Leonardo DaVinci
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Italy, in 1452, and died in France in 1519, aged 67 – but in those 67 years, he showed his genius in very many ways. Many people now consider him to be one of the smartest people ever; however, Leonardo did not show his writings to anyone. He kept most of his notebooks a secret, and thus he did not influence other scientists.
Leonardo is known mostly as a painter. His most famous painting is the Mona Lisa, yet only 15 of his paintings are around today. This is because Leonardo experimented with different sorts of paints – and many of these paints were not good, and the paintings quickly lost their colours.
Many of Leonardo’s drawing remain in his notebooks. They show Leonardo’s imagination in science, engineering, and inventions – and reveal that he was far ahead of other scientists of his time. Leonardo drew flying machines, cars, and machines for making things. Almost none of these were constructed, however – they just remained hidden in Leonardo’s notebooks.
Leonardo worked in Italy in his younger days, as a painter and artist for the church, but later moved to France, where he continued his work for the king of France, and became famous there. The interesting thing is that, although we know about Leonardo’s life, we don’t know much about Leonardo the man. He never married, had no children, had no close friends, and wrote nothing personal in his notebooks, and no one really knows what he looked like. The picture above, which is often used to represent Leonardo, may not actually be him. Yes, Leonardo is very famous, but also mysterious.
Question Time
Did Leonardo influence other scientists? Why (not)? ……………………………………
What is his most famous painting? …………………………………………………….…..
Why have we lost many of his paintings? ………..……………………………….……….
Why are most of Leonardo’s drawings? ………………………….……….……………….
Do we know much about Leonardo’s personal life? ………………………..……………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
Genius
To influence
To experiment
A drawing
Imagination
Mysterious
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