Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (
Italian pronunciation: [leoˈnardo da ˈvintʃi]
pronunciation (help·info); April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519,
Old Style) was an
Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist,
cartographer,
botanist, and writer. His
genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the
Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".
[1] He is widely considered to be one of the
greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.
[2] According to art historian
Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote".
[1] Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.
[3]
Born
out of wedlock to a
notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at
Vinci in the region of
Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter,
Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of
Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome,
Bologna and
Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded him by
Francis I.
Some work art by him.. :)