A short biography of Leonardo da Vinci, in factoid form:
- Born the 15th of April, 1452 in Anchio, Italy. He died on the 2nd of May, 1519, In Amboise Italy. His friend Vasari writes of an illness before death.
- He was a bastard. His father was the minor noble Ser Piero, his mother a peasant named Catarina. He was raised by his father.
- He had 17 half-brothers and half-sisters.
- At age 15, apprenticed to Andrea del Verrochio in Florance.
- Some of his paintings (such as one of the angels in The Baptism of Christ) was so finely painted, that the brushstrokes are undetectable, even using modern X-ray techniques. Under X-ray, the angel's face appears blank. Verrochio claimed it was because of Leonardo's skills that he retired from painting (he did, however continue his other activities such as sculpture).
- In June of 1472, Leonardo was listed in the Red Book of painters of Florence. In it, he is listed by his native name Lionardo.
- Leonardo was supposedly a very handsome man, strong and quick, and had a good singing voice.
- He kept to a strict vegetarian diet, with lots of exercise and water.
- With the help of Niccolo Machiavelli, Leonardo landed a commission to paint the Battle of Anghiari
- A custom of the time was to have a box in front of the Palazzo Vecchio for anonymous accusitions of a variety of charges. On the 8th of April, 1476, Leonardo and four others were accused of crimes. Leonardo was accused of having a homosexual affair with a model named Jacopo Saltarelli. He was acquitted of the charge, though there is no other mention of Leonardo's sexual orientation.
- After attaining his pension and title from Francis I, he developed paralisis in his right hand. This did not stop him from teaching and increasing the pages in his notebooks (mostly drawings such as The Deluge).
- Bill Gates purchased the Codex Leicester, only one of Leonardo's notebooks. Containing some 18 large sheets of paper, the Leicester is typical of Leonardo's tretises.
- Leonardo finished few of his projects. The few that he did (the Mona Lisa, for example) are very well known, but the ones he didn't faded into history (such as the Sforza Horse)
- Though some say he used mirror writing to hide his secrets, another popular theory was that Leonard wrote that way because it made it easier while writing with his left hand. While he could use his hands independantly of each other, it is said he was born left-handed.
Sources: How to think like Leonardo da Vinci, "Leonardo da Vinci - Renaissance Man" and a biography site by Martin Kasual