Leonardo da Vinci was born on Saturday, April 15, 1452, in the small hamlet of Anchiano not far from the Tuscan town of Vinci situated about twenty miles west of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Master Piero da Vinci, who was a notary public. In the same year Leonardo was born, Ser Piero married his first wife. He didn’t marry Leonardos mother Caterina. She was probably the daughter of a farmer. (library.thinkquest.org/3044 adv_over.html 1)Local tradition locates his birthplace to a stone cottage that overlooks fields of olive groves.

Leonardo da Vinci was a very talented man. Other than his mathematical achievements, he also became a great inventor, astronomer, scientist and of coarse a painter. Besides having the great talent and potential for painting, geometry was his main love for life. He received his education in his father’s house: the usual elementary education of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Then in 1467, when he was seventeen years old, he became an apprentice to Verrocchio; learning painting, sculpture, and attained technical and mechanical skills. In 1472 and the age of 20, "Leanardo di Ser Pierro da Vinci dipintor" was

This mural measures 30 feet by 14 feet, so the work was a challenge from the very start. After three years of sketches and drawings, the work was finally completed in 1498. There are only a few of these sketches that still exist today.

These windows, however, were not intended to be the light source in the piece. Instead, the light appears to come from the left-hand side of the mural. (Reti 31) Leonardo made it appear this way to coincide with the actual lighting of the room. Christ is shown as perfectly calm while, in dramatic contrast, the Apostles are in an obvious state of shock. (www.loadstar.prometeus.net/leonardo/supper.html 1)

The Mona Lisa is regarded as the most famous and well-known works in all of art history. Leonardo painted it while working on The Battle of Anghiari between 1503 and 1506. Surprisingly enough, there is no actual proof that da Vinci was the artist responsible for The Mona Lisa. The piece is not signed or dated. (www.loadstar.prometeus.net/leonardo/mona.html 1) The most notable feature of the Mona Lisa is the “mysterious” smiling face. “The smile, also, may be read in two ways: as the echo of a momentary mood, and as a timeless, symbolic expression, akin to the “Archaic smile” of the Greeks.” (Janson 456) Interestingly enough, a nude version of the Mona Lisa was made for the king of France. (Janson 456) In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris. Museum employees supposed that the official museum had possession of the painting when they noticed that it was not hanging in its usual place. When the museum finally realized that it had been stolen, all that remained on the premises was the frame that it had once rested in. The painting was recovered twenty-seven months later when an Italian man tried to sel

Some topics in this essay:
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