Italy – as we know it – wasn’t a unified country when Leonardo da Vinci was born (1452).

Da Vinci is one of the world’s most famous artists. Some of da Vinci’s most acclaimed paintings are The Last Supper and Gioconda – also known as The Mona Lisa.

Da Vinci started learning to paint when he was 14 years old. His father sent him to work with an artist named Verrocchio. Verrocchio taught Leo how to sculpt and draw – among many other things.

Da Vinci drew many sketches of different things. He kept these sketches in notebooks. He filled over 13,000 pages with drawings of plants, animals, buildings etc. He also drew very detailed pictures of the human body.

He had notebooks with hundreds of drawings of inventions that he wanted to build – such as flying machines, water pumps, bridges, musical instruments, and tanks.

Even though da Vinci never built most of his inventions, it is amazing that he came up with so many ideas. A great artist and a great scientist, da Vinci truly was one of the most brilliant people ever to have lived.