Leonardo da Vinci

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" Ezio! So good to see you! How can I help you?."

―Leonardo's greeting to Ezio

Leonardo di ser Piero, better known as Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist and writer in the Italian Renaissance. He is generally considered the most talented person who ever lived.

Biography

Early Life

Born the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He started painting at the age of 14, and in 1472 enrolled at the Guild of St. Luke, where he received a master degree in Medicine and Botany. After university, his father set up his workshop, where Leonardo would work for most of his life. Many political figures and armies would often call for his help to design various items and buildings. In 1476, he met a young nobleman named Ezio Auditore at Florence, and began a friendship that lasted their whole lives.

Assassin's Creed II

Leonardo's concept art

He and Ezio met for the first time in the beginning of the game during one of Ezio's errands for his mother. Ezio carries a box of his paintings for him back to Ezio's house and the two became friends quite quickly after this. They don't see each other again until after Giovanni, Federico and Petruccio's execution and Ezio becomes notorious throughout Florence. Ezio showed him one of the codex pages to show how to fix the Hidden Blade, which he does, while joking that Ezio must give up his ring finger so that it may function correctly (which was previously required). Leonardo is then questioned by a city guard and beat up by him until Ezio came and saved him using his new hidden blade. After this, Leonardo and Ezio don't see each other much unless you bring him codex pages to decrypt for you and to upgrade your Hidden Blade by making another one and the Poison Blade for you. A few years later, he meets up with Ezio who helps Leonardo get through the mountains safely from the attacking Templars. Leonardo is then taken to Venice and is escorted to his new home and given a tour of the city with Ezio by Alvise Da Vilandino. Leonardo stays at Venice for the remainder of the game and still does very little except for decrypting codex pages for you. He does not have another role for a while until Ezio asks to use his prototype Flying Machine to break into the Doge's palace in an attempt to save him. At first, it only flies for a short time until Leonardo gets an idea of lighting fires across Venice to lift the machine higher into the air. This works until it is shot down just as Ezio got into palace. A few years later, he saw Ezio once more during the carnival season and built him the Hidden Gun and gave him a mask to wear while out in the city. He appears again in his workshop in Forli with Ezio, Mario and Niccolò Machiavelli as they inspected the Apple of Eden that Ezio took from Rodrigo Borgia. The Apple activated when Leonardo touched it, and it flashed symbols and images on the wall much to Leonardo's astonishment. Shortly afterwards, Mario asked if Leonardo would like to come and stay at the Auditore Family Villa in Monteriggioni. This is the last of his important roles throughout the game except for decrypting codex pages for you. Until The Opening Scene of The Battle Of Forli DLC in which he tells you to keep the apple of eden safe before Mario tells you to take it to Forli!

Legacy

He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice and spent his last years in France, at the home awarded him by Francis I. His most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, was taken with him when he retired to France in 1513. He died May 2, 1519. It is unknown how he actually died, as it is presumed he could have died of a blood infection when he was diagnosed with Gout.

Leonardo is renowned primarily as a painter. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Hidden Blade upgrades

• Hidden Blade
• Dual Hidden Blade
• Poison Blade
• Hidden Gun

Gallery

• Ezio having a chat with Leonardo
  Ezio having a chat with Leonardo
• Leonardo in his workshop
  Leonardo in his workshop
• The modified Hidden Blade concept art
  The modified Hidden Blade concept art

Trivia

thumb|left|250px|Leonardo Da Vinci - Genius Inventor

• All of Leonardo's modifications on previously existing assassin gear are designs created by Altaïr. Leonardo just follows the designs detailed in Altaïr's codex, which only he and Giovanni Auditore can decipher and translate. It is probably from these that da Vinci designed some of his other inventions. Perhaps Ezio allowed Leonardo to experiment with the Apple himself, giving birth to some of his other inventions.
• Like other main characters, Leonardo's appearance does not change throughout the 23 years he is shown in the game, from his first encounter to the decoding of the the Codex in the villa in 1499.
• Unless it is a Codex page or something important to the story, such as the design for two hidden blades, the cut-scene is the same when Ezio visits Leonardo each time (even after Leonardo moves to Venice).
• Leonardo's last name isn't actually da Vinci, he was adopted by a prostitute (courtesan), and Vinci being the town he was born in, he took on the name Leonardo da Vinci (meaning Leonardo of Vinci).
• According to the database, Leonardo was most likely homosexual, and his apprentice, a boy he nicknamed Salai ("little Satan"), was likely his lover.
• Ironically, in Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code, it is speculated that Leonardo da Vinci was the Grand Master of a secret society known as The Priory of Sion, an organization that was alleged to have Templar connections.
• Also ironically Leonardo would later become a close friend and military engineer for Cesare Borgia, son of Rodrigo Borgia.
• In AC II's first DLC, the Battle of Forlì, Leonardo was resistant to the Piece of Eden's powers, like the Assassins. When the Piece accidentally activates, Leonardo sees rudimentary designs for tanks, similar to his own.