Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci) (Vinci, April 15, 1452 - Amboise, May 2, 1519) was a Florentine polymath of the Italian Renaissance. He was at the same time a painter, anatomist, architect, paleontologist, artist, botanist, scientist, writer, sculptor, philosopher, engineer, inventor, musician, poet and urban planner. He died accompanied by Francesco Melzi, to whom he bequeathed his projects, designs and paintings. After spending his childhood in his hometown, Leonardo studied with the Florentine painter Andrea de Verrocchio. His first important works were created in Milan in the service of Duke Ludovico Sforza. He then worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and spent his last years in France, at the invitation of King Francis I.

Frequently described as an archetype and symbol of the Renaissance man, a universal genius, as well as a humanist philosopher whose infinite curiosity can only be matched by his inventive capacity, Leonardo da Vinci is considered one of the greatest painters of all time and, probably, the person with the most talents in multiple disciplines who has ever existed. As an engineer and inventor, Leonardo developed ideas far ahead of their time, such as the helicopter, the battle tank, the submarine and the automobile. Very few of his projects were ever built (among them the machine to measure the elastic limit of a cable), since most were not feasible at that time. As a scientist, Leonardo da Vinci greatly advanced knowledge in the areas of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Its most famous historical association is painting. Two of his best-known works, The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, have been copied and parodied on several occasions, as has his drawing of the Vitruvian Man. However, only around 20 of his works are known, mainly due to his repeated (and sometimes disastrous) experiments with new techniques and his chronic inconstancy. This small number of creations, together with his notebooks with drawings, scientific diagrams and reflections on the nature of painting, constitute a legacy for successive generations of artists.

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