Person

Leonardo da Vinci

رسام ومصمم ونحات ومعماري ومهندس جسّد المثل الإنساني النهضوي، ورسم «الموناليزا» التي اشتراها فرانسوا الأول عام 1518.

LeonardoLeonardo di ser Piero da Vincida Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), born at Anchiano near Vinci in the Republic of Florence to unmarried parents — his father Ser Piero a Florentine notary, his mother Caterina a young woman of debated identity — was apprenticed at about fifteen to Andrea del Verrocchio, painted the angel of the Baptism of Christ, and was admitted to Florence's painters' guild in 1472. From 1482 to 1500 he served the Sforza court in Milan as painter and engineer, where he painted the Last Supper (1495–98) — an experimental tempera-on-dry-wall work that began flaking within years and was coated with later retouches until a 20-year restoration completed in 1999. Back in Florence he began the Mona Lisa about 1503, kept it unfinished until his death, and worked on anatomy in two documented campaigns (c. 1490 and 1506–13), dissecting about thirty human corpses; the anatomical treatise was never published in his lifetime. He died at Cloux (Clos-Lucé) in France on 2 May 1519, leaving more than 10,000 notebook pages to Francesco Melzi; the sheets were later bound by Pompeo Leoni into the Codex Atlanticus (Ambrosiana, Milan) and the Windsor volumes (Royal Collection, c. 550 drawings), while the Codex Leicester toured the Uffizi in 2018–19. Only 17 of his surviving paintings can be definitely attributed to him, and the attribution of works such as Salvator Mundi — sold in 2017 for $450.3 million — remains contested.

25/25 claims verified 16 min read· 2026-09-17

The Renaissance

The Renaissance was the period of European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages, marked by the revival of Classical learning and the explosion of art, architecture, and humanist thought that began in Italy and spread across Europe. This fact file follows the story from its roots — Petrarch’s sense of a lost antiquity, the proto-Renaissance of Giotto, and the transformations begun in the 12th century — through the Florence of the Medici, where Brunelleschi raised the great dome, Ghiberti cast the Gates of Paradise, Masaccio founded a new painting, and Botticelli painted the Birth of Venus; on to Rome, where the Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s stanze, and a rebuilt Saint Peter’s made the papacy the engine of the High Renaissance; and to the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa and its painter Leonardo da Vinci — bought by François I in 1518 — still hold court. It closes on the period’s contested edges: the fall of Rome in 1527 and the Mannerist 1520s–1600 on one side, and the still-live scholarly debate over periodisation — Vasari’s “second birth,” Burckhardt’s veil, Panofsky’s “Self-Definition or Self-Deception?”, and Denley’s critique — presented here as sourced positions rather than a single verdict. Evidence comes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Uffizi, the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, UNESCO, Britannica, Project Gutenberg primary texts, Gallica, and peer-reviewed scholarship via Crossref.

24/24 claims verified 19 min read· 2026-09-18

Knowledge graph

Andrea del Verrocchio · apprenticed_to Andrea del Verrocchio · apprenticed_to Andrea del Verrocchio · apprenticed_to Andrea del Verrocchio · apprenticed_to Francesco Melzi · bequeathed Francesco Melzi · bequeathed Marcantonio della Torre · collaborated_with Marcantonio della Torre · collaborated_with Salvator Mundi · contributed_to Salvator Mundi · contributed_to Salvator Mundi · contributed_to Salvator Mundi · contributed_to Renaissance · epitomized Renaissance · exemplified Francesco Melzi · inherited_from Francesco Melzi · inherited_from The Last Supper · painted Mona Lisa · painted The Last Supper · painted Mona Lisa · painted The Last Supper · painted Mona Lisa · painted The Last Supper · painted Mona Lisa · painted Ludovico Sforza · served Ludovico Sforza · served Ludovico Sforza · served Ludovico Sforza · served