Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15,1452, in a small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. Leonardo was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary named Vincier Piero and a peasant woman named Caterina Piero. Leonardo had seventeen half brothers and sisters.

In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence, the intellectual and artistic center of Italy, could offer. Leonardo quickly advanced socially and cerebrally. Leonardo soon became a fine musician and improviser.

In about 1466 Leonardo was apprenticed as a garzone, or a studio boy, to Andrea del Verroccio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of Leonardo's day. While working in Andrea's workshop Leonardo was introduced to many activities like paintings of altarpieces and large sculptural projects in marble and bronze. In 1472 Leonardo was entered in the painter's guild of Florence, and in 1476 he was still mentioned as...