Leonardo Da vinci
...rstand a variety of natural phenomena. Lastly Leonardo was the first to define the olfactory nerve as one of the cranial nerves and was the first to propose an olfactory psychophysical experiment. The second reason why Leonardo da Vinci has so many interesting qualities would be because of his phenomenal art. In the past Leonardo was admired greatly for his art such as the Mona Lisa or the Adoration of the Magi. In Adoration of the Magi we have people of all ages surrounding the Virgin and Child, including some on horseback. Leonardo's work was notable for the way he usually attempted to express almost human emotion in his animals. Leonardo’s painting Mona Lisa was one of the most cherished of Leonardo’s paintings, it took him 4 years and he kept it for some years after that. The smile has become a hallmark of Leonardo's style. It is most obvious in the painting of the Mona Lisa, but also to be seen in most of his other works. There is no mistaking the same smile, an upturn on the left side of the mouth, on the face of St. Anne in the Burlington House Cartoon. That drawing dates from a bit earlier than the Mona Lisa, somewhere around 1498. Speculation exists that the smile originated from his mother, Caterina. A less romantic suggestion is that the painter merely "concerned himself with certain arrangements of lines and volumes, with new and curious schemes of blues and greens." Lastly I chose Leonardo da Vinci because he was a Renaissance man who lived in the 15th century. In addition to being just about the smartest person ever, Leonardo is reported to have been a strikingly handsome man with great strength and a fine singing voice. And unlike his fellow 15th-century Italians, he was a vegetarian and followed strict dietary rules. In fact, he loved animals so much that he would often buy caged animals at the market just to set them free. In the time when Leonardo was finding himself in his paintings it was known that left-handedness was the doing of the devils work and most lefties were forced to use their right hands. It’s been noted that since it was so unique to be a lefty that, that characteristic of Leonardo was an element of his genius, since his detachment allowed him to see beyond the ordinary. He even wrote backwards, and his writings are easily deciphered only with a mirror. Leonardo was capable of doing so many different things; he was an astronomer, sculptor, geologist, mathematician, botanist, animal behaviorist, inventor, engineer, architect and even a musician. Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 and was the son of Ser piero da Vinci and his mother was a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo was the brother of 17 half brothers and sisters. After he was bo...