ChronoFive
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Setting the scene
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Tuscany, the illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant woman. He apprenticed in Florence under Andrea del Verrocchio, learning painting, sculpture, and engineering.
What happened
Leonardo painted the Last Supper in Milan and the Mona Lisa, now in the Louvre, while filling notebooks with anatomical studies, flying machines, and hydraulics—often in mirror writing.
Why it still matters
His interdisciplinary curiosity embodied the Renaissance ideal of the universal man. Memorable detail: he dissected cadavers at night by candlelight to draw muscles and organs accurately, work that violated church burial norms and could have brought prosecution.
Background
Mona Lisa and flying-machine sketches followed.