Leonardo da Vinci

Born out of wedlock in Vinci, a hill town in Tuscany. His father is a notary. His mother is a peasant named Caterina. Because he is illegitimate, he cannot attend university or join a guild. He is left-handed. He writes backward.

Qualifies as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke in Florence after six years under Andrea del Verrocchio. According to Vasari, Leonardo paints an angel in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ so well that the master puts down his brush and never paints again. Probably exaggerated. But only slightly.

Moves to Milan and writes a letter to Ludovico Sforza offering his services. The letter lists ten military engineering skills. At the very end, almost as an afterthought, he mentions he can also paint.

Begins painting The Last Supper on a refectory wall in Milan. He experiments with a new technique, painting on dry plaster instead of wet. The colors are richer. The painting starts deteriorating within years. By 1556, Vasari describes it as a "muddle of blots."

Tests a flying machine. It doesn't fly. He fills notebooks with wing designs, gear mechanisms, and observations of bird flight for decades afterward. None of them fly either. The helicopter sketch will wait 450 years for the right engine.

Begins the Mona Lisa. He'll carry it with him for sixteen years, retouching it across Italy and into France. He never considers it finished. The subject is Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine silk merchant. She will become the most famous face in art.

Performs illegal human dissections at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. He dissects over 30 corpses and produces anatomical drawings that won't be surpassed for 300 years. He works at night, in winter, because the bodies rot slower.

Dies at the Chateau du Clos Luce in Amboise, France, a guest of King Francis I. He is 67. He leaves behind roughly 7,200 pages of notes and drawings. No finished treatise on any subject. The notebooks are scattered across Europe. Many are lost. What survives fills thirteen volumes.