Before Madonna, before television, before the tricycle, even before women shaved their legs, there was Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci showed the world through his numerous accomplishments in life, that every genius has their faults. .
In the year of 1452 (Graham-Dixon, 152), the yells of a woman in labor terrified the neighbors in the slums next door. Moments later a male child, Leonardo Da Vinci, takes his first breath of air and is put into the arms of the man who is his father. He grew up as the illegitimate child of a Florentine notary who supported Da Vinci greatly. His son had "incredible male beauty, mathematical excellence and scientific daring beyond his years" (Pioch/web). His father sent Da Vinci to be an apprentice to a man named Andrea de Verrocchio. Verrocchio, who also influenced Michelangelo, introduced Da Vinci into the world of sculpture and the mastery of painting (Pioch/web). Moving on from his apprenticeship, Leonardo sought to connect his reflections on science in his art by trying to "show the shape and movement of water and the genealogy and form of the earth" (2, 152). He spent his early years in France where he painted his most important work "Adoration of the Magi". Da Vinci's blossoming talent was only tainted by his inability to finish what he started; this was a feature in his whole career (Graham-Dixon, 164). Yet the bud of his talent was so great that George Holmes complemented the incomplete "Adoration of the Magi" as "His good composition of figure and spiritual dept even in incomplete works" (150). .
Leonardo Da Vinci was smart enough to know that he could sell himself as a valued commodity. Keeping this in mind he recommends himself to the Duke of Milan, Lorenzo de Medici, as a military engineer and an inventor (Graham-Dixon, 155). He also states that during peace time he could "give perfect satisfaction to the equal of any architect I can carry out sculpture I can paint whatever is possible" (Jardine, 239).