Leonardo da Vinci - The Renaissance Man

In 1466 Leonardo's father apprenticed him toWhen the French overthrew Duke Ludovico and
Verocchio, the most talented Florentine artist ofinvaded Milan in 1498, Leonardo fled for Venice
his day. The workshop produced altarpieces andwith his assistant, Il Salaino.
religious paintings as well as large bronze andIn 1502 Leonardo returned to Florence and went
marble sculptures. Leonardo started by mixingto work for the infamous Duke Cesare Borgia as
colors, but Verocchio soon realized that hishis chief engineer and architect. It is during this
apprentice possessed extraordinary talents and letperiod that Leonardo met Caterina Sforza, widely
him paint an angel in one of his works. Legend hasspeculated to have been the model for his most
it that Verocchio, realizing that Leonardo's angelfamous painting, the Mona Lisa. Leonardo took the
was so much better than anything he painted,painting with him on all his journeys and it stayed
never painted again. with him till the end of his life. In his will, he
By 1478 Leonardo had set up his own studio. Abequeathed the painting to his assistant.
Florentine monastery commissioned him to paintLeonardo returned to Milan in 1506, and in 1507
The Adoration of the Magi, which he neverwas appointed court painter to the King of France.
finished because in 1482 he offered his servicesHe left Milan for Rome in 1514 and in 1516 he
to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. Leonardowent to work for King François I at the Court
worked for the Duke not as an artist, but as anof France in Amboise. In France, Leonardo
engineer. He built portable bridges, cannons,worked on hydrological studies.
catapults and other war machines. Some of hisFrançois I loved and admired Leonardo, and
inventions, like a sketch for a tank, would only begave him a manor house next to the royal
produced in our time. He recorded all of his ideasresidence at the Chateau d'Amboise and a
in notebooks which today are in the world's mostgenerous pension. Leonardo lived in France for
important museums. He also prepared pageantsthree years and died there on May 2, 1519. It is
for special occasions, and built a model for ansaid that King François I held Leonardo's head as
enormous equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza,he was dying and some twenty years later was
Ludovico's father, which was destroyed by thequoted as saying: 'No man ever lived who had
French when they reoccupied Milan in 1498.learned as much about sculpture, painting, and
The most important of Leonardo's paintings fromarchitecture, but still more than that, he was a
this period were The Virgin of the Rocks and Thevery great philosopher.'
Last Supper, a mural painted on the walls of aYou can find a wide collection of Leonardo da
monastery outside Milan. Unfortunately, Leonardo'sVinci paint by number patterns at the Segmation
love of experiment sometimes producedweb site.  These patterns may be viewed,
disastrous results and the technique he used onpainted, and printed using SegPlay™PC a fun,
this mural led to the paint flaking off barely 20computerized paint-by-numbers program for
years after it was completed, making it theWindows 2000, XP, and Vista.
subject of unending restoration attempts.