Advertisement
Did you know?Leicester Codex is the name of one of Leonardo da Vinci's journals that now belongs to Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft. He purchased it for more than $30 million.
Leonardo da Vinci, applauded even by his contemporaries as one of the most talented people of the Italian Renaissance, was a mystery even at that time. He was a genius whose accomplishments in various fields were awe-inspiring. Known mainly for his unbelievable talent in painting, he was also a sculptor, a mathematician, an inventor, a cartographer, a scientist, a musician, a philosopher, a writer, and above all, an influential and intellectual human being. In fact, there is no denying the fact that Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest minds of all time.
* Place the cursor on the images for details.
Personal Life
Birth name: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
Date of Birth: 15th of April, 1452 at Vinci, Italy
Demise: 2nd of May, 1519 at Amboise, France
Nationality: Italian
Parents: Since Leonardo was born to parents who were not legally married, he did not have a surname. His name 'Leonardo da Vinci', literally translates as 'Leonardo of Vinci' (Vinci was his birthplace in Italy).
✫ Leonardo never really attended school. However, he was informally taught to read and write at his father's house. Here, he was also given elementary training in languages, geometry, and arithmetic.
✫ Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian, and did not even drink milk in his life.
✫ He was left-handed and always wrote in mirror handwriting, perhaps to guard his ideas from intellectual thieves.
✫ Leonardo never married, neither did he have a romantic relationship with anybody.
✫ It is said that Leonardo used to wear bright colors to make his complexion look fresh. Pink was especially his favorite.
✫ He was famous for his love for animals. Sources tell us that many times, he used to purchase caged animals and birds, in order to set them free.
✫ Da Vinci is said to have left many of his paintings incomplete. Reportedly, he also destroyed a number of his own works.
✫ Leonardo did not make a self-portrait until almost 1515.[
A Polymath
"There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."- Francis I, King of France
Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the term 'polymath'. 'Polymath' denotes a person of superhuman intellect, intelligence, and talent. Da Vinci has made so many valuable contributions to various diverse fields that as compared to them, his artistic output seems to be minuscule. If the Italian Renaissance had to choose a single mascot for the time, it would surely be Leonardo da Vinci. The man is very rightly called the Renaissance Man.
Leonardo da Vinci produced some great works of art, and was known particularly for his unique styles of sketching and painting. He found numerous patrons in the nobility of Renaissance Italy and France, where some of his major artworks were executed.
Source: Wikimedia Commons (PD)✫ Da Vinci's earliest known drawing belongs to 1473, and depicts the Tuscan landscape of the Arno Valley in Italy.
✫ Andrea del Verrocchio, a famous painter at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, tutored Leonardo in his early years. Later on, Leonardo himself became a painter at Medici's court. He then served the Duke of Milan, before finally entering the court of Francis I of France.
✫ The Annunciation is Leonardo's first completed work, done in conjunction with Verrocchio. It is an oil on canvas painting, depicting Angel Gabriele's announcement of Mary's pregnancy with Jesus.
✫ Leonardo's first solo painting, completed in 1478, was Madonna and Child.
✫ The Mona Lisa is arguably his most famous work. The subject of this portrait is still debated, the most popular current view being that it is of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, whose husband is said to have commissioned the painting.
✫ One of the hypotheses stated that Mona Lisa is the self-portrait of Leonardo as a woman. Though it seemed weird in the beginning, numerous X-ray analyses of the painting suggest that the hypothesis might actually be true.
✫ Leonardo painted The Last Supper at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, under Ludovico il Moro's commission. The painting depicts the moment when Jesus announced that he would be betrayed. By 1500, the painting's deterioration had begun. Since 1726, many attempts have been made to restore it.[
An Anatomist
Verrocchio wanted all his pupils to become adept with human anatomy, along with learning the art of painting under his apprenticeship. This was what laid a concrete foundation for Leonardo's interest in anatomy.
Credit: Leonardo da Vinci/via Wikimedia Commons (PD)✫ Around the time Leonardo began apprenticeship with Verrocchio, he began to study human anatomy. This is one of the primary reasons why Leonardo's paintings seem so realistic.
✫ Leonardo was granted permission to dissect corpses at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence. Notes from his journals include detailed studies of the human skull, human fetus, internal organs of a woman, muscles, tendons, skeleton, vascular system, etc.
✫ The Vitruvian Man is one of the most famous works of Leonardo da Vinci, which combines art with anatomy and geometry.
✫ Along with human anatomy, Leonardo also carried out comparative anatomical studies. He dissected a number of animals and birds. One of his comparative anatomical studies compares the structure of a man's leg to that of a dog.
✫ Da Vinci carried out detailed study with regards to the anatomy of horses, as indicated by several of his sketches.
✫ He also closely studied and analyzed the effects of emotional fluctuations and age on human physiology.[
An Inventor
Leonardo approached science from a holistic, observational, and artistic point of view, rather than being too theoretical and/or experimental. This allowed his inventions to be particularly intricate, thoughtful, and aesthetic, all at the same time.
✫ Leonardo conceptualized and sketched the first flying machines, which included the working sketches of a parachute, a helicopter, a hang glider, and an airplane.
✫ Da Vinci conceptualized a 33-barrelled organ, a sort of a gun that could fire multiple bullets in quick succession. It surely seems like a prototype of a modern machine gun.
✫ He made, for the first time ever, a design of an armored tank, and considered it to be the ultimate war machine.
✫ He also devised a motor car for the first time ever in the history of mankind. It could function on its own without any human intervention, and so can be considered to be world's first robotic vehicle.
✫ The first ever humanoid robot was constructed in the 15th century by Leonardo da Vinci. This, he had actually built, and was used to entertain people. His notes have been used by NASA to design the planetary exploration robots.
✫ As part of a civil engineering project, Leonardo drafted a sketch of a 220 meters single span bridge in the year 1502; however, the Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Constantinople (who the project belonged to) was doubtful about the feasibility of the idea. In 2006, a bridge was constructed in ?s, Norway, based on Leonardo's 1502 sketch. The project is called Vebj?rn Sand Da Vinci Project. The bridge, now serves as a pedestrian crossing over the European route E18.[
A Scientist
Credit: Leonardo da Vinci/via Wikimedia Commons (PD)With respect to the different fields that Leonardo explored, one can say that his intellect and curiosity left almost no stone unturned. Here are some interesting facts about Leonardo's contributions to allied fields of science.
✫ Leonardo had achieved mastery over the principles of mechanical engineering. He was completely astonished by the different levers and gears, and used them successfully in many of his projects.
✫ He approached botany with aesthetic, rather than scientific curiosity. He was known to draw a single flower several times in his journals, each time from a different angle.
Credit: Leonardo da Vinci/via Wikimedia Commons (PD)✫ As a cartographer (a maker of maps), Leonardo made several maps of different regions. However, the map that he made of the Commune of Imola in the Italian province of Bologna, is regarded as one of the most accurate maps of the region till date.
✫ Leonardo's astronomical observations may have been held scandalous in his times, since he said that "The earth is not in the center of the Sun's orbit nor at the center of the Universe".
✫ Luca Pacioli taught Leonardo, mathematics. The student - teacher duo later published a treatise titled "De Divina Proportione" (the Divine Proportions) that spoke about the application of mathematics in art.[
Other Fascinating Facts
✫ In 1472, the Guild of St. Luke, a prestigious guild of artists and doctors of medicine, accepted Da Vinci as their master.
✫ Da Vinci and Michelangelo were contemporaries and arch rivals. They are recorded to have shared such a bitter relationship that they had even insulted each other in public.
✫ Leonardo Da Vinci took as long as ten years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
✫ He was one of the first few Italian artists to have used oil paints for painting, instead of egg tempera.
✫ Apart from being a Renaissance polymath, Da Vinci was also one of the alleged grandmasters of the Priory of Sion, a secret society that was formulated for the protection of the race of Christ.
Sadly most of the scientific works of Leonardo Da Vinci could never reach the public as they were never published. It is also very unfortunate that many of his works, including some of his meticulously illustrated journals have not been able to withstand the ravages of time. We, as species of the human race, can only hope to be at least half as great as the multi-faceted man, who still continues to inspire the world.CHARTS & TRENDS
Leonardo da Vinci (Character)
Quicklinks
by yearby typeby ratingsby votesby TV seriesby genreby keyword
biographyphoto galleryquotes
Filmographies
Biographical
Did You Know?
Share this page:
IMDb Polls
Leonardo da Vinci (Character)
The content of this page was created by users. It has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff.
There may be more photos available for this character. To select more photos to be displayed
in this character's gallery, click the Edit Photos link.
Jump to filmography:&,
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
(2014) (TV)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&& () (2015)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&& ()
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&& ()
... aka "NBC's Saturday Night" - USA (complete title)
... aka "SNL" - USA (informal title)
... aka "SNL 25" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Saturday Night" - USA (first season title)
... aka "Saturday Night Live '80" - USA (sixth season title)
... aka "Saturday Night Live 15" - USA (fifteenth season title)
... aka "Saturday Night Live 20" - USA (twentieth season title)
... aka "Saturday Night Live 25" - USA (twentyfifth season title) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(2013) (TV)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo DaVinci) (2013) (TV)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&& () (2012)
... aka "Garibaldi's Lovers" - International (English title) (alternative title), USA (new title)
... aka "The Commander and the Stork" - International (English title) (imdb display title)
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leo Da Vinci) (2012)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
... aka "Padre de familia" - USA (Spanish title) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
... aka "There's Always Room for Dessert!" - International (English title) (literal title)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci) (2009)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
(as Léonard de Vinci)
... aka "M3 - Man, Moment, Machine" - USA (promotional abbreviation) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci) (2006) (V)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
(2006) (V)
(as Young Leondardo) /
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(2004) (TV)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci) (2002)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
... aka "An Angel in Krakow" - USA (literal English title)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonard Da Vinci) (2000)
(2000) (TV)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
(2000) TV series
(as Leonardi Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
... aka "MST 3000" - USA (short title)
... aka "MST3K" - USA (short title)
... aka "Mystery Science Theater Hour" - USA (rerun title)
... aka "The Mystery Science Theater Hour" - USA (syndication title) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo di Vinci) (1998)
(as Leonardo)
... aka "Ever After: A Cinderella Story" - International (English title) (imdb display title), USA (imdb display title)
(1998) (TV)
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
... aka "Voyager" - USA (short title) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(1996) (V)
... aka "Animated Hero Classics: Leonardo da Vinci" - USA (series title)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo de Vinci) (1993) (V)
(as Leonardo)
... aka "Mask of Zeguy" - USA (DVD title)
(1990) (TV)
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
TV episode, Played by
(1986) (TV)
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
... aka "Clementine's Enchanted Journey" - USA &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Léonard de Vinci) (1984)
... aka "Nothing Left to Do but Cry" - International (English title) (imdb display title)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci) (1982)
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo DaVinci)
... aka "History of the World: Part II" - USA (segment title)
... aka "Hitler on Ice" - USA (segment title)
... aka "Jews in Space" - USA (segment title)
... aka "Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part 1" - USA (complete title)
... aka "The Bible" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Dawn of Man" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The French Revolution" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Future" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Last Supper" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Roman Empire" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Spanish Inquisition" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Stone Age" - USA (segment title)
... aka "The Ten Commandments" - USA (segment title)
... aka "Steve Allen's Meeting of Minds" - USA (complete title) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(1979) TV series
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
(1977) (TV)
(as Léonard de Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Léonard de Vinci) (1973) (TV)
(as Young Leonardo)
... aka "I, Leonardo" - USA
... aka "The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci" - USA (imdb display title) &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo)
TV episode, Played by
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo) (1954)
... aka "Rheingold Theatre" - USA &&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(1949) (TV)
... aka "Carey Wilson Miniatures: Portrait of a Genius" - USA (series title)
(2010) (VG)
(2009) (VG)
(1999) (VG)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)&&&&-
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
TV episode, Played by
(as Leonardo Da Vinci)
Additional Details
You may correct errors and omissions on this page directly. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.
Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet!
Follow IMDb onLeonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da
It may seem unusual to include Leonardo da Vinci in a list of paleontologists
and evolutionary biologists. Leonardo was and is best known as an artist,
the creator of such masterpieces as the Mona Lisa, Madonna of the
Rocks, and The Last Supper. Yet Leonardo was far more than a great
artist: he had one of the best scientific minds of his time. He made
painstaking observations and carried out research in fields ranging from
architecture and civil engineering to astronomy to anatomy and zoology
to geography,
paleontology.
In the words of his biographer Giorgio Vasari:
The most heavenly gifts seem to be showered on certain human beings.
Sometimes supernaturally, marvelously, they all congregate in one
individual. . . . This was seen and acknowledged by all men in the case of
Leonardo da Vinci, who had. . . an indescribable grace in every effortless
act and deed. His talent was so rare that he mastered any subject to which
he turned his attention. . . . He might have been a scientist if he had not
been so versatile.
Leonardo's scientific and technical observations are found in his handwritten
manuscripts, of which over 4000 pages survive, including the one pictured
on the right, showing some rock formations (click on it to view an
enlargement). It seems that Leonardo
planned to publish them as a great encyclopedia of knowledge, but like many
of his projects, this one was never finished. The manuscripts are difficult
to read: not only did Leonardo write in mirror-image script from right to
left, but he used peculiar spellings and abbreviations, and his notes are
not arranged in any logical order. After his death his notes were scattered to
libraries and collections all over Europe.
While portions of Leonardo's technical
treatises on painting were published as early as 1651, the scope and caliber
of much of his scientific work remained unknown until the 19th century. Yet
his geological and paleontological observations and theories foreshadow many
later breakthroughs.
Leonardo knew well the rocks and fossils (mostly
mollusks) found
in his native north Italy. No doubt he had ample opportunity to observe them
during his service as an engineer and artist at the court of Lodovico Sforza,
Duke of Milan, from 1482 to 1499: Vasari wrote that "Leonardo was frequently
occupied in the preparation of plans to remove mountains or to pierce them
with tunnels from plain to plain." He made many observations on mountains and
rivers, and he grasped the principle that rocks can be formed by deposition
of sediments by water, while at the same time the rivers erode rocks and
carry their sediments to the sea, in a continuous grand cycle. He wrote:
"The stratified stones of the mountains are all layers of clay, deposited one
above the other by the various floods of the rivers. . . In every concavity at
the summit of the mountains we shall always find the divisions of strata in
the rocks." Leonardo appear to have grasped the law of
superposition, which
would later be articulated fully by the Danish scientist
in any sequence of sedimentary rocks, the oldest rocks are those at the
base. He also appears to have noticed that distinct layers of rocks and
fossils could be traced over long distances, and that these layers were formed
at different times: ". . . the shells in Lombardy are at four levels, and thus
it is everywhere, having been made at various times." Nearly three hundred
years later, the rediscovery and elaboration of these principles would make
possible modern
In Leonardo's day there were several hypotheses of how it was that shells and
other living creatures were found in rocks on the tops of mountans. Some
believed the shells to have been carried there by the Biblical F others
thought that these shells had grown in the rocks. Leonardo had no patience
with either hypothesis, and refuted both using his careful observations.
Concerning the second hypothesis, he wrote that "such an opinion cannot exist
because here are the years of their growth,
numbered on their shells, and there are large and small ones to be seen which
could not have grown without food, and could not have fed without motion --
and here they could not move." There was every sign that these shells had
once been living organisms. What about the Great Flood mentioned in the Bible?
Leonardo doubted the existence of a single worldwide flood, noting that there
would have been no place for the water to go when it receded. He also noted
that "if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been
mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular
steps and layers -- as we see them now in our time." He noted that rain falling
on mountains rushed downhill, not uphill, and suggested that any Great Flood
would have carried fossils away from the land, not towards it. He described
sessile fossils such as oysters and
and considered it impossible that
one flood could have carried them 300 miles inland, or that they could have
crawled 300 miles in the forty days and nights of the Biblical flood.
How did those shells come to lie at the tops of mountains? Leonardo's
answer was remarkably close to the modern one: fossils were once-living
organisms that had been buried at a time before the mountains were raised:
"it must be presumed that in those places there were sea coasts, where all the
shells were thrown up, broken, and divided. . ." Where there is now land,
there was once ocean. It was possible, Leonardo thought, that some fossils
were buried by floods -- this idea probably came from his observations of
the floods of the Arno River and other rivers of north Italy -- but these
floods had been repeated, local catastrophes, not a single Great Flood.
To Leonardo da Vinci, as to modern paleontologists,
fossils indicated the history of the Earth, which extends
far beyond human records. As Leonardo himself wrote:
Since things are much more ancient than letters, it is no marvel if, in
our day, no records exist of these seas having covered so many countries. . .
But sufficient for us is the testimony of things created in the salt waters,
and found again in high mountains far from the seas.
To find out more about Leonardo da Vinci's life and career, visit the Leonardo pages at the .}