Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in the small hill town of Vinci. His father was a successful notary and his mother a peasant woman. Vinci was a beautiful place that nature-loving Leonardo was free to explore as a child. He spent time in the woods and near streams studying insects, birds, and animals, which he later sketched in great detail. These observations influenced his aspiring life as an artist.

Leonardo lived in Vinci until the age of 14, when he and his family moved to the lively city of Florence. Immediately he started an apprenti

Leonardo died on May 2, 1519, in the Chapel of St. Hubert in Amboise at age 67. Leonardo was not in the best state of health, because Leonardo had a paralysis on the right side of his body since 1517. King Francis I. immediately came to Amboise when he heard that Leonardo was dying. A painting from Cesare Mussini (1929), which you can see in the Galleria dell´Academia in Florence, shows this last meeting. It is only a legend, because King Francis I. was not in Amboise on May 1, 1519, so he couldn't be in Amboise the day after. His notebooks and paintings were passed on to his favorite student and long-time friend Francesco de Melzi, who had traveled to France with Leonardo in 1516. An interesting fact is that, while we know that Leonardo was buried in the palace church, we no longer know where his grave is located. The church and palace were destroyed during the French Revolution, and the grave can no longer be found.

In the 60´s and 70´s Mona Lisa was exposed in New York, Tokyo and Moscow. Today the painting is behind bulletproof glass in Paris in the Louvre, and international terms are prohibiting any journey.

At the same time as he was working on The Last Supper, he made a 24 foot high clay model for a statue of the Duke's father on horseback. In 1499 before the statue could be cast in bronze, Milan was attacked by the French troops. Duke Sforza's family fled the area, and French archers destroyed the beautiful gigantic clay horse while using it for target practice.

When Leonardo wasn’t working in the studio, he explored the city of Florence. He made many observations and sketched them in his notebook. He even watched the construction site for the great cathedral being built and made detailed drawings of the machinery operating there. It dawned on him that objects were not composed of outlines, but were actually three-dimensional bodies defined by light and shadow (Vezzosi 30). This technique called chiaroscuro gave his paintings the soft, lifelike quality that made older paintings look cartoon-like and flat. Leonardo quickly surpassed Verocchio, and by his early twenties he was famous (http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/LeoHomePage.html). In June 1472 Leonardo was listed in the red book of painters from Florence with a membership in the painters guild of Verocchio that ended the apprenticeship of Leonardo.

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