Many legends have been circulating about the mysterious Leonardo da Vinci over the past five centuries. Some are being created even now, in the 21st century. Leonardo was hailed as one of the great initiates of all ages, a phenomenal artist, scientist and technician, light years ahead of his century, the designer of the first flying machine and of some cunning war machines, etc. The truth, as is often the case, would probably be more prosaic.

Leonardo was born in 1452 as an illegitimate son of the notary Ser Piero di Antonio da Vinci and a peasant woman Caterina, in a small town named Vinci, in Tuscany. From the age of five he lived in his father's family, and with it he moved to Florence. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to the painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio, and stayed with him as an assistant until he was near thirty, when he moved to Milan, where he offered his services as a painter and sculptor as well as a military engineer. Some of the best works, such as the famous mural the Last Supper, were created in this period. 

To prosper, or sometimes just to survive, an artist of even Leonardo's calibre had to become attached to the court of some major ruler. Many artists would agree that the situation is more or less the same 500 years later, only the faces at the courts and faces of the rulers have been changing. When Leonardo's sponsor in Milan, Ludovico Sforza, was defeated by the French at around 1499, Leonardo was forced to return to Florence, but by 1506 he was back again in the northern Italy, this time under the patronage of the French Governor of Milan, Charles d'Amboise. He stayed for nearly a decade.

Much of the time he did not spend painting, Leonardo pursued extensive studies in the area of science, including anatomy, botany, military engineering, architecture, etc. His search for the perfect geometrical proportion, a fascination he shared with other Renaissance artists such a Albrecht Dürer, made him study the sacred geometry of the ancient philosophers and the works of other antique thinkers, such as the Roman architect Vitruvius, reflected in another of his famous works, the Vitruvian Man.

 The last three years of his life, between 1516 – 1519, Leonardo spent in France, at the invitation of the French king Francis I , who appointed him "the first painter, engineer and architect to the King", and who apparently lead daily conversations with the grand old man of the high Renaissance.

Not all of Leonardo's major works have survived to our times. Some, like the Last Supper, have had had to endure many attempts at repairs over the centuries, many of which have done them more harm than good. Some works are irretrievably lost and, like Leda and the Swan, are known to us only from copies made by other artists of the period. A large collection of drawings is in possession of the British Royal Family. We have had the good fortune to seen many of them when an exhibition toured Australia some years ago. Awesome. Then, of course, there is that fabulous Mona Lisa in Louvre. We have seen her too, but that was about 35 years ago. Can't even remember what she looks like...