Biography of Leonardo da Vinci

Overview

15 April 1452
2 may 1519
Saturday 15 April 1452 between Empoli and Pistoia, was born in the village of Vinci Leonardo di Ser Piero D'Antonio. The father, notary, and Caterina, a woman had married a farmer backround. Despite being the illegitimate son little Leonardo is welcomed in the family home where it will be raised and educated with affection. When he was sixteen his grandfather Antonio dies and the whole family, shortly afterwards, he moved to Florence. The artistic precocity and keen intelligence of the young Leonardo pushing his father to send him in the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio: painter and sculptor Goldsmith acclaimed and sought after teacher.
The activity carried out by Leonardo at the master Verrocchio is yet to be determined, of course there's that Leonardo's artistic personality begins to grow here. Owns a curiosity, all artistic disciplines attract him, is a keen observer of natural phenomena and grandiose is the ability to integrate them with his scientific knowledge. In 1480 is part of the accademia del Giardino di San Marco under the patronage of Lorenzo the magnificent. It is the first approach of Leonardo with sculpture. Always a that year he was commissioned to paint the adoration of the Magi for the Church of San Giovanni Scopeto just outside Florence (today this work is located in the Uffizi). However, the Florentine environment is narrower.
Occurs then, with a letter that represents a kind of curriculum in which he describes his attitude of civil engineer and Builder of the war machines, the Duke Lodovico Sforza of Milan, who ben welcomes him. Here come the masterpieces: the Virgin of the rocks in the two versions of Paris and London, and exercise for the bronze equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza. In 1489-90 prepares the decorations of the Sforza castle in Milan for the wedding of Gian Galeazzo Sforza with Isabella of Aragon while, as a hydraulic engineer is responsible for the cleanup in lower Lombardy. In 1495 begins the famous fresco of the last supper in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. This work became practically the sole object of his studies. Will be completed in 1498. The following year, Leonardo fled Milan because invaded by the troops of the King of France Louis XII and repairs in Mantua and Venice.
In 1503 is in Florence to fresco, along with Michelangelo, the Salone del Consiglio grande in Palazzo della Signoria. Leonardo was entrusted with the depiction of the battle of Anghiari but will not, because of his obsessive pursuit of artistic techniques to experiment or innovate. However, in the same year was the famous and enigmatic Mona Lisa, also known as the Mona Lisa, currently preserved at the Louvre Museum in Paris. In 1513 the King of France Francis I invited him to Amboise. Leonardo will deal with plans for the festivities and will continue with its plans for certain hydrological rivers of France. A few years later in 1519, draw up her will, leaving all his possessions to Francesco Melzi, a guy known to 15 years (hence, the suspicions about the alleged homosexuality of Leonardo). On 2 May 1519 the great genius of the Renaissance spires and is buried in the Church of St. Florentine in Amboise. Of the ruins there is no more profanation of graves that occurred because of track in the religious wars of the 16th century.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.