Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in Vinci, Italy on April 15, 1452. When he was young, he drew pictures of animals, plants, and other things that he found in the woods. When he grew a little older, he learned how to paint.
When he was twelve or thirteen, his father took him to Florence to become an apprentice of Andrea de Verrocchio. While there in the workshop, he learned how to make and use paint to create his wondrous works. He also learned mathematics, to calculate how to make the paintings appear three dimensional.
When he was asked to paint a shield as a gift, Leonardo went outside and dissected many animals. The painting arranged the body parts of every animal into a hideous monster, breathing fire. Leonardo's client was horrified at first, but soon sold the shield for much more money than what he paid for it.
In 1482 he moved to Milan, Italy. When the plague, called the black death struck the town, it killed 1/3 of the population. Leonardo suspected that the plague was caused by the overwhelming filth of the town. He made plans for a 2-layered city where the poor could be on the bottom, and the rich on the top. The city also even had bathrooms with swiveling toilet seats and drainage. The city would be clean, and only the poor would get the plague. This design was completely forgotten.
During this time Leonardo invented war machines for Duke Ludovico Sforza. This is when he started work on his various notebooks. Many years later when when his notebooks were published, they were called codices. They are divided into 10 books, with various topics including, astronomy, military engineering, bird studies, optics, hydraulics, geometry, anatomy, weights, sound, botany, zoology, and light.
Leonardo was very different for his time. He hated war and was a vegetarian, he lived off of minestrone soup, fruit, and salad.
Da Vinci created The Last Supper in 1495, for a dining room wall in a monestary, but it took 2 years to finish. It started to fade away, because Da Vinci used experimental paint.
He began Mona Lisa in 1503, when he moved back to Florence after he had to flee Milan during a war. This is one of the most famous paintings in the world. We don't know who the model for the picture was or why he painted it. The background is very strange.
Leonardo died in France on May 2, 1519. He gave all of his notebooks to his apprentice Francesco Melzi to take care of. Melzi hired two people to sort the notebook papers and put them into categories for books. However, the workers failed to sort them and the papers became lost and stolen over time.

Fun Facts:

Bill Gates purchased the Codex Leicester, for $30,000,000 in 1995

Leonardo dissected many people, to illustrate their organs. He filled the organs with wax so that they would not collapse. To keep eyes from spoiling, he would cover them in egg white, and boil them!

He took Mona Lisa with him whenever he traveled

Michelangelo and Da Vinci were rivals

Leonardo taught himself how to play the lute

He is referred to as the Renaissance man