Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, especially in painting, sculpture, architecture, engineering, and science. His innovations in painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies—particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics—anticipated many modern scientific developments. Leonardo was born in Vinci, near Florence, where his family settled in the mid-1460s. He was given the best education that Florence, a major intellectual and artistic center of Italy, could offer. About 1466 he was apprenticed as a studio boy to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day.

In 1478 Leonardo became an independent master. His first large painting, The Adoration of the Magi (begun 1481, Uffizi, Florence, Italy), left unfinished, was ordered in 1481 for the Monastery of San Donato a Scopeto. It introduced a new approach to composition, in which the main figures are grouped in the foreground, while the background consists of distant views of imaginary ruins and battle scenes. About 1482 Leonardo entered the service of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, as principal engineer in military enterprises and as an architect. He also assisted Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in the celebrated work Divina Proportione (1509). Leonardo also wrote the various texts later compiled as Treatise on Painting (1651). The most important of his paintings during this period was The Virgin of the Rocks, two versions of which exist (1483-1485, Louvre, Paris; 1490s to 1506-1508, National Gallery, London).

From 1495 to 1497 Leonardo labored on his masterpiece, The Last Supper, a mural in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. He also produced other paintings and drawings (most of which have been lost), theater designs, architectural drawings, and models for the dome of Milan Cathedral. In 1500 he returned to Florence, where two years later he entered the service of Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna. As the duke's chief architect and engineer, Leonardo supervised work on the fortresses of the papal territories in central Italy. During this period, Leonardo painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the Mona Lisa (1503-1506, Louvre, Paris). This famous work is a consummate example of two techniques—sfumato and chiaroscuro—of which Leonardo was one of the first great masters. Sfumato is characterized by subtle transitions between color areas, creating a delicately smoky effect. Chiaroscuro is the technique of modeling and defining forms through contrasts of light and shadow. Leonardo was also among the first to introduce atmospheric perspective into his landscape backgrounds.

In 1506 Leonardo returned to Milan, where he was later named court painter to King Louis XII of France, who was then residing in Milan. From 1514 to 1516 Leonardo lived in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X. There, he seems to have been occupied principally with scientific experimentation. His theories are contained in numerous notebooks, but because they were not easily decipherable, Leonardo's findings were not disseminated in his own lifetime. Had they been published, they would have revolutionized 16th-century science. In 1516 Leonardo traveled to France to enter the service of King Francis I. He spent his last years at the Château de Cloux, near Amboise.