How well do you know Leonardo da Vinci?
Painter, engineer, scientist, inventor: Leonardo was all of these. Six questions, from easy to hard, about the most curious mind of the Renaissance.
Did you know?
- Around 7,000 pages of Leonardo's notebooks survive, and historians believe many more were lost. They cover subjects from anatomy and geology to cooking and stage design.
- In 1994, Bill Gates bought one of Leonardo's notebooks, the Codex Leicester, for about $30.8 million. It contains his studies of water, rocks and why the Moon glows faintly.
- The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by a former museum worker and missing for over two years. The theft and its media coverage helped make it the world's most famous painting.
The ultimate Renaissance mind
Leonardo da Vinci is remembered as the model 'Renaissance man' — someone skilled in many fields. He painted only a small number of finished works, yet they are among the most famous in the world. His notebooks, full of drawings and observations, show a mind that moved constantly between art, science and engineering.
Art built on science
Leonardo studied anatomy, light and optics to make his paintings more lifelike. He dissected human bodies to understand muscles and bones, and his anatomical drawings were remarkably accurate for his time. He also developed 'sfumato', a technique of soft, gradual shading without harsh outlines, which gives faces like the Mona Lisa's their mysterious quality.
An inventor ahead of his time
His notebooks contain designs for bridges, water systems, war machines, diving equipment and flying devices. Many were never built because the materials and engines of his era could not make them work. Modern engineers have built some of his designs and found that several would function, which shows how far ahead of his time his thinking was.
Unfinished genius
Leonardo was known for starting more projects than he finished. Patrons sometimes complained about delays, and some works remained incomplete. Historians suggest that his curiosity kept pulling him toward new questions, so that for him the process of investigation mattered more than completing any single work.
The mystery of the Mona Lisa
Leonardo worked on the Mona Lisa for years and kept it with him until his death, which is why it ended up in France. Scientific studies with infrared cameras have revealed changes he made beneath the surface, such as adjustments to the position of her hands. Researchers still debate details of the portrait, but most agree it shows Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant.