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Bio: (1452-1519) Artist, inventor, and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci is universally praised for his important contributions to Western science and culture. His genius was unbounded by time and technology, and was driven by his insatiable curiosity, and his intuitive sense of the laws of nature. Da Vinci was dedicated to discovery of truth and the mysteries of nature, and his insightful contributions to science and technology were legendary. As the archetypical Renaissance man, Leonardo helped set an ignorant and superstitous world on a course of reason, science, learning, and tolerance. He was an internationally renowned inventor, scientists, engineer, architect, painter, sculptor, musician, mathematician, anatomist, astronomer, geologists, biologist, and philosopher in his time. Born in 1452 as an illegitimate son of Ser piero da Vinci, da Vinci was sent to Florence in his teens to apprentice as a painter under Andrea del Verrocchio. He quickly developed his own artistic style which was unique and contrary to tradition, even going so far as to devised his own special formula of paint. His style was characterized by diffuse shadows and subtle hues and marked the beginning of the High Renaissance period. Like many great original efforts, da Vinci's artistic style was largely unpopular for the next quarter century. Later da Vinci became the court artist for the duke of Milan. Throughout his life he also served various other roles, including civil engineer and architect (designing mechanical structures such as bridges and aqueducts), and military planner and weapons designer (designing rudimentary tanks, catapults, machine guns, and even navel weapons). Da Vinci's creative, analytic, and visionary inventiveness has yet to be matched.