Leonardo Da Vinci | Timeline

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo (15 Abril 1452 – 2 May 1519), was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and carthography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. (Intro from Wikipedia).

April 15, 1452 - Vinci, Italy - Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is born, fruit of an affair of his father, Piero da Vinci, with an unmarried local girl
January(?) 1(?), 1464 - Florence - Leonardo's stepmother, Albiera, dies in childbirth. His grandfather Antonio, the head of the Da Vinci household, had recently died. So, Piero da Vinci brings his son to Florence.

January(?) 1(?), 1466 - Florence - At the age of 14, Leonardo becomes apprentice at the workshop of the artist Andrea di Cione, known as "Verrocchio"

October 18, 1472 - Florence - At the age of 20, Leonardo qualifies as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke (Compagnia di San Luca), the guild of artists and doctors of medicine
July(?) 1(?), 1473 - Vinci - In the Summer, Leonardo stays with Antonio Buti (his mother's husband) at Vinci

August 5, 1473 - Vinci - First known drawing on his notebook on the day of Holy Mary of the snows - impressionist panorama of the Arno Valley =(START)
January(?) 1(?), 1475 - Florence - His father marries a third time after two childless marriages. Antonio (1476) and Giuliano (1479) become models for many sketches of infants on his notebook

April 9, 1476 - Florence - Leonardo is charged with sodomy against Jacopo Saltarelli, a young goldsmith and prostitute, but he is acquitted
June 7, 1476 - Florence - Leonardo is charged again, but acquitted
January(?) 1(?), 1477 - Florence - Opens his workshop and breaks away, perhaps prodded by the Saltarelli affair

January 20, 1478 - Florence - Receives an independent commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St. Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio
March 16, 1478 - Florence - A payment of 25 florins to Leonardo is authorized for his work on the Chapel of San Bernardo altarpiece.

December 28, 1478 - Florence - After Bernardo Bandini is hanged from a window in the Palazzo del Bargello. Leonardo draws his balancing dead body.

March 1(?), 1481 - Florence - Receives a second independent commission for "The adoration of the Magi" for the monks of San Donato a Scopeto
September 28, 1481 - Florence - Last payment record for Leonardo da Vinci's "Adoration of the Magi" altarpiece. He was paid in wine rather than money

October 1(?), 1481 - Milan - Lorenzo de Medici sends Bernarco Rucellan - a wealthy banker and arts patron, and philosophy entusiast who was married to Lorenzo's older sister - to Milan as Florence's ambassador. Leonardo takes part of the delegation
January(?) 1(?), 1482 - Milan - Leonardo sends the Duke a "job application" describing the many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve the fields of engineering and painting. As a gift, Leonardo creates a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head.

April 25, 1483 - Milan - Leonardo is commissioned to paint the "Virgin of the Rocks" for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception.
March 26, 1485 - Milan - Leonardo witnesses a total eclipse of the Sun
April 23, 1485 - Milan - Ludovico Sforza sends a letter to Maffeo da Treviglio, ambassador to the court of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, in which he states that he has commissioned a Madonna from Leonardo da Vinci on the king's behalf
May(?) 1(?), 1485 - Hungary - In the spring of 1485, Leonardo travels to Hungary(*) on behalf of Ludovico to meet Matthias Corvinus, for whom he is believed to have painted a Holy Family. (*) details needed
July 30, 1487 - Milan - Payment to Leonardo for the Model of the domed crossing tower (tiburio) for Milan Cathedral
August 8, 1487 - Milan - Payment to Leonardo for the Model of the domed crossing tower (tiburio) for Milan Cathedral
August 18, 1487 - Milan - Payment to Leonardo for the Model of the domed crossing tower (tiburio) for Milan Cathedral
August 27, 1487 - Milan - Payment to Leonardo for the Model of the domed crossing tower (tiburio) for Milan Cathedral
September 28, 1487 - Milan - Payment to Leonardo for the Model of the domed crossing tower (tiburio) for Milan Cathedral
September 30, 1487 - Milan - Payment to Leonardo for the Model of the domed crossing tower (tiburio) for Milan Cathedral
June 30(?), 1488 - Milan - Leonardo's master, the sculptor Verrocchio, dies in Venice

April 2, 1489 - Milan - Leonardo begins a sequence of skull studies and other anatomical drawings including a sheet that he dates and inscribes, adding also a book entitled "On the Human figure"
January 23, 1490 - Milan - Leonardo produces the stage set for the "Feast of Paradise" by Bernardo Bellincioni, performed in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan, to celebrate the wedding of Gian Galeazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon
May 10, 1490 - Milan - Collects payment for a model of the Milan Cathedral "Tiburio"
May 17, 1490 - Milan - Collects payment for a model of the Milan Cathedral "Tiburio"
June 10(?), 1490 - Pavia - Leonardo and Francesco di Giorgio take a trip to Pavia, where a new Cathedral was being built (while they were working together on the Milan Cathedral's tiburio project)
June 21, 1490 - Pavia - Leonardo pays the hotel and departs back to Milan
June 27, 1490 - Milan - Leonardo loses the design competition for the "tiburio", which is awarded to Giovanni Antonio Amadeo and Giovanni Giacomo Dolcebuono
July 22, 1490 - Milan - Gian Giacomo Caprotti di Oreno, or "Salai" (little devil), a 10 years old son of an empoverished peasant, arrives in Leonardo's workshop as an apprentice and quickly earns a reputation as a glutton and thief
July 24, 1490 - Milan - Leonardo and Salai have dinner at Giacomo Andrea's (architect), where Salai does much mischief
September 7, 1490 - Milan - Salai steals a silverpoint from one of Leonardo's assistants named Marco, who is probably to be identified as the painter Marco d'Oggiono
January 26, 1491 - Milan - Leonardo is in the house of Galeazzo da Sanseverino to prepare a festival and tournament honoring the wedding of Ludovico Sforza and Beatrice d'Este
April 2, 1490 - Milan - Salai steals a silverpoint from yet another of Leonardo's workshop assistants named Giovan Antonio, who is most likely to be identified as the painter Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
March 29, 1492 - Vigevano, SW of Milan - Brabante lays out the new square in Vigevano with collaboration of Leonardo Da Vinci
July 16, 1493 - Milan - His widowed mother, Caterina, arrives to live with him in Milan
November 1(?), 1493 - Milan - An equestrian effigy of Francesco Sforza (which may have been Leonardo's actual model of the "Sforza Horse" or more likely a version based on his design) is displayed under a triumphal arch inside Milan Cathedral during the festivities for the marriage of Ludovico's niece Bianca Maria Sforza to the Habsburg emperor Maximilian
December 20, 1493 - Milan - Leonardo decides to cast the "Sforza Horse" sideways without the tail, implying that the clay model of the "Sforza Horse" is finished. Seventy tons of bronze are set aside for casting it
June 26, 1494 - Milan - His mother Caterina dies of malaria, aged 60
November 17, 1494 - Milan - Ludovico Sforza gives the bronze needed for Leonardo's huge equestrian monument to his father-in-law, Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, to be used for cannon to defend Milan from french invasion.
January(?) 1(?), 1495 - Milan - Leonardo starts painting "The Last Supper". It would be finished by 1498
November 14, 1495 - Milan - Leonardo works on the decoration of rooms in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan
January 1(?), 1496 - Milan - Combines his technical and artistic talents when he stages one of the most extravagant plays of the Era, a five-act comedy titled "La Danae" written by Ludovico's chancellor and court poet, Baldassare Taccone
January 2, 1496 - Milan - "Tomorrow morning I shall try out the broad belt" (Machine designed to grind needles)
June 29, 1497 - Milan - Ludovico Sforza sends a letter with a memorandum to his secretary, Marchesino Stanga, expressing his hope that Leonardo will soon finish "The last Supper" so that he may begin work on another wall in the Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie
September 28, 1497 - Milan - Da Vinci dates the cover of his "Madrid Codex" book of mechanics

Mechanical Drawings

February 9, 1498 - Milan - The "Paragone" - Leonardo stars in an evening of debates at the Sforza castle that involved the relative merits of geometry, sculpture, music, painting, and poetry. He gives a rigorous scientific and aesthetic defence of painting, which was then considered a mechanical art, arguing that it should instead be regarded as the highest of the liberal arts, transcending poetry and music and sculpture..."The audience included cardinals, generals, courtiers, and eminent orators, expert in the noble arts of medicine and astrology"
March 17, 1498 - Genoa - Leonardo travels to Genoa and makes notes on the ruined quay in the harbor
March 22, 1498 - Milan - A letter to Ludovico Sforza states that the work on the Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie is progressing with no time wasted
April 20, 1498 - Milan - During 3 days, Da Vinci is seen working on the murals in the Saletta Negra and the Sala delle Asse in the northwest tower of the Castello Sforzesco of Milan
April 26, 1499 - Milan - Ludovico Sforza gives Leonardo a present of a vineyard near Porta Vercellina, between the monasteries of San Vittore and Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan
August 1, 1499 - Milan - Leonardo begins his notes on "Motion and Weight"
September 9, 1499 - Milan - On September 9th and 10th, the french troops of Louis XII storm Milan. As they enter through the Porta Vercellina, they probably see Leonardo's monumental clay model of the "Sforza Horse" in a corner of his vineyard, which they destroy (16 years of Leonardo's work)
December 14, 1499 - Milan - Milan falls to the french, and Leonardo is forced to leave the city. He sends his money to his bank account at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence in anticipation of his return to that city
February 1(?), 1500 - Mantua - On his way to Florence, Leonardo stops in Mantua as the guest of the Gonzaga family
March 30(?), 1500 - Florence - Leonardo Da Vinci returns to Florence

Device to storm walls

March 13, 1500 - Venice - Leonardo shows a portrait of Isabella d'Este to the lute player Lorenzo Gusnasco da Pavia. While in Venice, Leonardo works for the Venetian Republic on a proposal for a defense system against the threat of a turkish invasion in the Friuli Region
April 26, 1500 - Florence - Leonardo returns to Florence and stays in the church of Santissima Annunziata, where he draws the famous cartoon "Virgin and Child with Saint Anne"
August 8, 1500 - Florence - Leonardo sends Francesco Gonzaga a proposed design for the Villa of Angelo del Tovaglia, near Florence
March 20, 1501 - Rome - Leonardo is breafly in Rome
August 1(?), 1502 - Urbino - Leonardo enters the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron
October 7, 1502 - Imola - Machiavelli arrives from Florence. Leonardo, Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli spend the Winter at Imola. Leonardo designs a military map of Imola to Cesare Borgia
July 1(?), 1502 - Cesena - Leonardo travels with his patron to Urbino, Cesena, Porto Cesenatico, Pesaro and Rimini
February 1(?), 1503 - Florence - Leonardo finishes his service for Cesare Borgia and returns to Florence. He writes to the Sultan Bayezit offering his services, promising a project for a bridge on the Bosphorus
June 1(?), 1503 - Pisa - During the siege of Pisa, Leonardo stays in that city's Camposanto and maker topographical sketches and designs for military machines and fortifications for the Signoria of Florence
October 18, 1503 - Florence - Leonardo returns to the Guild of Saint Luke. He works with Michelangelo until 1504

"Mona Lisa", painted in Florence 
between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo took
it to Amboise, where he continued
refining the work until 1517

October 24, 1503 - Florence - Leonardo receives keys to the Sala del Papa and adjacent rooms in the great cloister of Santa Maria Novella, which would serve as his workshop and living quarters during his preparation of his cartoon for  "The Battle of Anghiari"
January 25, 1504 - Florence - Along with other 28 other artists and artisans, Leonardo and botticelli participate in a meeting to discuss the final placement of Michelangelo's giant marble statue "David"
May 1(?), 1504 - Florence - Leonardo signs the contract for the "Battle of Anghiari", witnessed by Machiavelli
July 9, 1504 - Florence - Leonardo's father, Ser Piero di Antonio da Vinci, a notary, dies in Florence
November 1, 1504 - Piombino - Leonardo goes to Piombino to work on the city walls, citadel, main gate and other military engineering projects at the request of Jacopo IV Appiani, lord of Piombino, an ally of Florence during the Pisan War
September 1(?), 1506 - Florence - Charles II d'Amboise, Governor of Milan, requests Leonardo's services. Da Vinci is allowed to travel, and takes his appretices Salai and Lorenzo "Il Fanfoia" with him
October(?) 1(?), 1506 - Milan - Leonardo returns to Milan
December 16, 1506 - Milan - Charles II d'Amboise writes a letter to the Signoria of Florence, praising Leonardo's work
April 27, 1507 - Milan - A decree finally restores to Leonardo his vineyard at San Vittore near the Porta Vercellina, which had been expropriated during the fall of Milan in December 1499
May 1(?), 1507 - Milan - Leonardo meets 14-year-old Francesco Melzi
August 2, 1507 - Milan - Leonardo executes and aerial view and schematic plan of Milan
September 18, 1507 - Florence - Leonardo writes a letter from Florence to Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in Ferrara, to sort out problems with his brothers over his father's estate.
April 23, 1508 - Milan - Leonardo returns to Milan to serve Louis XII of France
September 12, 1508 - Milan - Starts new notebook with his scientific endeavours, rather than painting commissions
May 3, 1509 - Milan - Leonardo records the making of the canal of San Cristoforo in Milan
July 1(?), 1509 - Milan - Leonardo dissects a man at the Hospital of Sancta Maria Nuova
December 18, 1511 - Milan - Leonardo records that invading Swiss soldiers had set fires in Milan, marking an end to the french domination of the city. He goes living to the family home of his student and surrogate son, Francesco Melzi, then 21 years old
September 24, 1513 - Milan - Leonardo departs to the Vatican to enter the service of Pope Leo X, and work alongside Michelangelo and Raphael
October 1(?), 1513 - Florence - Passing through Florence on the way to Rome
December 1, 1513 - Vatican, Rome - Leonardo is in Rome as part of the household of Giuliano de Medici, who sets up the artist in a workshop in the Belvedere Wing of the Vatican Palace
September 25, 1514 - Parma - Visit to Parma. On the banks of the Po River on 27th
October 8, 1514 - Rome - Leonardo appears inscribed in the confraternity of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome
November 30, 1515 - Florence - The Pope makes a triumphal entry into Florence, and Leonardo an his employer Giuliano de Medici go to the city as part of the papal entourage
December 19, 1515 - Bologna - Leonardo is present at the meeting of Francis I and Pope Leo X
August 1(?), 1516 - Rome - Leonardo takes measurements of the large early Christian basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome
October(?) 1(?), 1516 - Amboise, France - Leonardo enters the service of François I, King of France
May 1(?), 1517 - Cloux (Chateau du Clos Lucé), Amboise - Leonardo is guest of King Francis I at the Château du Clos Lucé

Leonardo's Mechanical Lion

October 10, 1517 - Argentan - Celebration for Francis I in Argentan, with Leonardo's mechanical "lion which opened, and in the inside it was all blue, which signified love, according with french customs
October 17, 1517 - Amboise, France - According with the diary of Antonio de Beatis, who visited Leonardo at Clos Lucé, the painting of "St. John the Baptist" was completed
January 16, 1518 - Romorantin - Leonardo works on plans for the king's palace and for the canals to irrigate the lands between the Loire and the Saône Rivers. He also executes topographical studies of the Loire Valley and designs a royal fountain in Amboise
May 3, 1518 - Amboise, France - Wedding of Lorenzo de Medici and Maddalena de la Tour d'Auvergne, the niece of Francis I - Leonardo designs a ring with the emblems of the Medici family
June 24, 1518 - Romorantin - Departs to Amboise
April 23, 1519 - Amboise, France - Leonardo appears at the Royal court at Amboise to acknowledge his will, drawn by a notary
May 2, 1519 - Amboise, France - Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci dies, aged 67 =(END)

Bibliography
ISAACSON, Walter - "Leonardo da Vinci"