Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 near the Tuscan town of Vinci, the illegitimate son of a local lawyer. He was apprenticed to the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence and in 1478 became an independent master. In about 1483, he moved to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza family as an engineer, sculptor, painter and architect. From 1495 to 1497 he produced a mural of 'The Last Supper' in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
Da Vinci was in Milan until the city was invaded by the French in 1499 and the Sforza family forced to flee. He may have visited Venice before returning to Florence. During his time in Florence, he painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the famous 'Mona Lisa' (1503-1506).
In 1506, da Vinci returned to Milan, remaining there until 1513. This was followed by three years based in Rome. In 1517, at the invitation of the French king Francis I, Leonardo moved to the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France, where he died on 2 May 1519.
The fame of Da Vinci's surviving paintings has meant that he has been regarded primarily as an artist, but the thousands of surviving pages of his notebooks reveal the most eclectic and brilliant of minds. He wrote and drew on subjects including geology, anatomy (which he studied in order to paint the human form more accurately), flight, gravity and optics, often flitting from subject to subject on a single page, and writing in left-handed mirror script. He 'invented' the bicycle, airplane, helicopter, and parachute some 500 years ahead of their time.
If all this work had been published in an intelligible form, da Vinci's place as a pioneering scientist would have been beyond dispute. Yet his true genius was not as a scientist or an artist, but as a combination of the two: an 'artist-engineer'. His painting was scientific, based on a deep understanding of the workings of the human body and the physics of light and shade. His science was expressed through art, and his drawings and diagrams show what he meant, and how he understood the world to work.
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Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 near the Tuscan town of Vinci, the illegitimate son of a local lawyer. He was apprenticed to the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence and in 1478 became an independent master. In about 1483, he moved to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza family as an engineer, sculptor, painter and architect. From 1495 to 1497 he produced a mural of 'The Last Supper' in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
Da Vinci was in Milan until the city was invaded by the French in 1499 and the Sforza family forced to flee. He may have visited Venice before returning to Florence. During his time in Florence, he painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the famous 'Mona Lisa' (1503-1506).
In 1506, da Vinci returned to Milan, remaining there until 1513. This was followed by three years based in Rome. In 1517, at the invitation of the French king Francis I, Leonardo moved to the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France, where he died on 2 May 1519.
The fame of Da Vinci's surviving paintings has meant that he has been regarded primarily as an artist, but the thousands of surviving pages of his notebooks reveal the most eclectic and brilliant of minds. He wrote and drew on subjects including geology, anatomy (which he studied in order to paint the human form more accurately), flight, gravity and optics, often flitting from subject to subject on a single page, and writing in left-handed mirror script. He 'invented' the bicycle, airplane, helicopter, and parachute some 500 years ahead of their time.
If all this work had been published in an intelligible form, da Vinci's place as a pioneering scientist would have been beyond dispute. Yet his true genius was not as a scientist or an artist, but as a combination of the two: an 'artist-engineer'. His painting was scientific, based on a deep understanding of the workings of the human body and the physics of light and shade. His science was expressed through art, and his drawings and diagrams show what he meant, and how he understood the world to work.
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Geoffrey Chaucer was born between 1340 and 1345, probably in London. His father was a prosperous wine merchant. We do not know any details of his early life and education.
In 1357, he was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Edward III's third son. Chaucer was captured by the French during the Brittany expedition of 1359, but was ransomed by the king. Edward III later sent him on diplomatic missions to France, Genoa and Florence. His travels exposed him to the work of authors such as Dante, Boccaccio and Froissart.
Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting in the queen's household. They are thought to have had three or four children. Philippa's sister, Katherine Swynford, later became the third wife of John of Gaunt, the king's fourth son and Chaucer's patron.
In 1374, Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the lucrative London customs. In 1386, he was elected member of parliament for Kent, and he also served as a justice of the peace. In 1389, he was made clerk of the king's works, overseeing royal building projects. He held a number of other royal posts, serving both Edward III and his successor Richard II.
Chaucer's first major work was 'The Book of the Duchess', an elegy for the first wife of his patron John of Gaunt. Other works include 'Parlement of Foules', 'The Legend of Good Women' and 'Troilus and Criseyde'. In 1387, he began his most famous work, 'The Canterbury Tales', in which a diverse group of people recount stories to pass the time on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.
Chaucer disappears from the historical record in 1400, and is thought to have died soon after. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
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Charles Babbage was born on 26 December 1791, probably in London, the son of a banker. He was often unwell as a child and was educated mainly at home. By the time he went to Cambridge University in 1810 he was very interested in mathematics.
After graduation Babbage was hired by the Royal Institution to lecture on calculus. Within two years he had been elected a member of the Royal Society and, with his Cambridge friends, was instrumental in setting up the Astronomical Society in 1820, the first to challenge the dominance of the Royal Society. From 1828 to 1839, Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.
The 1820s saw Babbage work on his 'Difference Engine', a machine which could perform mathematical calculations. A six-wheeled model was initially constructed and demonstrated to a number of audiences. He then developed plans for a bigger, better, machine - Difference Engine 2. He also worked on another invention, the more complex Analytical Engine, a revolutionary device on which his fame as a computer pioneer now largely rests. It was intended to be able to perform any arithmetical calculation using punched cards that would deliver the instructions, as well as a memory unit to store numbers and many other fundamental components of today's computers. The remarkable British mathematician Ada Lovelace completed a program for the Analytical Engine but neither it, nor Difference Engine 2, were finished in Babbage's lifetime.
Babbage also worked in the fields of philosophy and code-breaking, as well as campaigning for reform in British science. He died at his home in London on 18 October 1871.
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Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic, who greatly extended the Roman empire before seizing power and making himself dictator of Rome, paving the way for the imperial system.
Julius Caesar was born in Rome on 12 or 13 July 100 BC into the prestigious Julian clan. His family were closely connected with the Marian faction in Roman politics. Caesar himself progressed within the Roman political system, becoming in succession quaestor (69), aedile (65) and praetor (62). In 61-60 BC he served as governor of the Roman province of Spain. Back in Rome in 60, Caesar made a pact with Pompey and Crassus, who helped him to get elected as consul for 59 BC. The following year he was appointed governor of Roman Gaul where he stayed for eight years, adding the whole of modern France and Belgium to the Roman empire, and making Rome safe from the possibility of Gallic invasions. He made two expeditions to Britain, in 55 BC and 54 BC.
Caesar then returned to Italy, disregarding the authority of the senate and famously crossing the Rubicon river without disbanding his army. In the ensuing civil war Caesar defeated the republican forces. Pompey, their leader, fled to Egypt where he was assassinated. Caesar followed him and became romantically involved with the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra.
Caesar was now master of Rome and made himself consul and dictator. He used his power to carry out much-needed reform, relieving debt, enlarging the senate, building the Forum Iulium and revising the calendar. Dictatorship was always regarded a temporary position but in 44 BC, Caesar took it for life. His success and ambition alienated strongly republican senators. A group of these, led by Cassius and Brutus, assassinated Caesar on the Ides (15) of March 44 BC. This sparked the final round of civil wars that ended the Republic and brought about the elevation of Caesar's great nephew and designated heir, Octavian, as Augustus, the first emperor.
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