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\"Da Vinci\" redirects here. For other uses, see Da Vinci (disambiguation) and Leonardo da Vinci (disambiguation).

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In this Renaissance Florentine name, the name da Vinci is an indicator of birthplace, not a family name; the person is properly referred to by the given name, Leonardo.

Leonardo da Vinci
This portrait attributed to Francesco Melzi, c. 1515\u20131518, is the only certain contemporary depiction of Leonardo.^[1]^[2]
Born	Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-04-15)15 April 1452 (possibly Anchiano),^[a] Vinci, Republic of Florence
Died	2 May 1519(1519-05-02) (aged 67) Clos Luc\u00e9, Amboise, Kingdom of France
Resting place	Ch\u00e2teau d'Amboise
Education	Studio of Andrea del Verrocchio
Years active	c. 1470\u20131519
Known for	Painting drawing engineering anatomical studies hydrology botany optics geology
Notable work	\n Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1483\u20131493) \n Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489\u20131491) \n The Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) \n The Last Supper (c. 1495\u20131498) \n Mona Lisa (c. 1503\u20131516) \n
Movement	High Renaissance
Family	Da Vinci family
Signature
$\"Signature$

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci^[b] (15 April 1452 \u2013 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.^[3] While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal,^[4] and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.^[3]^[4]\n

Born out of wedlock to a successful notary and a lower-class woman in, or near, Vinci, he was educated in Florence by the Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. He began his career in the city, but then spent much time in the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Later, he worked in Florence and Milan again, as well as briefly in Rome, all while attracting a large following of imitators and students. Upon the invitation of Francis I, he spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519. Since his death, there has not been a time where his achievements, diverse interests, personal life, and empirical thinking have failed to incite interest and admiration,^[3]^[4] making him a frequent namesake and subject in culture.\n

Leonardo is identified as one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art and is often credited as the founder of the High Renaissance.^[3] Despite having many lost works and fewer than 25 attributed major works \u2013 including numerous unfinished works \u2013 he created some of the most influential paintings in the Western canon.^[3] The Mona Lisa is his best known work and is the world's most famous individual painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon. In 2017, Salvator Mundi, attributed in whole or part to Leonardo,^[5] was sold at auction for US$450.3 million, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.\n

Revered for his technological ingenuity, he conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, a ratio machine that could be used in an adding machine,^[6]^[7] and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, hydrodynamics, geology, optics, and tribology, but he did not publish his findings and they had little to no direct influence on subsequent science.^[8]\n

v t e Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa
\n Lisa del Giocondo (subject) \n
Replicas	\n Isleworth Mona Lisa (16th century) \n Mona Lisa (Prado, c. 1503\u20131516) \n Hermitage Mona Lisa (c. 1550) \n L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) \n Mini Lisa (2013) \n
Related	\n Replicas and reinterpretations \n Speculations\n Male Mona Lisa theories \n Two\u2013Mona Lisa theory \n Timeline of fictional stories about the Mona Lisa \n La Joconde nue \n
1911 theft	\n Vincenzo Peruggia \n Eduardo de Valfierno \n Yves Chaudron \n Louis B\u00e9roud \n
On screen	\n The Theft of the Mona Lisa (1931) \n Ars\u00e8ne Lupin (1932) \n The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen (1966) \n City of Death (1979) \n Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase (1992) \n Mona Lisa's Revenge (2009) \n Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) \n
Music	\n Mona Lisa (1915 opera) \n \"Mona Lisa\" (1950 song) \n \"Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile\" (1984 song) \n \"Lisa Mona Lisa\" (1988 song) \n \"The Ballad of Mona Lisa\" (2011 song) \n \"The Mona Lisa\" (2013 song) \n In Search of Mona Lisa (2019 EP) \n
Literature	\n The Second Mrs. Giaconda (1975) \n I, Mona Lisa (2006) \n The Smile (2008) \n

v t e High Renaissance
Principal proponents	\n Donato Bramante \n Giorgione \n Michelangelo \n Raphael \n Titian \n Leonardo da Vinci \n
Other artists	\n Mariotto Albertinelli \n Pellegrino Aretusi \n Fra Bartolomeo \n Ludovico Beretta \n Moretto da Brescia \n Gasparo Cairano \n Giulio Clovio \n Antonio da Correggio \n Piero di Cosimo \n Bernardino delle Croci \n Girolamo Genga \n Lorenzo Lotto \n Maffeo Olivieri \n Baldassare Peruzzi \n Sebastiano del Piombo \n Antonio da Sangallo the Younger \n Andrea del Sarto \n Il Sodoma \n Tamagnino \n Palma Vecchio \n Antonio Vassilacchi \n
Major works	\n The Last Supper (c. 1492\u20131498) \n Piet\u00e0 (1498\u20131499) \n San Pietro in Montorio (1500) \n David (1501\u20131504) \n Mona Lisa (c. 1502\u20131516) \n St. Peter's Basilica (1506\u20131513) \n Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508\u20131512) \n Raphael Rooms (1509\u20131524) \n Transfiguration (1516\u20131520) \n The Last Judgment (1536\u20131541) \n
Related	\n Art patronage of Julius II \n Jacob Burckhardt \n Johann Joachim Winckelmann \n Leonardeschi \n Giorgio Vasari\n The Lives \n

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Biography

Early life (1452\u20131472)

Birth and background

Verrocchio's workshop

First Florentine period (1472 \u2013 c. 1482)

First Milanese period (c. 1482\u20131499)

Second Florentine period (1500\u20131508)

Second Milanese period (1508\u20131513)

Rome and France (1513\u20131519)

Death

Personal life

Paintings

Early works

Paintings of the 1480s

Paintings of the 1490s

Paintings of the 1500s

Drawings

Journals and notes

Science and inventions

Anatomy and physiology

Engineering and inventions

Legacy

Location of remains

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

Early

Modern

Further reading

External links

Leonardo da Vinci

Media collections