Who they were
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath — a painter, engineer, and inventor. He is the archetypal Renaissance man.
What they did
He painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and he filled notebooks with studies of anatomy, machines, water, and flight far ahead of his time. He worked in Florence, Milan, Rome, and finally France.
Legacy
A handful of his finished paintings became among the most famous in the world, and his notebooks reveal a scientific curiosity centuries ahead of his age. He embodies the Renaissance union of art and science.