Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian Renaissance genius, who was good at many things, but most famous as a painter.^[1] He was also a scientist, a mathematician, an engineer, an inventor, an anatomist, a sculptor, an architect, a botanist, a musician and writer. Leonardo was curious about everything in nature. He wanted to know how everything worked. He was very good at studying, designing and making all sorts of interesting things.^[2]

Many people think that Leonardo was one of the greatest painters of all time. Many people think that he was the most talented person ever to have lived.^[1] The art historian Helen Gardner said that no-one has ever been quite like him because he was interested in so many things that he seems to have had the mind of a giant, and yet what he was like as a person is still a mystery.^[3]

Leonardo was born at Vinci which is a small town near Florence in Italy. He was trained to be an artist by the sculptor and painter Verrocchio. He spent most of his life working for rich Italian noblemen. In his last years he lived in a beautiful home given to him by the King of France.

Leonardo could do all sorts of clever things, but he was most famous as a painter. Two of his pictures are among the best-known paintings in the world: the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. He did many drawings. The best-known drawing is the Vitruvian Man. It is so well known that even Homer Simpson and Garfield have been drawn in a square and a circle to look like the drawing. Leonardo was always thinking of new inventions. Most of his inventions were never made. However, we know his ideas, because he kept notebooks and wrote and drew in them very often. Some of the ideas that he thought of were a helicopter, a tank, a calculator, a robot and solar power.

The Works of Leonardo Da Vinci