Leonardo da Vinci
An illegitimate birth barred him from university and the notary guild; a workshop apprenticeship at 14 did not.
- Born
- 1452 · Vinci, Republic of Florence (now Italy)
- Roots
- Tuscan; illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant woman
- Family
- Middle class
- His notary father never married his mother; he was raised in his grandfather's household and denied a classical education.
- Education
- No formal schooling in Latin; apprenticed in Verrocchio's workshop
- Started with
- An apprenticeship
- Placed in Verrocchio's Florence workshop at about 14 — the standard entry for a boy his birth excluded from the professions.
- Affiliations & societies
- Guild of Saint LukeDocumented
- Registered as a master in the Florentine painters' guild in 1472.
- Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.
The pathway
- 1466 · age 14Verrocchio's workshop
Grinds pigments, casts bronze, and learns anatomy by drawing.
- 1472 · age 20Guild master
Registered in the Guild of Saint Luke; stays with Verrocchio anyway.
- 1482 · age 30The letter to Milan
Applies to Ludovico Sforza listing war machines first; painting is mentioned last.
- 1498 · age 46The Last Supper
Painted on a refectory wall in an experimental technique that begins failing within his lifetime.
- 1503 · age 51Mona Lisa
Begins the portrait he carries with him, unfinished by his standards, for the rest of his life.
- 1516 · age 64France
Invited by Francis I as First Painter, Engineer and Architect to the King; brings some 13,000 pages of notebooks.
- 1519 · age 67Dies at Clos Lucé
Sources
Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.