Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo was born in or near the town of Vinci in Tuscany, the son of a notary and a young countrywoman. As a teenager he was apprenticed to the painter and sculptor Verrocchio in Florence. He later worked for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, as a painter, engineer and designer of festivals, and there painted The Last Supper on the wall of a monastery dining hall. Back in Florence he began the portrait now called the Mona Lisa, which he carried with him for years. Leonardo filled thousands of notebook pages, written in mirror script from right to left, with drawings and notes on anatomy, flight, water, plants, geology, optics and machines, including designs for flying machines, armored vehicles and canals. He dissected human bodies to draw muscles and the heart accurately. He finished relatively few paintings, as he often moved on to new studies. Invited by King Francis I of France, he spent his last years at Amboise, where he died in 1519. Many of his notebooks survive.

Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia