Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, who was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scientific endeavours. His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies —particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics —anticipated many of the developments of modern science. Life Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence, the intellectual and artistic centre of Italy, could offer. He rapidly advanced socially and intellectually. He was handsome, persuasive in conversation, and a fine musician and improviser. In 1466, he was apprenticed as a garzone (studio boy) to Andrea Del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. In Verrocchio’s workshop, Leonardo was introduced to many activities.
