Leonardo's Ideal City

• 1452 - Leonardo was born on 15th April at Anchiano near Vinci in the Florence area. He was the illegitimate son of a notary, Ser Piero, and a young woman named Caterina
• 1457 - At five Leonardo moved to his father's home in Vinci. Meanwhile his father had married Alberia Amadori
• 1460 - He moved to Florence with his father
• 1469 - He began his apprenticeship in Verrocchio's artisan workshop
• 1482 - He moved to Milan where he carried to the court of Ludovico il Moro a letter in which his services were recommended as an engineer, architect, sculptor, painter and even musician. Indeed, it was in his capacity as a musician that he was offered a position. During his earliest years in Milan, primarily as a painter, his work included the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, "Lady with an Ermine", and the first version of the "Virgin of the Rocks"
• 1495 - He began his best known work, the Last Supper, in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The fresco was completed in 1498
• 1499 - The duchy of Ludovico il Moro fell under the control of the French armies of Louis XII, whereupon Leonardo abandoned Milan and started wandering from court to court, from Mantua and Venice to Friuli.
• 1500 - He returned to Florence for a while
• 1502 - He entered the service of Cesare Borgia
• 1504 - He was once again in Florence where he began the Mona Lisa
• 1506 - He divided his time between Milan and Florence
• 1508 - He returned to Milan where he spent a long period, and took up his studies on anatomy, town-planning, optics and hydraulic engineering
• 1513 - Following the return of the Sforzas as rulers of Milan once more, Leonardo moved to Rome on the invitation of the newly-elected pope, Giuliano dei Medici
• 1516 - The King of France, François I, invited him to France where, at the Castle of Cloux, near Amboise, he was given the post of "first painter, engineer and architect to the King"
• 1519 - He died on 2nd May at Cloux and was buried in the Church of St. Valentine at Amboise. In his will, dated 23rd April of the same year, he bequeathed all his manuscripts, drawings and various instruments and tools to his favourite pupil, Francesco Melzi; to his other disciple, Salai, he left the paintings still in his studio, including the Mona Lisa, St. Jerome and St. Anne. With the death of Melzi in 1570, Leonardo's inheritance began to be scattered.