Leonardo da Vinci

Italian architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, mathematician, musician, and painter.

1452 - Born on the 15th of April Anchiano, Florence, Italy .

1482-1498 - Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan employed Leonardo and permitted him to operate his own workshop, complete with apprentices.

1495-1497 - Created paintings "The Last Supper".

1503-1506 - He painted "Mona Lisa".

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer; with Cesare he travelled throughout Italy.

1506 - Returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French.

1513-1516 - Lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time.

1515-1515 - Commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between the French king and Pope Leo X in Bologna.

1516 - Entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé next to the king's residence at the royal Chateau Amboise.

1519 - Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on 2nd May.

Developed sfumato technique and improved perspective drawing.

Designed innovative but impractical prototypes of many later inventions, including helicopter, glider, parachute, and military tank.

Student of Andrea del Verrocchio.

• "Life is like a piano... What you get out of it depends on how you play it."
• "If you put on more garments, the cold cannot reach you. Similarly, increase your patience and concentration and even great injuries cannot vex your mind."
• "A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance."
• "Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."
• "The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive, that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species."