damaged due to the effects of the French Revolution . While it is thought he was reburied at the smaller chapel of St Hubert in Amboise, the exact site is unknown.

Da Vinci’s Legacy

It is difficult to sum up Leonardo da Vinci’s legacy in a few words. He perfected his creative skills. The gentle blurring effect in his sfumato approach, his utilization of the vanishing point, his mastery of the interplay between dark and light in chiaroscuro, and his mysterious facial expressions gave his works a captivating and lifelike aspect that had never been seen before.

Although the majority of his painting centered on religion and portraiture during the High Renaissance , which marked the end of the medieval era in Western culture, it was his skills, along with his masterful composition, that had the most effect on Western art.

Indeed, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are still among the world’s most known and iconic masterpieces of art, constantly reproduced on prints and firmly established in current popular culture as pieces of eternal historical importance.

But what about his innovations, anatomic studies, topographical sketches, and technical, industrial, and architectural accomplishments? While many of his innovations, such as the helicopter, flying machine, and parachute, stayed in concept form and were impractical in practice, Da Vinci’s inquiring mind was recognized as being centuries ahead of its time.

The same can be said for the precision of his figure drawings, his early inquiry into topography, interest in blood circulation, and other mechanical engineering wonders.

This is not to forget his contributions to precise time-keeping, or the bobbin winder, which at the time had a significant effect on the local industry. His research towards improving military weapons also ushered in the tanks and guns that are so well-known to us today.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Accomplishments

Invention, art, science, architecture, music, engineering, mathematics, literature, geology, astronomy, anatomy, writing, botany, history, and cartography are just a few of the disciplines where Leonardo da Vinci excelled.

Learning never exhausts the intellect, according to a quote attributed to him.

Despite his extensive excursions into other fields of specialization, Da Vinci is most known as a painter. Some of his paintings, like Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, the Mona Lisa , have continuously been considered ageless and universally famous.

Early Renaissance principles such as chiaroscuro, linear perspective, naturalism, and emotional expressionism were influenced by his contributions to the aesthetics and methods of High Renaissance painting.

With his careful technique and the use of innovative methods, he outperformed many previous painters, such as with his sfumato method, his new approach to combining glazes that produced works that were so lifelike, it was as if his figures lived from within the pictorial plane.

Notable Leonardo da Vinci Artworks

Now that we have covered Leonardo da Vinci’s biography, let us take a look at a few of his most noteworthy artworks. This is just a list as we will also have an article featuring his works in more depth. We all know about Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait Mona Lisa , but let’s see what else he is known for:

Recommended Reading

If you would like to learn more about Leonardo da Vinci’s accomplishments and art, then we can recommend checking out these books. They provide even more insight into Leonardo da Vinci’s biography and artworks.

Whether you are already a fan of his works, or just being introduced to this master, there is no better way to celebrate his works than with a book.

Leonardo da Vinci: Notebooks (2008) by Leonardo da Vinci

The majority of what is understood about Leonardo da Vinci comes from his famous notebooks, compiled around 1487 to 1490. Approximately 6,000 pages of notes and sketches have survived, representing approximately one-fifth of the actual work he created. He chronicled his studies on the flow of water and the development of rocks, the physics of aviation and optics, anatomy, building, painting, and sculpture in these volumes with an artist’s keen eye and a scientist’s curiosity.

• A compilation of the famous notebooks kept by Leonardo da Vinci
• Includes some 6,000 sheets of the artist's notes and drawings
• Fully updated edition with a preface by Da Vinci expert Martin Kemp

The Complete Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (2016) by Leonardo da Vinci

Many people see Leonardo da Vinci, possibly the leading figure of the Renaissance, as a man of mystery. Despite the fact that we have an unrivaled collection of records that illustrate his intellectual interests, processes, and innermost convictions. This compilation allows the reader insight into hundreds of his notes, drawings, doodles, musings, even book lists, and financial information.

• Includes all known Da Vinci papers as of the mid-19th century
• Illuminates the artist's thought processes, interests, and beliefs
• With hundreds of pages of notes, sketches, musings, and more

That concludes our exploration of the incredibly talented Renaissance man known to the world as Leonardo da Vinci. A man of many skills, Leonardo da Vinci’s accomplishments have made him one of the most well-known figures in human history. Yet, it is his art for which he is most well-known, specifically his paintings.

Take a look at our Leonardo da Vinci art webstory here!

Frequently Asked Questions

Where was leonardo da vinci born.

Leonardo da Vinci, one of human history’s most gifted and innovative prodigies, was born in 1452 in a small village near the town of Vinci. He grew up in a very large family and was the oldest of 12 siblings. He then moved to Florence when he was only 14 years of age. He passed away on the 2nd of May, 1519.

What Was Leonardo da Vinci Known For?

He had many talents and interests and was an exceptionally intelligent individual. Yet, it was painting for which he was most renowned. Besides that, he also showed an interest in architecture, biology, science, history, mathematics, maps, and countless other fields of study. His contribution to the principles and techniques of High Renaissance painting inspired early Renaissance ideas such as chiaroscuro , linear perspective, realism, and emotional expressionism. Many of his artworks have been regarded as timeless.

Isabella studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature & Language and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate years, she took Art History as an additional subject and absolutely loved it. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her. From learning about artworks previously unknown to her, or sharpening her existing understanding of specific works, the ability to continue learning within this interesting sphere excites her greatly.

Her focal points of interest in art history encompass profiling specific artists and art movements, as it is these areas where she is able to really dig deep into the rich narrative of the art world. Additionally, she particularly enjoys exploring the different artistic styles of the 20 th century, as well as the important impact that female artists have had on the development of art history.

Learn more about Isabella Meyer and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Isabella, Meyer, “Leonardo da Vinci – The Life and Artworks of Leonardo da Vinci.” Art in Context. October 27, 2022. URL: https://artincontext.org/leonardo-da-vinci/

Meyer, I. (2022, 27 October). Leonardo da Vinci – The Life and Artworks of Leonardo da Vinci. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/leonardo-da-vinci/

Meyer, Isabella. “Leonardo da Vinci – The Life and Artworks of Leonardo da Vinci.” Art in Context , October 27, 2022. https://artincontext.org/leonardo-da-vinci/ .

Similar Posts

Famous Textile Artists – The Art of Creating With Fabric

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera – A Portrait of Love, Art, and Passion

William-Adolphe Bouguereau – Famous Bouguereau Paintings

Latin American Artists – Guardians of Tradition and Change

James Rosenquist – A Look at American Artist James Rosenquist

Famous Comic Book Artists – A List of the 12 Best Comic Artists

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Most Famous Artists and Artworks

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors…in all of history! 

MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors!

• Humanities ›
• Visual Arts ›
• Art & Artists ›
• Art History ›

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.
• Leonardo da Vinci's 'Study of Hands'
• Was Leonardo Da Vinci a Vegetarian?
• Leonardo, Michelangelo & Raphael: Art of the Italian High Renaissance
• What Was Leonardo's Name?
• Definition of Sfumato: Art History Glossary
• Is Mary Magdalene in Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper?'
• The Disembodied Hand in Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"
• Top 12 Visual Artists of All Time
• Why Is the Mona Lisa So Famous?
• The Definition of "Form" in Art
• An Introduction to Representational Art
• Understanding Proportion in Art
• Leonardo da Vinci - The Paintings
• What Is Balance in Art and Why Does It Matter?
• Biography of Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus Painter
• Salvator Mundi: The Newly Attributed Leonardo da Vinci Painting