Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist, probably the supreme example of Renaissance genius. Born in Vinci, Tuscany, he was the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary and a peasant girl. His precocious artistic talent brought him to Verrocchio's workshop in 1466, where he met Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. The cul mination of his art in this first period in Florence is seen in the magnificent, unfinished Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi), with its characteristic dramatic movement and chiaroscuro. In c.1482 Leonardo went to the court of Ludovico Sforza in Milan and there composed most of his Trattato della pittura and the notebooks that demonstrate his versa tile genius. …
