Leonardo davinci

Leonardo da Vinci
Was educated in his father's house receiving the usual elementary education of reading, writing and arithmetic. In 1467 he became an apprentice learning painting, sculpture andacquiring technical and mechanical skills. He was accepted into the painters' guild in Florence in 1472 but he continued to work as an apprentice until 1477. From that time he worked for himself inFlorence as a painter. Already during this time he sketched pumps, military weapons and other machines.
Between 1482 and 1499 Leonardo was in the service of the Duke of Milan. He was described in a listof the Duke's staff as a painter and engineer of the duke. As well as completing six paintings during his time in the Duke's service he also advised on architecture, fortifications and militarymatters. He was also considered as a hydraulic and mechanical engineer.
During his time in Milan, Leonardo became interested in geometry. He read Leon Battista Alberti's books on architecture and Pierodella Francesca's On Perspective in Painting. He illustrated Pacioli's Divina proportione and he continued to work with Pacioli and is reported to have neglected his painting because he became soengrossed in geometry.
Leonardo studied Euclid and Pacioli's Suma and began his own geometry research, sometimes giving mechanical solutions. He gave several methods of squaring the circle, again usingmechanical methods. He wrote a book, around this time, on the elementary theory of mechanics which appeared in Milan around 1498.
Leonardo certainly realised the possibility of constructing atelescope and in Codex Atlanticus written in 1490 he talks of
... making glasses to see the Moon enlarged.
In a later work, Codex Arundul written about 1513, he says that
... in order to observe thenature of the planets, open the roof and bring the image of a single planet onto the base of a concave mirror. The image of the planet reflected by the base will show the surface of the planet much...