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Leonardo da Vinci was born in Anchiano, Italy on April 15, 1452.
He was one of the greatest minds of the Renaissance period,
even earning the title of the Renaissance Man for his contributions.
Most people know da Vinci for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and Last Supper,
but he actually excelled in both science and the arts.
Leonardo da Vinci saw everything through math, and applied mathematics to his art pieces.
Similarly, he applied artistic principles to his inventions.
You may never associate contact lenses with Leonardo da Vinci,
but he was actually the first to propose the concept back in 1508.
He also designed a war tank 400 years before it was actually invented.
Da Vinci was also one of the first scholars to explain why the sky is blue.
Leonardo da Vinci was a genius beyond his time.
His craft was so complex and intricate,
that people in the present are still looking for hidden messages in his works.
Now, how do we crack the enigma that is da Vinci?
Watch on to find out.
Leonardo da Vinci is called the Renaissance Man.
From the 5th to 15th century, Europe was shrouded in the Dark Ages,
a period of decline in philosophy, science, and the arts.
However, it all ended with the Renaissance period.
Historically speaking, the Renaissance period was a sustained era
of social, cultural, political, and scientific rebirth in Europe.
For Leonardo da Vinci to be branded as the Renaissance Man
tells you how significant he was in this historic movement.
Da Vinci claimed the title of Renaissance Man for his wide intellectual interests and achievements
in both science and arts.
His curiosity and natural sense of the laws of nature inspired his vast intellect.
Leonardo da Vinci had multiple occupations and titles.
If da Vinci submitted a resume today, it’d probably be as thick as a manuscript.
Leonardo da Vinci devoted his time to proving facts and figuring out nature.
Leonardo da Vinci made remarkable discoveries in the fields of science, learning, reason, and tolerance.
During his era, he was an internationally famous scientist, painter, inventor, sculptor, musician, engineer,
architect, mathematician, anatomist, philosopher, geologist, biologist, and astronomer.
His paintings made his mentor retire.
Leonardo da Vinci was asked to paint an angel while studying art from his mentor, Andrea del Verrocchio.
Leonardo da Vinci made an exceptional painting so beautiful
that Andrea del Verrocchio decided not to paint again.
Instead, del Verrochio dedicated his life to sculpting.
He has numerous famous paintings.
Aside from his iconic paintings, da Vinci crafted a total of 15 paintings
that defined the High Renaissance period.
However, experts believe he made many more that were either destroyed or unidentified.
Da Vinci invented painting by numbers.
On paper, Dan Robbins holds the patent to the paint-by-number kits
that he invented in the early 1950s.
However, Robbins only borrowed the concept from da Vinci’s teaching method for his students.
Da Vinci would teach his students how to paint by the numbers, similar to how the kits function today.
Someone stole the Mona Lisa on August 21, 1911.
On August 21, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in France.
Peruggia hid the painting in his apartment in Paris for two years.
He managed to bring the painting back home with him in Italy, but got apprehended along the way.
Vincenzo Peruggia claimed the reason for his theft as patriotism,
wanting to bring the painting back to Italy after Napoleon "stole" it.
Peruggia was released from jail after a short time and served in the Italian army during World War I.
Today, Mona Lisa is back in the Louvre Museum.
Leonardo da Vinci was almost executed.
He was arrested on allegations of sodomy, a crime punishable by death in 15th century Florence,
along with several of his male companions.
However, his case was dismissed when there were no witnesses at court hearings.
No one is sure where the Mona Lisa was painted.
Many believe that Mona Lisa was first painted in Florence in 1503 or 1504.
However, the Louvre claims it was unquestionably painted between 1503 and 1506.
Art historians note that it is difficult to confirm the dates.
Mona Lisa’s expression has been decoded.
A face-recognition software determined that Leonardo’s painting Mona Lisa
is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, and 2% angry.
Nicu Sebe at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands tested emotion-recognition software
on the famous Mona Lisa smile.
The algorithm, developed with researchers at the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois,
examines key facial features of the Mona Lisa such as the curve of the lips and crinkles around the eyes.
The algorithm then scores each face to six basic emotions.
Leonardo da Vinci was an illegitimate child.
Da Vinci had 12 siblings, with 9 brothers and 3 sisters.
He was born out of wedlock to Ser Piero da Vinci, a prominent notary (a public official
who certifies legal documents) of Florence, and a local woman, Caterina di Meo Lippi.
Not much is known about da Vinci’s childhood,
but his father sent him to Florence to apprentice for Andrea del Verrocchio.
Mona Lisa holds a Guinness World Record.
Guinness World Records lists Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci as the highest-insured painting in the world.
As of December 14, 1962, the Mona Lisa had a value of 100 million dollars.
Considering inflation, the value in 1962 would amount to $830 million in 2018.
Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper painting is not in a museum.
The Last Supper is in the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria Delle Grazie
in Milan, Italy (a church and Dominican convent).
There are many reproductions and replicas in all sizes,
but the original painting measures 15 by 29 feet.
No one knows for sure who Mona Lisa is.
It is widely believed that Lisa del Giocondo is Mona Lisa and the model of the painting.
She was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy Florentine silk merchant.
Historians believe Francesco commissioned the painting to celebrate the birth of Andrea, his second son.
However, there are still many theories of her identity.
Mona Lisa’s smile holds many mysteries.
It only makes sense that da Vinci’s most popular painting holds the most conspiracies.
One theory proposes a secret pregnancy as the reason for Mona Lisa’s smile.
A second theory suggests that there were singers and clowns entertaining Mona Lisa
while Leonardo painted her.
A third theory hints at a hidden self-portrait Leonardo da Vinci slyly superimposed on the portrait of Mona Lisa.
Leonardo da Vinci was a prolific inventor.
Not only did da Vinci draw his works,
but he also sketched the blueprints for key developments in mechanical engineering.
His technical innovations included the winged flying machine,
diving equipment, self-propelled cart, among others.
There is no sign of whether he executed these blueprints.
However, the meticulous descriptions reveal just how Leonardo da Vinci conceived these creations.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote his ideas backwards to avoid plagiarism.
Leonardo da Vinci’s unique perspective is revealed by the diagrams, sketches, notes and observations
in his notebooks.
In his time as a military and marine engineer for the duke of Milan,
Leonardo started collecting his thoughts in notebooks from the mid-1480s.
That may sound just like anyone’s school notes,
but the catch is that he wrote everything in the Italian mirror writing of the 16th century,
in reverse from right to left.
His famous self-portrait might not actually be him.
In 1512, Leonardo da Vinci allegedly drew a self-portrait with red chalk at the age of 60.
He called it the Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk, measuring 33.3 cm x 21.3 cm.
It’s now part of Biblioteca Reale’s stunning collection in Turin.
The portrait of Leonardo as a polymath or “Renaissance Man”
was extensively reproduced and iconic representation.
However, some historians and academics dispute the identity of his so-called self-portrait.
Leonardo da Vinci had a logical view of life.
Although his empirical methods were unorthodox in his day,
art historians laud da Vinci’s unequaled complexity and range.
Scholars interpret his worldview as logical.
Leonardo da Vinci started young.
When Leonardo da Vinci reached the age of 20,
he was acknowledged as a master in the St. Luke Guild of medical artists and doctors.
Though his father had his own studio set up,
he continued to collaborate with his mentor, Andrea del Verrochio.
Da Vinci’s earliest dated work is the 1473 pen-and-ink drawing of the Arno Valley,
which was also known as the first pure Western landscape.
Historians state that the young Leonardo was the first to propose that the Arno River
was passable in the cities of Florence and Pisa.
Leonardo da Vinci grew up with his father.
Leonardo da Vinci was much closer to his father than his mother.
For the first 5 years of his life, he lived with his mother and then settled with his father.
But from time to time, he would write letters to his mother.
Leonardo’s mother was able to spend time with him in the last few years of her life.
Da Vinci is not a real surname.
In the modern sense, Leonardo had no family name, “da Vinci” literally means “from Vinci.”
Vinci is a town and municipality of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Tuscany region of Italy.
It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci died of a stroke.
On 2 May 1519, at the age of 67, da Vinci suffered a fatal stroke.
Prior to his death, he had been working on his science studies.
His assistant Melzi succeeded him in his studies.
Salai was the legacy of the “Mona Lisa.”
Leonardo da Vinci died of a probable stroke on May 2, 1519, at the age of 67.
The King of France had a strange story about Leonardo da Vinci.
The King of France (Francis I) claimed to have supported him in his old age and held him in his arms as he died.
However, this claim is widely believed to be hearsay.
Leonardo da Vinci had a feud with Michelangelo.
Historians say that the two greatest artists of the Renaissance were also great rivals.
They criticized each other’s works constantly.
Michelangelo always brought up Leonardo’s inability to finish some of his works,
and Leonardo goaded him with comments about Michelangelo’s overt muscular sculptures.
Leonardo kind of predicted the future.
People valued Leonardo da Vinci as an engineer throughout his life.
He wrote in a letter to Ludovico il Moro (Italian Renaissance prince) that he can build
all kinds of machines for town protection and siege.
His sketches of tanks, planes, and weapons were executed a few centuries later by other inventors.
Leonardo da Vinci had a very specific burial wish.
Leonardo da Vinci wished to be buried in Amboise, St. Florentine, France.
His dying wish was honored on Aug 12, 1519.
However, the French Revolution of the 18th century destroyed his resting place.
In 1863, someone found the suspected bones of Leonardo da Vinci in the chapel in Saint-Hubert.
Bill Gates bought Da Vinci's 72-page illustrated manuscript.
For the hefty price of 40 million dollars,
Bill Gates now owns the only copy of Da Vinci’s 72-page illustrated manuscript,
the Codex Leicester (or Codex Hammer).
The dissertation includes pages written by Da Vinci between 1506 and 1510 in Milan and Florence.
The manuscript covers topics such as the propagation of light in the heavens,
the observations on why the moon is luminous, and the study of hydrodynamics.
Leonardo DiCaprio's mother named him after Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo DiCaprio got his namesake because his pregnant mother
was staring at Leonardo da Vinci’s painting at a museum when he first kicked.
Even though he’s been long gone, da Vinci’s brilliance and genius outlives him to the present.
We may never crack the mysteries of the Da Vinci code,
but we can still appreciate him as one of the pioneering faces of the Renaissance.
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