r.Leonardo da Vinci sought for knowledge and studied wide variety of subjects he was known as a “Renaissance man”. In 1478 Leonardo became an independent master. His first large painting “The Adoration of Magi”.1482 Leonardo entered the Service of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, as principal engineer and architect. At this time he also assisted the mathematician, Luca Pacioli. Leonardo wrote many texts, compiled as “Treatise on Painting”. During this period the most important of his painting was “The Virgin on the rocks”. From 1495 until 1497 Leonardo labored over the “The Last Supper”. At this time he also did many other paintings, drawings, theater design, and architectural drawings. In 1500 he returned to Florence, where he later entered the service of Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna. During this period Leonardo painted “the Mona Lisa”. Leonardo developed two painting techniques, sfumato and chiaroscuro. In 1506 Leonardo returned to Milan, where he was named court painter to King Louis XII of France. Leonardo lived in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X, from 1514 until 1516. At this time he came up with many scientific theories. He spent his last few years here until he died at the age of 67 in 1519. He influenced the Italian art more than a century after his death. Leonardo da Vinci’s topics ranged from: anatomy, zoology, botany, biology, optic, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, and the science of motion, language arts, and the study of the human. By the late fifteenth century, Europeans were in a position to venture far away to the shores of Africa. The exploration of the peoples and land of the New World led to the influx of gold and silver. The discovery of classical civilization occasioned a rebirth of intellectual and artistic activity in both southern and northern Europe. One result was the splendor of the Italian Renaissance, whose scholarshi...
