Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most well-known painters, sculptors, architects, and inventors of the 15th century. He was born in 1452 in a Tuscany hill farmhouse outside of Anchiano, which is part of present-day Italy.

Leonardo da Vinci was the child of a respected notary who was from Florentine, named Ser Piero, and a young peasant named Caterina.

By the age of 14, da Vinci started to display the knack for his artistic talents. At the age of 14, da Vinci started a long apprenticeship with Andrea Del Verrocchio, who was a well-known Florence artist. During this time he learned a wide-variety of skills such as metalworking, leather arts, carpentry, drawing, painting, and sculpting. Since then da Vinci showed superior talent in the art which led to different commissions asking him to contribute his skills to their causes.

He got a chance to showcase his talents when Lorenzo de Medici tasked da Vinci with creating the silver lyre as a peaceful gesture to Ludovico Sforza. After this, da Vinci lobbied for a job with Ludovico, who accepted and took da Vinci to Milan where he stayed for 17 years.

Leonardo da Vinci always intertwined art and science together in his paintings as was common with many of the Renaissance humanist leaders of the time. He was employed not only as an architect for the Sforza clan but also as their military engineer advisor. At the same time painting and sculpturing started to pique his interest.

He later started taking a deep interest in biology and human anatomy. He would often create art that showed such things as the fetus in the utero, the heart, and the cardiovascular system.

Leonardo da Vinci’s most notable works are the Last Supper, Mona Lisa, and the Vitruvian Man.

The Vitruvian Man was the perfect example of art and science coming together. This showed a male figure being in a superimposed position in which he is lying with arms and legs far apart from each other. The arms and legs are both inside and outside the circle and square.

He was then asked to paint The Last Supper which would be hung at the back of monastery. The painting took 3 years to complete. Due to da Vinci’s insistence on painting with tempera and oil on dried plaster, the art work began to deteriorate within hundred years; however, it  has been reconstructed, thanks to modern preservation techniques.

Da Vinci’s most acclaimed work was the Mona Lisa. This is characterized by the view of a woman with an enigmatic smile. It was never completed and now hangs in the Louvre museum in France.

Also read these other interesting articles by Amita Vadlamudi: