Artist, Inventor. He was of the great masters of the High Renaissance who was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. Born in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence, he was the son of a Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, Italy, where Leonardo was given the best education. He rapidly advanced socially and intellectually. About 1466, he was apprenticed as a studio boy to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. In Verrocchio's workshop he was introduced to many activities, from the painting of altarpieces and panel pictures to the creation of large sculptural projects in marble and bronze. In 1478, he became an independent master. His first commission, to paint an altarpiece for the chapel of the "Palazzo Vecchio," the Florentine town hall, was never executed. His first large painting "The Adoration of the Magi," left unfinished, was ordered in 1481 for the "Monastery of San Donato a Scopeto" in Florence. About 1482, Leonardo entered the service of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. He sent a letter to the Duke in which he wroted that he could build portable bridges, that he knew the techniques of constructing bombardments and of making cannons, that he could build ships as well as armored vehicles, catapults, and other war machines, and that he could execute sculpture in marble, bronze, and clay. He served as the principal engineer in the Duke's numerous military enterprises and was active also as an architect. The most important of his paintings during the Milan period was "The Virgin of the Rocks," two versions of which exist. He worked on the compositions for a long time (that was his custom), unwilling to finish what he had begun. From 1495 to 1497, he painted his masterpiece "The Last Supper," a mural in the refectory (dining room) of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. During his long stay in Milan, Leonardo also produced other paintings and drawings (most of which have been lost), theater designs, architectural drawings, and models for the dome of the Milan Cathedral. His largest commission was for a colossal bronze monument to Francesco Sforza, father of Ludovico, in the courtyard of Castello Sforzesco. In December 1499, however, the Sforza family was driven from Milan by French forces. Leonardo left the statue unfinished (it was destroyed by French archers, who used it as a target). He returned to Florence in 1500. In 1502, he entered the service of Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna and son and chief general of Pope Alexander VI. In 1503, he was a member of a commission of artists who were to decide on the proper location for the David, the famous colossal marble statue by the Italian sculptor Michelangelo. Toward the end of the year, Leonardo began to design a decoration for the great hall of the "Palazzo Vecchio." During this second Florentine period, Leonardo painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the famous Mona Lisa. In 1506, he went again to Milan. The following year he was named court painter to King Louis XII of France. From 1514 to 1516, Leonardo lived in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X. In 1516, he traveled to France to enter the service of King Francis I. He spent his last years at the Château du Clos Lucé, near Amboise, where he died on May 2, 1519.