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Leonardo’s pen-and-ink drawing Vitruvian Man comes from one of the many notebooks that he kept on hand during his mature years. It is accompanied by notes, written in mirror script, on the ideal human proportions that the Roman architect laid out in a book on architecture from the 1st century BCE.

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''Last Supper, Italian Cenacolo, one of the most famous artworks in the world, painted by Leonardo da Vinci probably between 1495 and 1498 for the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. It depicts the dramatic scene described in several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26:21–28, in which Jesus declares that one of the Apostles will betray him and later institutes the Eucharist''. -https://www.britannica.com/

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The Mona Lisa is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962 (equivalent to $650 million in 2018). This is the most famous painting that Leonardo Da Vinci painted.

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What's distinctive about Da Vinci's art style 

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What's distinctive about Da Vinci's art style 

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The artistic style most often associated with Leonardo da Vinci is Italian Renaissance.  Da Vinci peaked in popularity during the High Renaissance, a period of 30 years beginning in 1490 and ending in 1527, after Charles V defeated Roman troops in his imperial quest. The High Renaissance period typically refers to the work of a few painters that is deemed to be of exceptional artistic quality.

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The artistic style most often associated with Leonardo da Vinci is Italian Renaissance. Da Vinci peaked in popularity during the High Renaissance, a period of 30 years beginning in 1490 and ending in 1527, after Charles V defeated Roman troops in his imperial quest. The High Renaissance period typically refers to the work of a few painters that is deemed to be of exceptional artistic quality. These painters include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Leonardo da Vinci, born in Vinci, Italy, in April 1452, is well known for his status as a canon in the field of Renaissance art. His work is well known for its ability to depict the human form in a realistic, three-dimensional way. Da Vinci is a master of shadowing the form of the body to create a more lifelike appearance of the human subject. Da Vinci's most famous work, "The Mona Lisa," took him 16 years to complete. This painting is one of the most recognized paintings in the world. Other well known works of Leonardo da Vinci include "The Last Supper" and "Virgin of the Rocks." Da Vinci is famous for being a true "Renaissance Man," meaning he was an artistic master, as well as an accomplished scientist and inventor.

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What Was the Art Style of Leonardo Da Vinci?

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The artistic style most often associated with Leonardo da Vinci is Italian Renaissance. Da Vinci peaked in popularity during the High Renaissance, a period of 30 years beginning in 1490 and ending in 1527, after Charles V defeated Roman troops in his imperial quest.

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Leonardo was famous in his life time, he lived a wealthy life after he started painting. Everyone loved his work and admired it, he even got a prized commission to paint a mural for the council hall in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.

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In December 1499 or, at the latest, January 1500-shortly after the victorious entry of the French into Milan-Leonardo left that city in the company of mathematician Lucas Pacioli. After visiting Mantua in February 1500, in March he proceeded to Venice, where the Signoria (governing council) sought his advice on how to ward off a threatened Turkish incursion in Friuli. Leonardo recommended that they prepare to flood the menaced region. From Venice he returned to Florence, where, after a long absence, he was received with acclaim and honoured as a renowned native son. In that same year he was appointed an architectural expert on a committee investigating damages to the foundation and structure of the church of San Francesco al Monte. A guest of the Servite order in the cloister of Santissima Annunziata, Leonardo seems to have been concentrating more on mathematical studies than painting, or so Isabella d'Este, who sought in vain to obtain a painting done by him, was informed by Fra Pietro Nuvolaria, her representative in Florence.

Perhaps because of his omnivorous appetite for life, Leonardo left Florence in the summer of 1502 to enter the service of Cesare Borgia as "senior military architect and general engineer." Borgia, the notorious son of Pope Alexander VI, had, as commander in chief of the papal army, sought with unexampled ruthlessness to gain control of the Papal States of Romagna and the Marches. When he enlisted the services of Leonardo, he was at the peak of his power and, at age 27, was undoubtedly the most compelling and most feared person of his time. Leonardo, twice his age, must have been fascinated by his personality. For 10 months Leonardo traveled across the condottiere's territories and surveyed them. In the course of his activity, he sketched some of the city plans and topographical maps, creating early examples of aspects of modern cartography. At the court of Cesare Borgia, Leonardo also met Niccolò Machiavelli, who was temporarily stationed there as a political observer for the city of Florence.

In the spring of 1503 Leonardo returned to Florence to make an expert survey of a project that attempted to divert the Arno River behind Pisa so that the city, then under siege by the Florentines, would be deprived of access to the sea. The plan proved unworkable, but Leonardo's activity led him to consider a plan, first advanced in the 13th century, to build a large canal that would bypass the unnavigable stretch of the Arno and connect Florence by water with the sea. Leonardo developed his ideas in a series of studies; using his own panoramic views of the riverbank, which can be seen as landscape sketches of great artistic charm, and using exact measurements of the terrain, he produced a map in which the route of the canal (with its transit through the mountain pass of Serravalle) was shown. 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.

Also in 1503 Leonardo received a prized commission to paint a mural for the council hall in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio; a historical scene of monumental proportions (at 23 × 56 feet [7 × 17 metres], it would have been twice as large as the Last Supper). For three years he worked on this Battle of Anghiari; like its intended complementary painting, Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina, it remained unfinished. During these same years Leonardo painted the ( c. 1503-19). (For more analysis of the work, see below The Mona Lisa and other works.)

The second Florentine period was also a time of intensive scientific study. Leonardo did dissections in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova and broadened his anatomical work into a comprehensive study of the structure and function of the human organism. He made systematic observations of the flight of birds, about which he planned a treatise. Even his hydrological studies, "on the nature and movement of water," broadened into research on the physical properties of water, especially the laws of currents, which he compared with those pertaining to air. These were also set down in his own collection of data, contained in the so-called Codex Hammer (formerly known as the Leicester Codex, now in the property of software entrepreneur Bill Gates in Seattle, Washington, U.S.).

Second Milanese period (1508-13)

In May 1506 Charles d'Amboise, the French governor in Milan, asked the Signoria in Florence if Leonardo could travel to Milan. The Signoria let Leonardo go, and the monumental Battle of Anghiari remained unfinished. Unsuccessful technical experiments with paints seem to have impelled Leonardo to stop working on the mural; one cannot otherwise explain his abandonment of this great work. In the winter of 1507-08 Leonardo went to Florence, where he helped the sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici execute his bronze statues for the Florence Baptistery, after which time he settled in Milan.

Honoured and admired by his generous patrons in Milan, Charles d'Amboise and King Louis XII, Leonardo enjoyed his duties, which were limited largely to advice in architectural matters. Tangible evidence of such work exists in plans for a palace-villa for Charles, and it is believed that he made some sketches for an oratory for the church of Santa Maria alla Fontana, which Charles funded. Leonardo also looked into an old project revived by the French governor: the Adda River that would link Milan with Lake Como by water.

During this second period in Milan, Leonardo created very little as a painter. Again Leonardo gathered pupils around him. Of his older disciples, Bernardino de' Conti and Salai were again in his studio; new students came, among them Cesare da Sesto, Giampetrino, Bernardino Luini, and the young nobleman Francesco Melzi, Leonardo's most faithful friend and companion until the artist's death.

An important commission came Leonardo's way during this time. Gian Giacomo Trivulzio had returned victoriously to Milan as marshal of the French army and as a bitter foe of Ludovico Sforza. He commissioned Leonardo to sculpt his tomb, which was to take the form of an equestrian statue and be placed in the mortuary chapel donated by Trivulzio to the church of San Nazaro Maggiore. After years of preparatory work on the monument, for which a number of significant sketches have survived, the marshal himself gave up the plan in favour of a more modest one. This was the second aborted project Leonardo faced as a sculptor.

Leonardo's scientific activity flourished during this period. His studies in anatomy achieved a new dimension in his collaboration with Marcantonio della Torre, a famous anatomist from Pavia. Leonardo outlined a plan for an overall work that would include not only exact, detailed reproductions of the human body and its organs but would also include comparative anatomy and the whole field of physiology. He even planned to finish his anatomical manuscript in the winter of 1510-11. Beyond that, his manuscripts are replete with mathematical, optical, mechanical, geological, and botanical studies. These investigations became increasingly driven by a central idea: the conviction that force and motion as basic mechanical functions produce all outward forms in organic and inorganic nature and give them their shape. Furthermore, he believed that these functioning forces operate in accordance with orderly, harmonious laws.

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Leonardo da Vinci - Second Florentine period (1500-08)

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Leonardo da Vinci - Leonardo da Vinci - Second Florentine period (1500-08): In December 1499 or, at the latest, January 1500-shortly after the victorious entry of the French into Milan-Leonardo left that city in the company of mathematician Lucas Pacioli.

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Da Vinci was born in 1452 Anchiano, Italy.  He was born into a poor family, his father was a Italian polymath and his mother was a peasant. He didn't receive any special education except basic math and writing, his father already knew he was gifted.

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The following information is from the National Endowment for the Humanities' EDSITEment article on Leonardo da Vinci.

RENAISSANCE MAN - One of history's most imaginative geniuses, Leonardo was born at the right time and in the right place.Western Europe's Renaissance was an exciting period of discovery and invention, of exploration and creation. The rediscovery of the philosophical and scientific ideas of classical Greece and Rome had changed the way scholars and artists thought about the universe. After centuries of domination by the Catholic Church, focus shifted to the power of reason and the potential of man. The medieval period gave way to eager investigation, and a revolution began in the realms of art, architecture, technology, engineering, and science.

ARTIST - Leonardo was a mirror of the age in which he lived. Artist, scientist, engineer, architect, musician and courtier par excellence, he embodied what came to be known as the multi-talented Renaissance Man. Leonardo carefully studied the world around him. He believed that art should clearly reflect the wonders of the natural world. But his works also contained a certain mystery. His Mona Lisa, perhaps the world's most famous painting, is known for her haunting smile.
SCIENTIST - Leonardo was also fascinated by the way things worked. He mused endlessly about cause and effect, filling thousands of pages of his famous notebooks with sketches and commentary dealing with subjects as diverse as the anatomy of a horse and the design of a hydraulic pump.

INVENTOR - Leonardo was equally intrigued about the possibilities of locomotion, and he designed a number of machines that would enable man to get around faster. Specifically, he was fascinated by the possibilities of human flight. He captured birds and studied their feathers and skeletal systems to puzzle out the secrets of aerodynamics. He studied the flow of water in rivers and streams as well as the effects of tides in order to better understand wind currents. Using what he observed in nature, he designed some very ingenious flying machines.

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The following information is from the National Endowment for the Humanities' EDSITEment article on Leonardo da Vinci. RENAISSANCE MAN - One of history's most imaginative geniuses, Leonardo was born at the right time and in the right place.Western Europe's Renaissance was an exciting period of discovery and invention, of exploration and creation.

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Da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, inventor, military engineer and draftsman. He was gifted with a curious mind and a brilliant intellect, da Vinci studied the laws of science and nature, which greatly informed his work.

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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.

Early Life

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.

Education

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.

Mona Lisa

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.

Inventions

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.

Sculptures

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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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.

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Da Vinci painted his art through 1495-1498. His first piece of art was ''the last supper'' in 1495 and his most famous painting is the Mona Lisa.

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Contents

1. Leonardo da Vinci: Early Life and Training

2. Leonardo da Vinci: Early Career

3. Leonardo da Vinci: 'The Last Supper' and 'Mona Lisa'

4. Leonardo da Vinci: Philosophy of Interconnectedness

5. Leonardo da Vinci: Later Years

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, 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 his art, including two paintings that remain among the world's most famous and admired, Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Art, da Vinci believed, was indisputably connected with science and nature. Largely self-educated, he filled dozens of secret notebooks with inventions, observations and theories about pursuits from aeronautics to anatomy. But the rest of the world was just beginning to share knowledge in books made with moveable type, and the concepts expressed in his notebooks were often difficult to interpret. As a result, though he was lauded in his time as a great artist, his contemporaries often did not fully appreciate his genius-the combination of intellect and imagination that allowed him to create, at least on paper, such inventions as the bicycle, the helicopter and an airplane based on the physiology and flying capability of a bat.

Leonardo da Vinci: Early Life and Training

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was born in Anchiano, Tuscany (now Italy), 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.

Leonardo da Vinci: 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.

Leonardo da Vinci: 'The Last Supper' and 'Mona Lisa'

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.

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.

Leonardo da Vinci: Philosophy of Interconnectedness

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. 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.

Leonardo da Vinci: Later Years

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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Leonardo da Vinci: Early Life and Training Leonardo da Vinci: Early Career Leonardo da Vinci: 'The Last Supper' and 'Mona Lisa' Leonardo da Vinci: Philosophy of Interconnectedness Leonardo da Vinci: Later Years Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific.