© Great Works of Western Art
1452 Born in Anchiano near Vinci, the illegitimate child of a notary, he was brought up in his paternal grandfather’s household.
1472 By this date he is a member of the painters guild in Florence.
1476 Leonardo is recorded as apprenticed to Andrea Verrocchio. He is accused of sodomy but charges are not pressed.
1482 Moves to Milan where he enters the service of Ludovico Sforza.
1483 Commissioned to produce an altarpiece for the Confraternità dell’ Immacolata Concezione in Milan.
1496 A procurator is appointed to adjudicate in the dispute between Leonardo and the Confraternità dell’ Immacolata Concezione.
1497 He is nearing completion of the Last Supper in S Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
1499 Leaves Milan after a French army forces the fall of Ludovico Sforza.
1500 Returns to Florence via Mantua and Venice.
1503 Leonardo seems to have been employed by Machiavelli as a military engineer.
1506 Arbitrators instruct Leonardo to complete a second painting in order to settle the dispute with the Confraternità dell’ Immacolata Concezione. Visits Milan.
1508 Returns to Milan, then under French occupation.
1513 Travels to Rome via Florence.
1516 Francis I invites Leonardo to France as ‘first painter and engineer’ to the King.
1517 By May he is resident at Amboise.
1519 Leonardo dies at Amboise.
1472 Annunciation, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
c1478 Ginevra de’ Benci, Washington, National Gallery of Art
1483 Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (The Lady with the Ermine), Cracow, National Museum
1485 The Virgin of the Rocks, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1498 The Last Supper, Milan, Sta Maria delle Grazie
1499 La Belle Ferronniere, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1503–6 Mona Lisa, Paris, Musée du Louvre
c1508 The Virgin of the Rocks, London, National Gallery
1510 Virgin and Child with St Anne, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1516 St John the Baptist, Paris, Musée du Louvre
