Anatomy and Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on the 15th of April, 1452, during the great "rebirth" the Renaissance. He was born in the country village of Vinci, which lies high up on the Mount Albano, in the valley of the river Arno, dividing Florence from Pisa. This lovely village remains un-spoilt today. He was the son of Caterina, a peasant girl. He was illegitimate. His father, Ser Piero da Vinci, the son of a Florentine lawyer, was quickly persuaded to marry into a good family. His mother was married off to a cowherd. Nothing more is known of her, though forty years later Leonardo notes down paying the funeral expenses of a woman called Caterina, who may have been his mother. Leonardo's grandparents immediately took Leonardo into their care. However, after a few years, Ser Piero realized that his wife, Donna Albiera, would bear him no children. Meanwhile the young Leonardo was growing into a beautiful and promising child and so Ser Piero took his natural son into the family. The innate skills that Leonardo da Vinci possessed are best illustrated by the words of Leonardo's famous biographer, Giorgio Vasari, when he speaks of young Leonardo: In arithmetic, during the few months he studied it, he made such progress that he frequently confounded his master by raising doubts and difficulties. He devoted some time to music and soon learned to play the lyre, and being filled with a lofty and delicate spirit he could sing and improvise divinely on it. Yet though he studied so many different things he never neglected drawing and working in relief, these being the things which appealed to his fancy more than any other [1].