Ser Piero, Leonardo's father, was a 25-year-old lawyer when Leonardo was born. As the story goes, Ser Piero did not marry Leonardo's mother (Catarina) because she was the daughter of a farmer. This caused many lifelong legal and emotional problems for Leonardo. Ser Piero did marry a woman shortly after Leonardo was born, her name in unknown. Leonardo had a total of four stepmothers in all, but it's thought that Leonardo's near by uncle is the one who nurtured Leonardo's powerful drive to learn.

Leonardo was christened at the Baptismal Church in Vinci. The parson Piero da Bartotomeo christened Leonardo to the name Lionardo, and not Leonardo. Leonardo lived in Anchiano for about 5 more years, until he moved to Vinci.

In 1457 Leonardo moved with his grandfather from Anchiano to Vinci. From this time forth Leonardo was a member of his father's family. Ser Piero and his first wife did not have any children; this may have been the rea

Leonardo was not just skilled as a painter. He was also a very good sculptor-even though none of his pieces of sculpture survived the vandalism through the years. More than a great artist, he was a great thinker, the best of his time and possibly the best of all time. With the skills that Leonardo possessed he could easily have become a city planner, architect, inventor, engineer, physician, musician, anthropologist, botanist, or astronomer.

3. Editors of Time-Life Books, What Life was Like at the Rebirth of Genius, Renaissance, Italy, 1999.

During the years 1466-1472, there were no known works of art from Leonardo. At this time Leonardo taught himself how to paint in oils. One day when he painted an angel-Leonardo was known to draw better angel faces than anyone-Verrocchio reportedly threw down his paint brushes in jealous admiration and swore he would never paint again. In June 1472 Leonardo had begun being listed in the red books of painters from Florence. With the membership in the painter's guild of Florence, Leonardo's apprenticeship to Verrocchio ended. Still Leonardo always felt at home with Verrocchio and in times of stress he would return to visit with him.

In 1476 Leonardo and Verrocchio were commissioned to paint the Baptism of Christ. This is a great picture to compare and contrast Leonardo's methods with Verrocchio's.

Leonardo learned about human anatomy the same way most artists learned about it at the time.

They did autopsies on cadavers. Leonardo had to keep his autopsies secret because they were banned by the

The boy was known as Salai, which means Devil, because he constantly stole from people. He even stole from Leonardo. In 1515 Leonardo drew a self-portrait of himself.

Leonardo began his apprenticeship under Andrea del Verrocchio in 1466. Verrocchio was at this time the most gif

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Approximate Word count = 1230
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)