Renaissance genius who painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with designs for flying machines and anatomy
Did you know?He wrote most of his personal notes in mirror script, starting from the right side of the page and moving left.
Quick facts
Date of birth15 April 1452
Date of death2 May 1519
Age at death67
Cause of deathCerebral hemorrhage
NationalityItalian
BirthplaceAnchiano, Italy
Occupationpainter, engineer, astronomer
Editor's Take:
Leonardo is the ultimate example of a restless mind that refused to stay in one lane. He painted only a small number of works, and left many unfinished, yet two of them, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are among the most famous images on Earth. His notebooks reveal a man studying everything from the flow of water to the muscles of the human face, often centuries ahead of his time. He designed flying machines, armoured vehicles and bridges that could not be built with the technology of his day. He shows how curiosity across art and science can feed each other.
Key Milestones
1466: Apprenticed to Verrocchio in Florence
1482: Moves to Milan to serve Ludovico Sforza
1498: Completes The Last Supper
1503: Begins the Mona Lisa
1516: Moves to France at the invitation of Francis I
1519: Dies at Amboise
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.
