It’s important to learn how Leonardo da Vinci came to be such a popularized icon of the Italian Renaissance. Emerged from 15th century Italy, the title “Renaissance man” refers to a person who has a diverse understanding in multiple fields of study. It wasn’t long after his death that the extent of his imaginative ideas become clear when his notebooks become accessible for the first time. This opened the door for scholars to assess his theories and fully recognize him as a genius. Leonardo da Vinci during his lifetime wrote around 20,000 pages of sketches and notes in notebooks about things that simply interested him, and things he was studying for work at the time.
