If you think you know all about the incredible Renaissance painter and sculpture, Leonardo da Vinci, then you may want to think again – because he was so much more than an artist. He was an engineer, geologist, musician, inventor, botanist, and scientist too – with the help of these fascinating facts about his life.
1. His full name is Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci.
2. Among his revered masterpieces is The Vitruvian Man, which is an accurate representation of man’s proportions and highlights Leonardo’s extensive understanding of the human body.
3. When he moved to Milan in 1483 to work for the Sforza family, he remained in this city until the family were forced to flee in 1499 when Milan was invaded by the French.
4. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452, near the Tuscan town of Vinci – and his surname simply means “of Vinci”.
5. In 1478 he became an independent master, having previously worked as an apprentice for the renowned Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea del Verocchio.
6. Thousands of pages from his notebooks survive and reveal an astonishing and marvellous mind – he is considered by many to be the representative Renaissance Man. His notebooks include writings and drawings on a wide range of subjects spanning anatomy, botany, optics, flight and more. He was so ahead of his time that he is often accredited with “inventing” a series of items such as the bicycle, helicopter and parachute around 500 years before they came into existence.
7. Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a local lawyer and a peasant woman.
8. In 1499 he returned to Florence where he painted a number of portraits. The only one to survive is the Mona Lisa, the painting he is most famous for – there are numerous theories regarding this painting, arguably the most famous picture in the world, including that the woman is pregnant and that it is in fact a man in drag.
9. Leonardo worked on The Last Supper from 1495 to 1497 in the dining hall of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
10. He died in France. In 1517 he moved to the country at the request of the French king Francis I, who had become a close friend. He never married or had any children.
11. A drawing of the Arno Valley, crafted in pen and ink, is the earliest known work by Leonardo, and is dated 5 August 1473.
12. He did not complete his first independent commission in 1478, nor did he complete his second independent commission in 1481.
13. Leonardo was a talented lyre player.
14. His collection of writings, predominantly scientific papers, The Codex Leicester was bought by Bill Gates in 1994 for $30 million. The Codex is named after Thomas Coke who purchased it in 1719.
15. Fewer than 30 paintings by Leonardo da Vinci survive. Part of the reason for this is thought to be his perfectionism – it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.
16. Leonardo was a vegetarian.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’][/author_image] [author_info]Caroline Dalzell is a regular blogger and art enthusiast. She currently writes on behalf of the Enid Hutt Gallery[/author_info] [/author]
