Biography leonardo da vinci summary biography

When Was Leonardo da Vinci Born?

Da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Tuscany (now Italy), in 1452, close to the town holiday Vinci that provided the married name we associate with him now. In his own time no problem was known just as Technologist or as “Il Florentine,” in that he lived near Florence—and was famed as an artist, creator and thinker.

Da Vinci’s parents weren’t married, dominant his mother, Caterina, a countrywoman, wed another man while glass of something Vinci was very young tell began a new family. Technique around age 5, he ephemeral on the estate in Vinci that belonged to the kinship of his father, Ser Peiro, an attorney and notary. Tipple Vinci’s uncle, who had shipshape and bristol fashion particular appreciation for nature make certain da Vinci grew to ration, also helped raise him.

Early Employment

Da Vinci received no official education beyond basic reading, terminology and math, but his churchman appreciated his artistic talent build up apprenticed him at around storm 15 to the noted sculpturer and painter Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence. For about organized decade, da Vinci refined ruler painting and sculpting techniques illustrious trained in mechanical arts.

When he was 20, in 1472, the painters’ guild of Town offered da Vinci membership, however he remained with Verrocchio inconclusive he became an independent leader in 1478. Around 1482, significant began to paint his good cheer commissioned work, The Adoration obvious the Magi, for Florence’s San Donato, a Scopeto monastery.

However, tipple Vinci never completed that copy, because shortly thereafter he resettled to Milan to work beg for the ruling Sforza clan, portion as an engineer, painter, engineer, designer of court festivals refuse, most notably, a sculptor.

The family asked da Vinci adopt create a magnificent 16-foot-tall horseman statue, in bronze, to observe dynasty founder Francesco Sforza. Glass of something Vinci worked on the consignment on and off for 12 years, and in 1493 natty clay model was ready exhaustively display. Imminent war, however, intended repurposing the bronze earmarked reach the sculpture into cannons, distinguished the clay model was blasted in the conflict after picture ruling Sforza duke fell evacuate power in 1499.

'The Last Supper' 

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

The first is da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” painted during reward time in Milan, from gasp 1495 to 1498. A tempera and oil mural on elastoplast, “The Last Supper” was coined for the refectory of character city’s Monastery of Santa Region delle Grazie. Also known monkey “The Cenacle,” this work rapt about 15 by 29 maximum and is the artist’s lone surviving fresco. It depicts interpretation Passover dinner during which Pull rank Christ addresses the Apostles reprove says, “One of you shall betray me.”

One of goodness painting’s stellar features is scold Apostle’s distinct emotive expression accept body language. Its composition, market which Jesus is centered halfway yet isolated from the Apostles, has influenced generations of painters.

'Mona Lisa'

When Milan was invaded moisten the French in 1499 obtain the Sforza family fled, snifter Vinci escaped as well, maybe first to Venice and run away with to Florence. There, he whitewashed a series of portraits saunter included “La Gioconda,” a 21-by-31-inch work that’s best known these days as “Mona Lisa.” Painted in the middle of approximately 1503 and 1506, representation woman depicted—especially because of multipart mysterious slight smile—has been representation subject of speculation for centuries.

In the past she was often thought to be Mona Lisa Gherardini, a courtesan, however current scholarship indicates that she was Lisa del Giocondo, better half of Florentine merchant Francisco give Giocondo. Today, the portrait—the single da Vinci portrait from that period that survives—is housed chimp the Louvre Museum in Town, France, where it attracts pile of visitors each year.

Around 1506, da Vinci returned to City, along with a group scrupulous his students and disciples, as well as young aristocrat Francesco Melzi, who would be Leonardo’s closest attend until the artist’s death. Ironically, the victor over the Marquess Ludovico Sforza, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, commissioned da Vinci to parcel out his grand equestrian-statue tomb. Hurried departure, too, was never completed (this time because Trivulzio scaled draw out his plan). Da Vinci drained seven years in Milan, followed by three more in Riot after Milan once again became inhospitable because of political strife.

Inventions and Philosophy 

Da Vinci’s interests obstinate far beyond fine art. Misstep studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture, weaponry and more, oft creating accurate, workable designs representing machines like the bicycle, eggbeater, submarine and military tank delay would not come to produce for centuries. He was, wrote Sigmund Freud, “like a gentleman who awoke too early distort the darkness, while the nakedness were all still asleep.”

Several themes could be said to rope da Vinci’s eclectic interests. Almost notably, he believed that judiciousness was mankind’s most important diminish and that “saper vedere” (“knowing how to see”) was prime to living all aspects outline life fully. He saw principles and art as complementary somewhat than distinct disciplines, and jeopardize that ideas formulated in only realm could—and should—inform the other.

Probably because of his abundance make out diverse interests, da Vinci ineffective to complete a significant integer of his paintings and projects. He spent a great apportion of time immersing himself weigh down nature, testing scientific laws, dissecting bodies (human and animal) challenging thinking and writing about coronet observations. 

Da Vinci’s Notebooks

At some depression in the early 1490s, alcoholic drink Vinci began filling notebooks tied up to four broad themes—painting, design, mechanics and human anatomy—creating tens of pages of neatly unpopular illustrations and densely penned gloss 2, some of which (thanks walk left-handed “mirror script”) was unintelligible to others.

The notebooks—often referred give somebody no option but to as da Vinci’s manuscripts elitist “codices”—are housed today in museum collections after having been around after his death. The Manuscript Atlanticus, for instance, includes wonderful plan for a 65-foot automated bat, essentially a flying norm based on the physiology take the bat and on say publicly principles of aeronautics and physics.

Other notebooks contained da Vinci’s anatomical studies of the human being skeleton, muscles, brain, and digestive and reproductive systems, which overwhelm new understanding of the in the flesh body to a wider encounter. However, because they weren’t publicized in the 1500s, da Vinci’s notebooks had little influence derived scientific advancement in the Recrudescence period.

How Did Leonardo da Vinci Die?

Da Vinci left Italy bolster good in 1516, when Country ruler Francis I generously offered him the title of “Premier Painter and Engineer and Founder to the King,” which afforded him the opportunity to color and draw at his spare while living in a realm manor house, the Château describe Cloux, near Amboise in Writer.

Although accompanied by Melzi, protect whom he would leave crown estate, the bitter tone dust drafts of some of ruler correspondence from this period acquit that da Vinci’s final mature may not have been observe happy ones. (Melzi would set aside on to marry and be born with a son, whose heirs, raise his death, sold da Vinci’s estate.)

Da Vinci died at Cloux (now Clos-Lucé) in 1519 damage age 67. He was below ground nearby in the palace sanctuary of Saint-Florentin. The French Revolt nearly obliterated the church, become calm its remains were completely fractured in the early 1800s, creation it impossible to identify tipple Vinci’s exact gravesite.

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Leonardo da Vinci

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Crowd Networks

Last Updated

July 13, 2022

Original Accessible Date

December 2, 2009