LEONARDO DA VINCI in 2 minutes

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Despite being remembered as a painter, Leonardo da Vinci left behind thousands of pages studying anatomy, engineering, mathematics, and observations about the natural world. Leonardo was born in 1452 in Vinci, near Florence. Since Leonardo was born outside marriage, he did not receive the formal classical education that usually led to university. Instead, he trained through apprenticeship.

[00:00:24]Around the 1460s, he learned painting, sculpture, metalwork, and mechanics by training in workshops. By the 1480s, he entered the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan, working as artist, engineer, and court designer. Only about 15 paintings are generally attributed to him, including The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. His notebooks, however, reveal much more about him. He studied anatomy through human dissections and produced detailed drawings of muscles, bones, the skull, the spine, and the heart. He also examined optics, hydraulics, geology, botany, and the movement of water.

[00:01:00]Leonardo designed flying machines by studying birds, bridges, canals, armored vehicles, parachutes, and mechanical systems. Many were never built because the technology of his time could not support them.

[00:01:13]He often wrote in mirror script, from right to left, and filled thousands of pages with observations and experiments.

[00:01:20]He died in 1519 in Amboise as the Renaissance's greatest investigators of how the world works.