Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and inventor who lived long ago in Italy. Da Vinci means from Vinci, the village where Leonardo was born. Leonardo lived during a time in Italy called the Renaissance. He learned art in Florence, in the workshop of an artist named Andrea del Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop took on many kinds of work, including sculpture and decorative metalwork as well as paintings. Leonardo was a painter, a sculptor, an architect and an engineer.
Leonardo arrived in Milan in 1482 and introduced himself to the court as a war engineer, architect, sculptor, painter and even musician. He loved nature and explored the mountains near Milan. Leonardo seems to have begun recording his thoughts in notebooks from the mid-1480s, when he worked as an engineer for the Duke of Milan. He drew a plan for an ideal city with wide streets and underground waterways.
Leonardo kept notebooks filled with drawings and notes. He was left-handed. He wrote his notes backwards, in mirror writing, so they read from right to left. He filled pages of his notebooks with ideas about water and rivers. He drew plans for new musical instruments. His notebooks have been described as a 'visual laboratory', and the Science Museum has built models of some of his ideas. Leonardo's notebooks were hidden away for a long time. The Codex Atlanticus is a collection of 1,119 sheets of his drawings and notes. As of November 2026, the Codex Arundel, one of his notebooks, is kept at the British Library in London.
Leonardo studied how birds fly. He drew designs for flying machines. Many of his flying machines were ornithopters, machines with flapping wings. He designed a flying machine that worked like a helicopter, but it was never built. He drew an idea for a parachute. People do not have enough muscle power and endurance to fly with flapping wings the way birds do. Some of his ideas, especially his flying machines, may not have worked in his lifetime.
Leonardo painted The Last Supper on a wall in Milan between 1494 and 1498. He finished very few paintings. He painted the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is famous for the sitter's smile. It is painted in the sfumato style, which wraps the figure in a misty haze. As of November 2026, the Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre museum in Paris.
Leonardo da Vinci moved to France and spent the rest of his life there. The king of France gave Leonardo a manor house and an income near the royal château at Amboise. The Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, was Leonardo's last home.
Words to know
- Renaissance: a time
- sfumato: a misty style
- ornithopters: flapping machines
- workshop: art room
