30 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Leonardo Da Vinci | Amazing Facts 4U
- Leonardo da Vinci was a genius and his work is fascinating. He was also a painter, scientist, musician, sculptor, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, architect, inventor, botanist, geologist, cartographer, and writer.
- Leonardo lived during the Renaissance, a cultural movement that led to important developments in areas such as art and science.
- Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452. His full name was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. The “ser” part of his name identified his father as a gentleman. “da Vinci”, means “of Vinci” which is the Italian town where he was born.
- The place where Leonardo da Vinci was born is located in the territory of Florence. Today that area is called Tuscany, Italy.
- Leonardo was the son of a wealthy man named Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci who was a legal notary. Da Vinci’s parents never married each other. The young da Vinci lived with his mother until he was 5 years old and later moved into the home of his father, who had married another woman.
- Leonardo was homeschooled and lacked formal education in Greek and Latin.
- Leonardo was an apprentice to the artist Andrea di Cione in 1466 who had one of the best workshops in Florence.
- In 1472, Leonardo qualified as a master in the prestigious guild of artists and doctors of medicine known as the Guild of St Luke. Even though his father provided him with a workshop of his own, he continued his collaboration with Verrocchio.
- Leonardo’s earliest known work dated August 5, 1473, is a drawing of the Arno valley in pen and ink.
- Leonardo worked in Milan, Italy, from 1482 until 1499.
- In 1499, Leonardo da Vinci fled to Venice where he created a system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack.
- In 1502, as a military architect and engineer in the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, Leonardo traveled all over Italy.
- On October 18, 1503, Leonardo da Vinci rejoined the Guild of St Luke. For the next two years, he designed and painted a mural of The Battle of Anghiari.
- Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painted works are the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and the Virgin of the Rocks.
- Leonardo was given permission to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and at hospitals in Milan and Rome. From these studies, he created over 200 pages of drawings. The Vitruvian Man is also one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most well-known drawings which is a study of the proportions of the human body.
- The Mona Lisa was painted from 1503–1507. It is the most famous painting in the world. Not only do the eyes “follow” you, but the elusive smile on her face lends an air of mystery. It has been on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris for over 200 years. The Louvre recently spent $5.5 million rehanging the Mona Lisa inside a display case set into a wall, 6 feet behind a wooden barrier.
- Da Vinci was a notoriously slow painter, and many of his works were never finished.
- In 1515, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to make a mechanical lion that could walk forward and open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.
- Leonardo’s work was unique. Because of his extensive knowledge of the human form and the way humans show emotions, he was able to paint expressions and gestures that other artists found difficult to convey. He had an innovative way of laying on the paint and gradation of tone.
- Leonardo was a vegetarian and loved animals. He had a habit of purchasing caged birds and then releasing them into the wild. Leonardo da Vinci was a strict vegetarian due to his immense love of animals. He used to question the morality of eating animals when it was not necessary for health.
- Leonardo was a technological genius. He drew designs for calculator, tank, solar power, breathing device for underwater exploration, an armored car, a revolving crane, a pulley, and a flying ship, etc. which were not made in his life as many of these plans were limited by the level of technology at the time.
- The flight was of particular interest to da Vinci. He studied the flight of birds and created plans for flying machines that resemble hang gliders and helicopters.
- Some of his designs like the automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire were huge successes.
- On 13,000 pages of journal drawings and notes, Leonard recorded all the things that sparked his interest.
- Leonardo was the first to explain why the sky is blue which is due to the way air scatters light.
- In 1994 Microsoft founder Bill Gates purchased perhaps Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous scientific writings, the ‘Codex Leicester’ for $30 million. It contains explanations of water movement, fossils, and the moon among other things. This manuscript is the only one not held in Europe.
- An ambidextrous Leonardo could draw forward with one hand while writing backward with the other, producing a mirror-image script that others found difficult to read.
- Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519, at Clos Lucé. Sixty beggars followed his casket as requested in Leonardo da Vinci’s will.
- In 2003, Channel 4, a British television station, created a documentary called, “Leonardo’s Dream Machines.” Leonardo’s machines were built and tested according to his original drawn designs. Some were successful and others proved to be impractical after being tested.
- In December 2000, skydiver Adrian Nicholas landed in South Africa using a parachute built from one of Leonardo’s designs.
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