Was Leonardo da Vinci a Painter, Engineer, Inventor or Philosopher?
Born in 1452 in a small Toscan village called Vinci, which gave him its name, Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate son of the village’s lawyer and one of his servants, Catarina Vacca. Statements concerning his appearance and personality differ particularly as legend grew up very early on in his biographical accounts. He is sometimes described as a prodigiously strong colossus, capable of bending a horseshoe in his hands, and often as a young adolescent, effeminate and dreamy. He is sometimes presented to us as a man who loved physical exercise and violent sports, sometimes as an adolescent playing the lyre and singing with perfection. His artistic gifts must however have already appeared during his childhood, because in 1469, at the age of 17, he had already spent three years in the studio of the Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea Verrochio (1435-1488). In this famous artist’s studio, in the company of other important painters such as Sandro Botticelli or Perugino, he spent 13 ye
