Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, who was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence could offer. In his teens Leonardo was sent to apprentice as a painter under Andrea del Verrocchio where he quickly developed his own artistic style which was unique and contrary to tradition, even going so far as to devise his own special formula of paint.

Later da Vinci became the court artist for the duke of Milan. Throughout his life he also served various other roles, including civil engineer and architect and military planner and weapons designer. Although Leonardo produced a relatively small number of paintings, many of which remained unfinished, he was nevertheless an extraordinarily innovative and influential artist.

The Mona Lisa, Leonardo's most famous work, is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. This work is a consummate example of two techniques—sfumato and chiaroscuro—of which Leonardo was one of the first great masters. Leonardo deserves, perhaps more than anyone, the title of Homo Universalis, Universal Man.