d his self-portrait (Uffizi) and the numerous Madonnas renowned for their sweetness of expression. At Rome, his style matured, benefiting from Michelangelo's influence. He was wholly responsible for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican (see VATICAN CITY), the two largest walls representing the School of Athens and the Triumph of Religion. In the Stanza d'Eliodoro he painted, among others, The Miracle of Bolsena and The Deliverance of St. Peter. The Sistine Madonna (Dresden) is from his Roman period. In 1514 he succeeded BRAMANTE as chief architect of the Vatican, and he designed ten tapestries for the SISTINE CHAPEL. Raphael was deeply indebted to the sculpture of antiquity, and he achieved a harmony and monumentality of interpretation that were emulated far into the 19th cent. ?Leonardo, self-portrait, chalk drawing. ?"Mona Lisa," oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-06Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, 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 culmination 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 versatile genius. The severe plagues in 1484 and 1485 drew his attention to town planning, and his drawings and plans for domed churches reflect his concern with architectural problems. In 1483, Leonardo and his pupil Ambrogio de Predis were commissioned to execute the famous Madonna of the Rocks (two versions: 1483–c.1486, Louvre; 1483–1508, ...
