Leonardo da Vinci – An Inspirational Biography

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in the village of Anchiano in Tuscany, Italy on April 15, 1452. His father, Ser Piero was a lawyer and mother Caterina was a farmer.

Young da Vinci received little formal education beyond basic reading, writing and mathematics instruction, but he had artistic talents since childhood.

Around the age of 14, da Vinci was trained by a well-known artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. During the training he learned metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing, painting and sculpting.

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In 1503, da Vinci started working on the Mona Lisa. "Mona Lisa" is a picture of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant of Florence.

Around 1495, the Duke of Milan, requested da Vinci to paint "The Last Supper". Da Vinci took about three years to complete the painting. It shows the moment when Jesus informs the twelve disciples gathered for Passover dinner that one of them would soon betray him.

He always thought that art and science are together. His painting The Vitruvian Man is an example of his artistic as well as scientific intelligence.

Da Vinci always thought ahead of his time. In a time when even bicycles were not invented, da Vinci created the flying machine, which is inspired by a bat. His book Codex on the Flight of Birds is a study on the fight of birds, which he began in 1505.

He was an engineer too. In 1502 and 1503, da Vinci worked in Florence as a military engineer and worked on military construction projects and sketched city plans.

Da Vinci went to Milan in 1506 to work for French rulers, but he left the city again due to political problems, and moved to Rome in 1513. In the year 1515, the new French Monarch, Francis I, called him back to France and gave him the title of "Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect to the King."

Da Vinci died of heart attack at the age of 67, in the city of Cloux, in France, on May 2, 1519, But his work is still remembered.

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Leonardo da Vinci – An Inspirational Biography