
Florence and Milan, to 1499
Leonardo was born in 1452 near the town of Vinci in central Italy. He was the illegitimate son of a lawyer and a peasant girl, and was raised in his paternal grandfather’s house. We know little else about his early years.
Leonardo spent his twenties working as a painter in nearby Florence, though relatively few drawings survive from this period. Around 1482 he left Florence for Milan, and within a few years he had entered the service of that city’s ruler, Ludovico Sforza – initially to work on a huge equestrian monument, and later executing his greatest finished work, the Last Supper.
Leonardo’s interests broadened rapidly at this time, into architecture, engineering and the scientific subjects of use to an artist, such as light and anatomy. This was to be his longest period in a single city, ending when Ludovico Sforza was overthrown by an invading French army in 1499.
Attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio (c.1435-88)
A lily
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
A nude youth as St John the Baptist
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
A portrait of a woman in profile
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
Sketches of a woman, bust length
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
Two grotesque profiles
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
The drapery of a kneeling figure
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
A scene in an arsenal
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
Recto: Designs for gun-barrels and mortars. Verso: A town wall being blown up
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
The major organs and vessels
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)