Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Painter, sculptor, architect, designer, theorist, engineer and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci epitomised the idea of the Renaissance polymath.

Leonardo was born in 1452 near Vinci, Italy. He lived and worked in Florence, Milan, Rome and France, where he died in 1519. Despite creating iconic works such as the Mona Lisa, art was only one of Leonardo’s interests, and he left behind several thousand pages of notes relating to many unfinished or unrealised projects.

In Milan he worked for Ludovico Sforza, who commissioned him to paint a Last Supper on the refectory wall of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (ca. 1495–98). Despite being painted using an experimental process which quickly caused the mural to fade, the Last Supper proved one of the most influential works of Renaissance art. In 1821 the Royal Academy purchased an early copy of the Last Supper at great expense, enabling British artists to study and learn from the work.