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Leonardo da Vinci

© Nick Burton

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in the town of Vinci in the Tuscan hills of Italy. He was the illegitimate son of Pireo da Vinci, a notary, and a peasant woman, about whom very little is known (Piero, who was only 22 at the time of Leonardo's birth, sired 12 children, the last when he was 75 years old). Leonardo was educated in reading, writing, mathematics and Latin, but he often had trouble with his Latin throughout his life and was reportedly very sensitive about his lack of formal education. But, even as a young man, his handwriting was seen as extraordinary, and he often wrote with reversed letters that could only be read in a mirror image. It was thought he did this to protect his scientific ideas, although some thought it was to cover up heretical opinions.

When he was about 15, Piero took Leonardo to Florence and allowed him to take an apprenticeship in the studio of Andrea del Verrochio, a well known painter and skilled sculptor. Leonardo helped the artist with his commissions of busts and portraits of Florentine citizens, as well as depictions of the Annunciation and other religious works. The studio was also responsible for the casting of the copper ball and cross on the dome of the Florentine Cathedral. When he was 20, Leonardo was admitted to the guild of St. Luke's, and he was allowed to finish some works for del Verrochio. Other artists at the time included Fra Bartolommeo, Andea del Sarto, Sandro Boticelli and Pierto Perugio, who apprenticed with Leonardo at del Verrochio's studio.

When he was 29 in 1841, Pope Sixtus IV under the direction of the Medici family, who ruled the city of Florence, summoned the "best" Tuscan artists to work at the Vatican. Boticelli, Perugio and Domenic Ghirlandiao, among others, were chosen but not Leonardo. That year, Leonardo began his first major work, "The Adoration of the Magi," intended as an altarpiece for the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto, whose monks were clients of Leonardo's father. But Leoanardo's work never progressed past the initial underpainting, suggesting the monks had cause to regret their commission. As it stands, the work still shows an enormous amount of mastery . Also from the same period was "St. Jerome," also unfinished, which has hung in the Vatican gallery since 1845.

In 1482, Leonardo left Florence for Milan to seek patronage in the court of lodovico Sforza. He initially gave as his reason the fact that he had gone there to play his lute at the court (Leonardo's lute was made of sliver and fashioned after a horse's skull) but he soon approached Sforza, and offered to design military weapons. Sforza commissioned Leonardo to do a statue of a general named Francisco, and he quickly gained Sforza's admiration by functioning as a kind of court jester for him, composing satires and prophecies. He began his famous "Treatise on Painting" at Sforza's request, all the while compiling notes and drawings, and devising flying machines, fabric shearing devices and many other inventions. He also worked on studies of anatomy and mathematics under Luca Pacioli.

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