Who was the Real Leonardo da Vinci?
Leonardo da Vinci was born in a farm house near the
town of Vinci, Italy on Saturday, April 15, 1452.
He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci and a
local maiden, Chaterina. As a baby, he was taken into his
father’s household and raised by his father and his
stepmother, Albiera.
His early childhood was mostly spent roaming the
local countryside with his Uncle Francesco. When he
became a teenager, Leonardo’s father moved the family
from Vinci to Florence, in the hope that his son would
follow in his footsteps and become a notary.
It was in Florence that da Vinci began his education, but it
became obvious that he was more interested in art than
matters of law. Recognizing his son’s talent, his father
apprenticed Leonardo to the art studio of Andrea Verrocchio. Here, Leonardo honed his skills in
painting and sculpting and, later, opened his own studio, soon establishing himself as Florence’s
leading artist.
Leonardo da Vinci’s interests and achievements expanded beyond his artistic talents. He was
self-educated and became famous in the fields of architecture, physics, astronomy, botany,
geology, anatomy, hydraulics, machinery, and military weaponry. His notations, drawings, and
essays on these filled thou-sands of pages in notebooks—now referred to as codices. They
included his ideas for hundreds of inventions, such as flying machines, a parachute, a submarine,
a diving suit, an auto-mobile, a bicycle, and various military weapons. Although lost for
centuries, many were found and, today, roughly four thou-sand pages are preserved in various
places around the world.
As illustrated by his detailed codices, da Vinci was a firm believer in discovery by close
observation. His adherence to this method led him to perform over 30 human dissections and
diagram the human anatomy in detail. Many of these medical drawings are still highly regarded
today. Rejecting the then accepted practice of reaching medical and scientific conclusions by
scholarly discussion, he is considered by many to be the father of the modern scientific process.
As skilled with his hands as his mind, Leonardo was ambidextrous and painted with either
hand and, sometimes, with both. He mimicked the practices of Hebrew and Arabic writing and
easily wrote from right to left instead of left to right. Thus, da Vinci developed his famous mirror
writing, which can only be read by looking at the text in a mirror.
He is perhaps best known as the artist who painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but is
also widely recognized by scholars as the genius of the Renaissance.
For most of his adult life, he lived either in Florence or Milan, although he did spend some
time in Rome and, later, in Venice. When he was 67, the King of France, Francis I, invited him
to settle in a palatial villa near Tours, France, so the king could enjoy his company and benefit
from his wisdom. It was there, on May 2, 1519, that Leonardo da Vinci passed away.