A Brief Look at Leonardo da Vinci’s Life

 Sketch Leonardo made of an unborn baby.

Dates Events in Leonardo’s Life
1452 Leonardo’s Birth at Anchiano, two miles from Vinci – He lives with his mother.
1455 Leonardo moves to Vinci to live with his Grandparents.
1466 Moves to Florence with his father to apprentice in Andrea Verrocchio’s workshop.
1472 Leonardo paints angel in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ (left hand corner of painting); he is also accepted into the Painters’ Guild that year.
1473 Leonardo makes his Landscape Drawing, his oldest surviving drawing.
1480 Leonardo works for Duke Lorenzo de Medici, a patron of the arts.
1481 Commissioned for Adoration of the Magi, first large painting – which like so many others, he leaves unfinished!
1482 Leonardo offers service as engineer, architect, sculptor, and painter, to Duke of Milan.
1483 Moves to Milan; contracted for first Virgin of the Rocks, that he doesn’t finish; starts initial sketches for the equestrian statue for Duke of Milan. The Duke quickly asks it to be made three – four times lifesize.
1488 First Anatomical drawings appear in his notebooks.
1490 Leonardo directs feasts and pageants; starts serious work in notebooks; makes scale model for equestrian statue; considers making a telescope.
1493 Builds full-scale clay model of the equestrian statue, unveiled for wedding.
1494 May have painted second Virgin of the Rocks; begins construction of canal and molds for statue. Leonardo also spends some time away from Milan, in Pavia studying.
1495 Begins Last Supper in the dining room at the Santa Maria delle Grazie (finishes in 1497).  He also teaches himself Latin and makes sketches for a “humanoid” robot.
1497 Leonardo illustrates Pacioli’s new geometry book, On Divine Proportion.
1498 Leonardo plans to publish his notebooks; writes book on theory of mechanics.  He meets with other artists at an “Academia” to discuss artistic theories.
1499 Leonardo’s clay horse is destroyed by French soldiers invading Milan.
1500 Leonardo leaves Milan after it falls to the French; he makes his way to Mantua, Venice, and then back to Florence, where he begins work on Madonna and Child with St Anne.  The Last Supper mural is already deteriorating.
1502 Leonardo serves as military engineer and cartographer to Cesare Borgia; traveling with the army throughout Romagna.  Leonardo designs a bridge for the Sultan.
1503 Commissioned for painting of Battle of Anghiari; begins Mona Lisa (working intermittently on both). He also works on plans for canal from Florence to the sea and experiments with flying.
1505 Finishes full-size sketch of Battle painting; does many nature sketches.
1506 Summoned to Milan by the French governor; stops work on Battle painting; apparently finishes Mona Lisa (but never relinquishes it).
1507 Brief trip back to Florence; makes plans again to publish notebooks.
1508 Returns to Milan, where he is employed by French King Louis XII, currently living there; begins major anatomical research.
1513 Leonardo goes to Rome, at request of Pope Leo X’s brother, Giuliano. He opens art studio but concentrates on his science work.
1514 Back in Florence for a short time, paints only self-portrait.
1515 Constructs mechanical lion for Francis I’s coronation. Leonardo is forbidden by Pope from doing more human dissections.  Paints last known picture: St John the Baptist.
1516 Leonardo moves to Amboise, France to work for King Francis I as “Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect of the King” (takes several paintings with him, including the Mona Lisa). His right hand is paralyzed by a stroke.
1519 Leonardo writes his will on April 23rd, dies on May 2nd.

Painting of the Dieing Leonardo in the arms of the French King(French King) Francis I Receives the Last Breaths of Leonardo da Vinci

Painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1818