Leonardo Da Vinci's Accomplishments

Leonardo Da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, to Florentine notary Ser Piero and a young peasant woman named Caterina. As a child, Leonardo was raised by his father and various step mothers. He first pursued his artistic career when he began an apprenticeship with a noted artist Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. After learning a wide variety technical skills, he established his own workshop at Florence’s Guild of Saint Luk. He and his teacher continued to collaborate for the next 5 years and with Da Vinci’s help Andrea managed to finish the “Baptism of Christ.” Leonardo’s first independent commission was to create an altarpiece to reside in a chapel inside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. He was also tasked to create a paint in “Adoration of Magi.” However, he never finished both of these commissions as he fled the city. The young artist also had an interest botany, geology, zoology, hydraulics, aeronautics and physics. He sketched numerous amounts of observations and filled dozens of notebooks with his scientific observations. Da Vinci also studied anatomy and dissected and studied human bodies.

For example, around 1495, Ludovico commissioned da Vinci to paint “The Last Supper” on the back wall of the dining hall inside the monastery of Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie. This project took 3 years to finish and captures the details of when Jesus informs his 12 apostles that one of them will betray him. He also helped create a 16-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue for the Duke Of Milan. This projected was worked off and on by Da Vinci and it was eventually put to a hold when the army needed bronze for the upcoming war with France. After French forces overran Milan in 1499—and shot the clay model to pieces—da Vinci fled the city along with the duke and the Sforza