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[[File: Leonardo 1.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Leonardo’s drawing of Vitruvian Man]]__NOTOC__

Leonardo is recognized as making a unique contribution to the Renaissance, that period of time that saw the re-birth of learning and a move to a secular worldview. The Florentine artist and polymath made a decisive contribution to this epoch. He decisively influenced artistic trends in his own time and the later Renaissance. His interest in science and experiment inspired many humanists to study the world and nature. While he was also a great inventor, but his inventions had little impact on his own era.

[[File: Leonardo 3.png|200px|thumb|left|Drawing of Leonardo in old age]]

Leonardo was born in 1452, in the village of Vinci, outside the city of Florence. His father was a wealthy lawyer, and his mother was a peasant woman. His parents were not married, and Leonardo was illegitimate, which carried a great deal of social stigma at the time. He could not legally bear his father’s surname, so he was named after his native village, Vinci.<ref> McCurdy, Edward. The mind of Leonardo da Vinci (London, Courier Corporation, 2013), p 4 </ref>

He was accused of being gay at this time, and if he had been found guilty, he could have been executed. Leonardo had the charges dropped, but his reputation suffered. In 1481 his reputation rebounded after he painted the Adoration of the Magi. This work made him famous in Florence and beyond. However, the work was unfinished because he was invited to Milan by its powerful Duke. Leonardo impressed the Duke, and he presented himself as a skilled engineer. Leonardo painted several outstanding works in Milan, such as the Virgin of the Rock. At this time, he produced one of the most famous works in all art history, the Last Supper. During his time in Milan, he also began to study dead bodies and worked as a military engineer secretly. Da Vinci also created some bronze sculptures for the Duke of Milan, none of which sadly have survived.

In 1499, when the French invaded Italy, Leonardo fled the city and stayed in Venice. Here he was active as a military engineer and drew up plans to create a series of naval defenses. In 1500, Da Vinci, who was by now one of the most famous men in all of Italy, returned to his native Florence. Here he continued to work on several artistic projects, but he appears to have left many uncompleted. Many of the projects from this period are only known from Leonardo’s drawings, which are considered masterpieces. In 1506, Leonardo worked as a military engineer for the notorious Cesare Borgia, who was ruthlessly carving a state for himself out of Papal lands in central Italy.

Around this period, he painted his most famous work, the Mona Lisa. Leonardo worked on the painting for the rest of his life and took it with him on his travels. Da Vinci returned to Milan in 1506, and he worked on an equestrian statue. Contemporaneously, he continued his scientific studies. In particular, he was fascinated with anatomy, and this dramatically influenced his art greatly. During this time, he filled his notebooks with his observations, ideas, and drawings on various subjects. One common theme in his notebook is his fascination with movement, growth, and action.

In 1516, he was invited to Rome, but his time here was not that productive. While he was still esteemed as an artist, his popularity had somewhat declined. This was not surprising because Da Vinci became an increasingly reclusive figure. Still, he continued to fill his notebooks and made many plans for future projects, but most of these projects never came to fruition.

Still, he was regarded as a genius and frequently consulted with many leading figures on both artistic issues and engineering projects.<ref>McCurdy, p 113</ref> The French king, Francis I, invited Leonardo and his disciples to court in Fontainebleau. Leonardo became the official court painter. The French monarch also provided him with a house. In France, Leonardo continued to write in his notebooks and make plans for projects, none of which he executed. He died in 1519 at the home that was given to him by the French king.

[[File: Leonardo 2.jpg|350px|thumb|left|Leonardo’s ‘The Last Supper’]]

During the early Renaissance, painting had advanced greatly because of great artists such as Botticelli and Verrocchio. However, Leonardo was to raise painting to new heights, and his work is intrinsically important but very influential. His work was revolutionary because it was so realistic and expressive.

However, at the time, they proved enormously influential on the development of Renaissance sculpture. The Florentine was also interested in architecture and helped to design the cupola for the Cathedral in Milan. He wrote an unpublished treatise on architecture and produced many architectural drawings.<ref>Kemp, Martin. Leonardo da Vinci: the marvelous works of nature and man (Oxford, Oxford, University Press, 2007), p 113</ref> These inspired many architects, including the great Bramante.

Da Vinci was fascinated by science, engineering, and mechanics. He wrote about these subjects copiously in his notebooks. His theory of knowledge was based on the study of nature. Leonardo was also intrigued by the human body, and he is believed to have dissected up to 30 human bodies and made many anatomical drawings.

During his lifetime Leonardo did encourage some to privilege observation and experiment over the teachings of the Church and the Classics, which was critical in the later phase of the Renaissance. Leonardo helped to change the intellectual environment of the Renaissance to one that was much more modern in outlook.

[[File: Leonardo 4.jpg|200px|thumb|left| Anatomical drawings by Leonardo from his Notebook]]

Leonardo was also an inventor, and his notebooks are filled with many plans or drafts for inventions. Da Vinci drafted plans for a flying machine, diving suit, parachute, anemometer, armored car, self-propelled car, and even a robotic knight. Leonardo was one of the most prolific inventors in history. None of his inventions were ever developed into practical and working machines. They remained only designs on paper, even though there were ground-breaking ideas.<ref> Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard, and Gareth Rees. The inventions of Leonardo da Vinci. Phaidon Press, 1978, p 17</ref>

These ideas were not finished because Leonardo was not very good at finishing projects. He also lacked the resources to put his ideas into practice, such as his plans for a robotic knight. His designs for various inventions were too far ahead of their time and would not have been understood by his contemporaries. Moreover, the technology was not available to develop his innovative ideas. It was only in later centuries that his designs were appreciated. While Leonardo can be credited with having great ideas, his inventions made little or no impact on the Renaissance. <ref>Gibbs-Smith et al, p. 145</ref>

Leonardo is one of the towering figures in the development of Renaissance and Western culture. He was a remarkable man and a genuine polymath who had extraordinary insights and achievements. The Florentine was able to develop new techniques in painting that revolutionized the art form, and it inspired many of the greatest painters of the Renaissance, such as Raphael. Leonardo had a great influence on sculpture and architecture in Italy during his lifetime and after. Leonardo was also a scientist and interested in a wide range of subjects. His scientific discoveries, such as those in anatomy, were kept secret, largely out of fear of the Church.