ABSTRACT
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the illegitimate son
of the notary Ser Piero and a peasant girl known only
as Caterina, was born in the village of Vinci, outside
Florence. A genius of monumental proportions, he
inherited the mantle of Alberti as uomo universale
—“Renaissance man.” Leonardo was expert in the sci-
ences of his day, as well as engineering and map making,
and he practiced alchemy. He was a gifted musician-he
played the lyre-and was one of the greatest painters
who ever lived, although he produced very few fi nished
works. Two of his paintings, the Last Supper and the
Mona Lisa, have become icons of Western art. He left
thousands of pages of notebooks in which he wrote
on a wide array of topics, often illustrating his ideas
with some of the most masterful drawings ever made.
